Most insurers have accepted the “new reality” of contestable platforms being used by brokers to compare policy features and costs, but there are fears that it could drive clients toward the cheapest price.

OAMPS CEO Keith McIvor told an ANZIIF Executive Breakfast seminar in Melbourne last week that new technologies like contestable platforms should be regarded by brokers as an enabler.

“None of the detail is solved by computer systems,” he said. “But if [brokers] don’t take control, the client will do it for themselves.”

Mr McIvor says commercial insurance-buyers are already finding their own way to direct insurance websites, “and they don’t know what they want or need”.

CGU GM Retail Mark Searles says contestable platforms “are just an electronic panel, and the ability to sell added-value to clients is increasingly important”.

“Value-added features exist outside the issue of pure price, and they have to be transmitted to the client by the broker,” he said.

“But insurers who take a King Canute type of attitude and try to hold back the tide of contestable platforms will disappear.”

Suncorp CEO Commercial Insurance Anthony Day told the seminar most insurers are working with broker organisations to interface with new online platforms, although some major insurers are acting more slowly than others. Suncorp “has been a late player in the market, so our technology is more flexible” in adapting to different systems.

Mr Day says brokers should remember the new broker systems and contestable platforms are intended to make them more efficient.

“This is a transaction engine, that’s all, and it gives them more time to spend with their clients.”