TORONTO, Sept. 17 — Chubb
Insurance Company of Canada has launched Innovator for Software, the organization’s first
product to be totally quoted, underwritten and issued on the web.
Innovator for Software is a commercial insurance package
targeting emerging software companies. The package provides insurance protection for the
fledgling organization’s office and computer property, R&D property, general
liability, and employee dishonesty. Optional Errors or Omissions insurance is also available.
The product, to be officially launched in mid September in
Ontario with pilot broker Hunter Keilty Muntz & Beatty was carefully chosen to appeal
to the type of customer who is most willing to buy into the idea of purchasing insurance
via the Internet. Following the initial pilot phase, Innovator for Software will be
expanded to other technology focused brokers across the country.
Innovator for Software is the first product to be launched
under Chubb’s new Innovator insurance web platform. The new platform offers Chubb brokers
a completely automated quoting, policy application, billing, and issuance process. Chubb’s
clients and brokers will be able to obtain a quote and find out if a customer qualifies
for a particular product in less than five minutes. If they meet the underwriting guidelines of
the product, they can then have the policy in the customer’s hands in less than an hour.
The Innovator process begins by having the customer answer
a small number of multiple-choice questions on the public Web site. This process takes
less than five minutes and culminates in the customer finding out if they qualify for the
product. If they do, the system provides them with a rough idea of what they would expect
to pay for an Innovator policy. If the customer wants to pursue purchasing the product,
their information is immediately forwarded to a Chubb Broker who advises them on their
insurance needs and helps them complete the application. Once completed, the broker
obtains a credit card number from the customer, enters it into the Innovator system and the policy
is immediately bound with customized policy documents delivered to the customer within minutes.
Diane Baxter, Chubb’s VP of Operations describes Innovator
as a completely new approach to commercial insurance. “Our objective from the outset
was to examine how we could effectively use technology to improve our service to our
brokers and customers, while maintaining our underwriting position and reducing our
internal expenses. We fought the impulse to just automate our existing workflows, and
threw away a lot of the preconceived notions that we all held about commercial insurance underwriting.”
Part of this development process included talking to
prospective customers and asking them how they would like to buy insurance. “In many
cases it is the insurance industry that expects our business to operate a certain way, not
the customer,” stated Baxter. “With Innovator, we had the opportunity to start
from scratch and develop a product and process that kept the needs of the customer and the
broker front and center.”
A team that included Chubb employees, Slingshot
Communications and KPMG, developed both the Innovator platform and the Innovator for
Software e-commerce solution. Baxter explains the move. “In order to achieve the best
results possible and speed-up our time to market, we chose to add Slingshot to develop all
the content and add a customer-focused marketing edge. KPMG provided the project
management and technical development team who, along with Chubb’s IT department, designed
the site architecture and implemented the Innovator solution.”
Two additional products, Innovator for Safety’NET, which
will protect companies against the perils associated with their online presence, and
Innovator for Boiler Risks will be introduced over the next few months.
For further information: on Innovator for Software, please visit our website at
http://innovator.chubbinsurance.ca
or contact Giovanni Damiano at (416) 359-3236 or by e-mail at
[email protected]. For information on the Innovator
e-commerce platform, please contact Diane Baxter at (416) 359-3237 or by email at
[email protected].
