Brokers place commercial risk in paperless transaction
Acturis has successfully completed a single-key transaction, considered the "holy grail" of commercial insurance technology.
Last month, AXA commercial distribution director Mark Cliff promised that such a development would occur within a month.
He said AXA had done substantial work with Acturis and Sirius to make single-key products viable.
This week Acturis announced that two brokers using the Acturis platform sent a commercial risk straight into AXA's back-office system through AXA's businessrisk.com platform.
An underwriter then assessed the risk and sent back a quote and draft policy, which the broker was able to issue instantly.
The risk information was keyed into the Acturis system once and the subsequent broking and processing of the risk were completely automated.
Acturis business development director Nick Frei said the event, the result of two years' work, was a first for the commercial lines market.
"No paper was involved in the entire process," he said.
"The quote and acceptance took one day, compared to an average industry turnaround of 164 days, and the probability of any errors or misunderstandings was close to zero."
He said AXA and Acturis had started integrating the single-key process into AXA's small business commercial combined product Business Plan Plus.
Smart & Cook and Bland Bankart were the brokers involved.
Lorraine Phillips of Smart & Cook said the broker would use the system to go into new markets in which it had not previously been cost-efficient to operate.
"This is one-touch broking at its best and will allow us to become far more efficient and profitable in our chosen business segments," she said.
