David Martin, director SME and corporate partnerships at Allianz looks at solutions to the SME underinsurance problem

David Martin, Allianz

Last year, the FCA’s Thematic Review rightly focused on the problem of underinsurance in the UK SME Market, which has troubled our industry and, more importantly, our customers for far too long.

The findings exposed that up to 40 per cent of the SME market was underinsured. As an industry, we can’t just sit back and let our customers suffer.

Since Allianz decided to tackle this problem head-on and remove the traditional market solution of Average, the response, from brokers, has been overwhelmingly positive.

Allianz has also included measures that aim to help brokers and customers get the right level of cover and the peace of mind they need. Investment in systems and processes provides sophisticated data enrichment, allowing us to understand our customers and their assets in greater detail than ever before.

We’re concentrating on ensuring we achieve good customer outcomes in an open and transparent way. This is all about the ‘fair presentation of risk’. Our position is that if you fill in the details on our electronic trading system QuoteSME in good faith, we will honour your claim in the same spirit.

‘We’re very proud of our achievements and you can be sure continual improvement, innovation, and change will be at the very core of our offerings’

This way, the customer can make an informed decision about the level of rebuilding cover (for example) that’s right for them – and go in with their eyes open.

Allianz

To support this new approach, we’ve also been working hard on how we communicate with our brokers, giving brokers the choice of how they work with us.

Whether it’s live chat, third-party software or online, we’re meeting the broker on their terms. We use

retina tracking to make the on-screen journey as easy as possible.

We use caller ID so the broker is routed to the right team with all of the data immediately at their fingertips. We’re on the same screen as the broker, so we see what they see.

We listen when brokers ask for new products and we’ve done that this year with professional indemnity and marine cover. Providing the cover that people actually want proves that we’re a responsive and adaptable carrier.

We’re very proud of our achievements and you can be sure continual improvement, innovation, and change will be at the very core of our offerings.