About
It’s not just major multinationals crossing borders for business anymore. As more U.S. middle market companies, established and startup, look to do business overseas, it’s never been faster or simpler to secure a broad range of international insurance coverages from a leading global provider. Zurich’s convenient, cost-effective, multi-year policy for U.S. companies with incidental global exposures is now available to Zurich-appointed brokers via an easy-to-use digital platform that delivers a comprehensive quote and policy in about 15 minutes.
Innovation presentation
A project team was formed in February 2021 to explore Zurich’s ability to deliver our first P&C digital insurance quoting and purchasing tool to be used externally, by brokers, and internally, by Zurich underwriting teams, in North America. At first, we explored combining a third-party solution with internal technology. Ultimately, to really upgrade the experience for our customers, we determined we needed to develop the digital platform in-house using Zurich’s information technology team and capabilities. To ensure the platform would be intuitive and user friendly at launch, we partnered with one external design firm to consult on UI/UX design.
The Zurich Exporter Solutions product offering was designed for companies with incidental international exposures such as shipping products overseas or traveling abroad. We identified this customer segment as one that would benefit from process simplification through a digital solution. The Zurich Exporter Solutions digital platform is the first of its kind in the international P&C space being used by both external and internal users and offering:
- Data entry to policy issuance in less than 15 minutes.
- Broad eligibility requirements, with over 320 industry (SIC) codes in appetite.
- 1-, 2- or 3-year policy terms with corresponding premium adjustments.
- Broad range of coverages including General Liability, Business Travel Accident, Personal Property, Excess Auto, Voluntary International Employee Compensation, and Kidnap & Ransom.
- Coverage for foreign occurrences with worldwide jurisdiction.
- 24/7 trip travel coverage via Zurich Travel Assist at no additional cost.
- Automatic pre-agreed preferred terms and conditions based on broker profile.
- Policy documents available on demand.
For risks falling outside of platform parameters, the system automatically routes to a Zurich international underwriter for review.
This application is hosted on our Azure cloud platform. Additional features include:
- Automation of manual tasks including Producer Appointment & Licensing verification, Clearance & Registration, Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC) screening, as well as documentation.
- Ability to instantly send premium due to Agency Bill system.
- Integrations with other Zurich North America underwriting and administration platforms.
- API-enabled for future integrations with ecosystem partners.
Uniqueness of the project
Throughout development, the Zurich-designed offering was tested with a broker and underwriter user council, with immediate incorporation of feedback to improve the platform. This was consistent with Agile methodologies and Human Centered Design concept that guided the process. Because we used Zurich’s in-house technology team and capabilities, we had a greater ability to customize the features to deliver on brokers’ and underwriters’ wish lists.
A broad team composed of underwriting, operations, IT and application development, actuary, billing, quality assurance, customer strategy, compliance, legal, marketing and claims worked together from the development phase to delivery to ensure this market-facing digital platform surpassed what was currently available in the market.
