Berkley Insurance Australia has introduced an online portal to speed and simplify quoting and binding for IT liability and plans to add further products in coming months as brokers look for efficiency improvements from technology.

“We want our brokers to have the option to transact with us online, when it suits them, and be able to quote and bind a policy in just a few minutes,” CEO Tony Wheatley says.

Berkley says bindIT allows brokers to obtain a tentative quick quote which they can advise clients of in person or on the phone. If they wish to proceed, the full process of getting a quote, downloading documents and binding the policy takes less than a few minutes.

“Now more than ever insurance brokers need to provide a fast and seamless service for clients but they are often left frustrated by the poor response times and slow referrals from insurers,” Mr Wheatley says.

“We know from research that the quicker a broker can get back to their clients the more chance they have got of actually binding and retaining that client on renewal.”

The portal has a secure link that gives an option for clients to enter their details and send to the broker for review and submission, minimising the risk of error and requiring no double entry.

Berkley says bindIT is a response to outdated manual approaches that may see brokers spending valuable time “rummaging through towering piles of old policy documents”.

Mr Wheatley says a management liability product will be the next to be provided through the portal.

“We’ve started with IT liability insurance, and we’re going to be adding more and more of our products to bindIT in the coming months,” he said.

Berkley says the portal doesn’t replace customary processes but provides brokers with a more modern and convenient alternative.