Meeting the risk management needs of today’s small businesses requires as much sophistication and sophistication as carriers tend to offer to larger businesses.
Insurance agencies and small businesses alike are facing a period of communication transition.
Long gone are the days of picking up a phone or popping something in the mail to keep business going. Today’s world of text and email is all about brevity and efficiency.
In the small business insurance space, the winners will be those who “don’t just digitize existing services, but who use digital engagement to deliver value in new ways,” he said. Jeff Duncan, head of commercial lines, property responsibility at AmTrust Financial Services.
“More and more customers expect to not only communicate with their insurers digitally, but that digital channels can provide more value to them than calling for an auto ID card or using an app to report on a claim,” Duncan said.
And a similar dynamic is required in the relationship between carriers and agencies. Today’s brokers and agents need to quickly determine which carriers can provide the robust coverage their small business customers need.
From launching API integrations for seamless quoting and binding interactions with agencies to offering a robust cyber insurance solution for small businesses, AmTrust Financial Services has invested in resource to help small businesses anticipate threats and develop their risk management strategies.
“The future is not in reactive protection,” Duncan said.
There are six ways that small business insurers can ensure that they avoid neglecting the needs of today’s small businesses.
Providing Quick Policy Service Solutions
Jeffrey Duncan, commercial line head, property liability, AmTrust Financial Services
Meeting small business insurance needs begins with understanding the needs of agents and brokers.
There is a common business model in the insurance industry among major carriers that relies on agents using carrier-operated service centers to manage their renewal book, Duncan explained.
“One of our assumptions is that service centers are often band-aids for bad technology, especially at a time when some carriers are pursuing direct-to-consumer models,” he said. he. “Agents are increasingly concerned about the service center model, and who they allow to manage their clients, and how they allow that management to happen.”
Seeing this trend, AmTrust is taking a proactive approach to policy servicing.
Through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) and microservices, AmTrust focuses on providing a low-touch and cost-effective mechanism for agents to create their own customer experience for their clients. client.
This allows agents to fully engage with AmTrust on their terms rather than being forced into a customer experience and process built by a carrier, Duncan said. “That said, we know some agencies value the service center model, and we’re exploring ways to meet that need,” he added.
Anticipating Small Business Needs
For Duncan, valuing customers starts with looking at how clients interact with a company, and then considering, “What’s the need behind that request?”
“We are investing in both technology and product innovation to not only meet the needs of small businesses today, but to anticipate and anticipate the changing needs of the future,” he said.
As a leading provider of workers’ compensation insurance, AmTrust aims to expand its known spectrum as a provider of comprehensive insurance solutions for small businesses – and a holistic way, Duncan said.
A critical part of knowing what small businesses need is to understand the issues they face. Regulatory risks in the field of workplace safety and cybersecurity are at the forefront of Duncan’s mind.
“The last two and a half years of experience with COVID-19, we’ve seen businesses caught between sometimes conflicting state and federal rules regarding, for example, vaccination and mask requirements.”
“Small businesses are trying to run a business, and they don’t have a lot of time or resources dedicated to managing a very volatile regulatory environment.”
“Another example is cybersecurity,” he continued. “As states and the federal government begin to impose obligations on businesses regarding how they hold customer data, or how secure their websites and other portals are, it’s just not good business. The have a more secure portal or have confidence in your data.continuation capabilities, but now there is regulatory risk, including potential financial fines around failure to do so.
Cyber Hygiene Care
AmTrust offers cyber insurance for major events, but sometimes it comes down to helping insureds prioritize their cybersecurity hygiene.
“Where I think the future lies is not only reactive protection, but the use of technology to anticipate areas of risk in small businesses or in agencies, digital assets or IT infrastructure, so that before it happens the phishing attack, you know the ways. that it’s likely to happen.”
“Long before a denial-of-service attack occurs, you know the weaknesses in your architecture and best start addressing them.”
One of the ways AmTrust has enhanced its product suite beyond the scope of insurance is to better enable small businesses to evaluate their websites and their systems, and to proactively protect their self
“Insurance, by nature, is a reactive product, but it doesn’t have to be,” Duncan said. “Just as we participate in the loss of control for workers’ compensation and help small businesses understand how to better protect their employees so they can avoid claims in the first place, we are looking for ways to do something similar from a cyber risk perspective.”
Prioritizing Reputational Risk
Managing their online reputation is also top of mind for many small business operators. With vocal customers taking to the web to share in their experiences with products and services of all types, businesses today face significant reputational risk, Duncan pointed out.
“Many small businesses as well as large agencies are not alone [hope] for quality engagement with review sites, but actively seeking to cultivate the image they want through review sites,” he said.
“That means engaging with them as well. When someone has a bad experience with your business, and that inevitably happens to the best businesses, how you react to it … is important, if how you react to it on the review site can be a powerful brand booster, or on the contrary. , it can harm your brand.”
Develop a Better Employee Experience
Labor shortages, wage growth and wage inflation have many small businesses taking a hard look at the employee experience they provide. Organizations of all sizes are looking to develop opportunities for individual connection and develop a quality experience for employees.
“In an environment of massive labor shortages leading to wage growth, wage inflation, and a truly competitive labor market,” Duncan said, “the best tag- he thinks not only about wages alone – although that is an important part – but about the overall employee experience.
“While large organizations have the resources to invest heavily in the employee experience, small businesses may not have the same level of resources, but they have an individual connection with their employees,” he said.
AmTrust has positioned itself to provide small businesses with the insight to develop improved employee experiences while developing quality customer experiences.
“One way to keep your employees for the long term, one way to attract them and keep them, is to make your workplace more attractive to be involved in,” says Duncan. Ultimately, it translates into customer experiences.
Provide Service within Reach
As seamless as digital engagement with small business insurance agencies can be, times will arise when a situation is specific enough for a phone call. And carriers working with small businesses need to get someone on the phone to help an agency clear roadblocks to cover their clients.
“Because we are very focused on the small business area, and because we are a relatively young and flat company, the agents who do business with us have a high level of access to all levels of the organization ,” said Duncan.
“There are a lot of small agencies that have someone go out and hang a shingle on the front of the store and try to make their way in the world,” he said. “We are almost 25 years old ourselves and we can empathize with that entrepreneurial spirit.” &
