Groupama is extending the pilot of its imarket-compatible extranet with the aim of rolling it out in November.
Groupama e-commerce manager (bespoke operations) Ken Hutchinson said the company would extend its pilot sales of tradesmen policies through the extranet, which provides instant quotes.
The pilot will be expanded from two brokers to ten over the next two weeks, and to 50 brokers by the end of October.
The extranet will then be rolled out across the market to coincide with the launch of imarket, currently scheduled for November.
"We wanted to take it cautiously," Hutchinson said. "You only get one shot at this. If brokers don't like it they won't come back and use it."
He said feedback from the pilot brokers had been "very good" so far, with ease of use and speed of conversion from quote to policy attracting particular praise.
Hutchinson said shop products would be added to the extranet in mid-October, and office products would go online by the end of the year.
But products for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were "just the start". There are plans to scale up the extranet to include property owners, fleet and healthcare products in the future.
The extranet would work for "any product that we can automate in our back office," Hutchinson said.
