Cox Insurance is seeking ten 'guinea-pig' brokers to pilot its new combined quotation and back-office system, called Brokersure.
Under the system, Cox will give brokers access to its in-house quotes engine, while its broking arm, Boncaster will take-over back-office administration.
Effectively, it means Cox will also become a player in the broker software market to challenge Policy Master, Misys, and CSC.
Retail division chief executive Neil Utley, said: "All we need to do is give the broker access to our website. The broker simply logs on and processes all their customer transactions.
"There is no re-keying necessary anywhere in the chain. It is 100% online and we give the broker their own website."
Boncaster's back office, which has been developed in-house, is then used to administer policies. Each broker can access information on their policyholders through a password-protected extranet service. Boncaster will also take responsibility for dealing with insurer-relations.
Utley claimed that brokers and intermediaries are working from "15-year-old boxes, updating their systems from five and a half inch floppy discs to change rates every month".
He added that technology for brokers has not moved on for years.
The guinea pig brokers will be given a similar quotes package to the insure.co.uk website that Cox runs in conjunction with Yahoo.
Insure.co.uk provides quotes from a panel of eight insurers, but this will be extended to around 15 for brokers. The critical issue of fees has yet to be made public. Cox claims it has yet to decide the best way of charging for the service.
Utley said: "We can scale this up to almost any number, but if brokers don't want this, then we haven't lost anything because we have already developed the architecture for ourselves."
Meanwhile, Holman Marketing Ltd has relaunched as HML Marketing and created a new brand and corporate identity. It was acquired by Cox for £6.7m last year.
