New MGA aims to take slice of commercial property market

Former AXA and One Commercial boss Mike Keating has today launched a new venture to enter the volatile MGA market - Qlaims Insurance.

With more than 30 years of industry experience, Keating is leading product development at Qlaims Insurance; upon launching, the MGA has announced a new claims preparation and negotiation service for brokers, targeting small to medium sized enterprises’ (SMEs) commercial property claims of more than £5,000.

The new product will use live video streaming, provided through sister organisation QlaimsTech, to submit information back to Qlaims Insurance’s appointed loss adjuster; this could include, for example, details on the extent of damage for flooding or water damage related claims.

Brokers and end customers are also able to access a 24/7 online portal, QlaimsTrak, where they can view the current progress of their claim in real-time.

Keating, chief development officer at Qlaims Insurance, explained: “We would hope that the launch today will be a call to arms.

“We’ve got a combination here of an insurance product fused with state-of-the-art technology. This ticks all the boxes of what customers now require; they’re becoming far more demanding in terms of how they want their claims handled.

“An insurer can authorise payments straight away in order to mitigate the damage and the claim, so it’s that real-time capability and then having a claims portal where you can check on the progress of the claim.

“This should reduce cycle times, speed up payments and close claims quicker.”

Tech-driven approach

Qlaims Insurance’s loss recovery policies, which are its core product, will initially be available to brokers via software as a service provider Acturis, for SMEs with insurance programmes of up to £250,000.

Keating told Insurance Times that he plans to liaise with other insurance-focused software houses during the course of 2020, to offer greater accessibility to brokers.

“Part of our strategy is to put it on to the other software houses during 2020, so that the product is available for brokers irrespective of what their prevailing software is in their organisation,” he added.

Qlaims Insurance will also look at how the product can be personalised over the course of the next year, said Keating.

Differentiating services

Although the new product is aimed at SMEs, Keating explained that larger organisations can still take advantage of QlaimsTech’s technology on a standalone basis.

Furthermore, the business is investigating embedding the service into standard commercial property insurance policy wording for brokers.

“What we’re doing is focusing on giving the SME, via their broker, the opportunity for them to carry on and get their business back up to where it needs to be and for us to take that pain away from that claim on their behalf,” Keating said.

“The SME market is extremely competitive and brokers are always searching for a point of differentiation in their proposition; this gives them a real point of differentiation in terms of the insurance product but fused with the leading state-of-the-art technology.”

Capacity for Qlaims Insurance is provided by HSB Engineering Insurance, part of the Munich Re Group.

QlaimsTech, which works with loss adjustors, insurers, MGAs and firms in the property recovery market, develops or sources insurtech applications, including services such as live video streaming, a UK-wide network of drone pilots and online cloud-based claims tracking.