5 Qualities to Look for in a Comparative Rater

Years ago, an agent could mentally identify which insurance carrier most likely fit a customer’s needs. But today, with increased developments in technology, this has become nearly impossible. A once-easy task has turned into one that is time-consuming. Fortunately, a comparative rater allows you to narrow your carrier list to just two or three suited to a particular customer. Not just any rater, however, will do; you need one that truly simplifies your operations.

5 Qualities to Look for in a Comparative Rater

1. Easy Integration with Your Agency Management System

While a rater platform will house information like property appraisal data and your prospect quotes, it is your agency’s management system that contains all of your customer data. These two tools need to speak fluently with each other rather than operate as separate silos. Seamless integration enables you to track potential new business as well as remarket to existing customers. You therefore want a rater platform flexible enough to work with your current system.

2. Carriers You Work With

Before signing with any rater, you need to know which carriers they currently work with. At least three of them should be commercial insurers you typically quote. If they work with more than three of your most common providers, you’ll see dramatic gains in efficiency, allowing you to deliver customer quotes with greater ease and speed.

3. A Responsive Customer Service Team

Technology continues to advance at lightning speeds, and most online platforms respond intuitively to the user’s needs. But you may occasionally have questions about your rater platform that require a phone conversation with a support team.

You should feel free to ask if a rater platform is backed by a well-trained customer service team available to offer advice and/or troubleshoot bugs. Also, ask about their hours of availability and familiarity with insurance companies and quotes.

4. A User-Friendly Interface

The idea behind a rater platform is to help you save time in assisting potential and current clients. A user-friendly interface is required to achieve this. If you typically quote each prospect three times, you have to visit three different carrier websites and input the same information three different times. A rater platform provides the same results but requires that you enter data just once. This can equate to a 66% time savings with the right interface.

5. Underwriting Guidelines for Supported Carriers

Class codes and unique underwriting questions can cause substantial headaches for agents. To illustrate, carriers often have multiple class codes for the same business, requiring you to choose the right one. This can bottleneck the quoting process and quickly eat into your working hours. In addition, agents can’t possibly anticipate every carrier question that needs to be answered. This forces follow-up with the prospect and additional frustrating inefficiencies.
Raters can simplify the process by putting all carrier questions in one concise spot and displaying class codes so you don’t have to use lookup tables. And a great platform will also complete the carrier partners’ questionnaires to save even more time.
At R8write, we’ve designed a platform that facilitates your interactions with customers. It bridges the gap between traditional service and technology, answering growing customer demand for rapid quotes delivered with ease. Put our intuitive system to work for your agency. Contact R8write today for more information. 
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3 Things You Can Learn From an Insurance Comparative Rater

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