Postbox: SME online has been viable for years
I have to say my firm read with interest your comments about 'SME' online being commercially viable.
Although we have kept a low profile, we can safely say that well before the Iprisms and Coverzones of this world, plus the dozens of insurance systems now being offered to the poor beleaguered broker, we have been offering, very successfully, multi-quote online and buy facilities to SMEs — both direct to the public and via brokers. We have been doing this for free for years.
If we do say so ourselves, we have probably the easiest and quickest question sets anywhere in the UK and Europe and, guess what, we have always been in profit.
Given the millions poured into SME online quote-and-buy systems to date, they will remain very clumsy, lengthy and time consuming to complete. In our opinion, this is due to the lack of experience of mixing technology with traditional insurance methods and intelligent underwriting for this type of distribution channel.
Once this is cracked, the future for SME online is very bright indeed.
Certainly, if you know of any other private equity companies that would like to invest £7.5m as a minor shareholder into PIA — based on a company that has always made a profit doing SME multi-quotes online — we would be delighted to hear from them.
Graham Hearsey
Director, Professional Insurance Agents
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