Pacific Specialty Teams with IBA West

Pacific Specialty Insurance Company (PSIC) has taken their long-standing partnership with IBA West to the next level. PSIC and IBA West have teamed up to offer agents easy access to PSIC’s property line, which will now be offered via the Internet, through IBA West’s Web site.

“Pacific Specialty has had a partnership with IBA West for several years where selected products were made available to IBA West agents using the traditional paper submission process,” said Don McAllister, vice president of Information Services at PSIC. “With the increased usage of the Internet both PSIC and IBA West recognized that this new distribution channel opened many new possibilities—applications can be downloaded immediately from the web, policies can be quoted, bound and issued in minutes rather than days. Like PSIC, IBA West is continually fine-tuning their Web site to bring as many services as possible to their member agents. It just makes sense at this point in time for each of us to direct as much energy as we can to the Internet.”

According to Clark Payan, president of IBA West Service Corporation, “A number of our members look to us for products to make available to clients because they don’t have other agency contracts and other product lines.” The partnership was created to bring attention to the availability of PSIC’s property line, which includes homeowners coverage. By allowing agents to access the policy online, it eases the underwriting process and appeases consumers who find the insurance process unsettling.

“We’re trying to develop programs that fill niches for our members,” said Payan. “Standard companies are out there providing standard lines of insurance, [and] we’re trying to kind of pick up the gaps that the standard companies may have pulled back from. For instance, if homeowners is tightening up, then we’re trying to find an alternative that our members can write. Good insurance agents and brokers like to sell, so they want to have something to sell. When they don’t…, that becomes a problem. We’re just trying to help them.”

“The advantage for the agent is that they can buy insurance online immediately,” said McAllister. “This is going to allow an IBA West agent to log onto the IBA West Web site, and through that Web site, they will be able to link over to our Web site to actually quote and bind and issue policies if they so choose.”

The procedure allows agents to use the Web site as an online quoting engine—after obtaining a quote, and with the client’s approval, the agent could print the application, have the client complete it, and then attach a check for payment and send to PSIC. If the client is willing to pay by credit card, they could purchase the insurance right then and there, leaving with a printout of the declarations page in their hand.

“If it was auto or motorcycle policy, it would also have insurance ID Cards immediately to walk out with,” said McAllister.

Another advantage to agents is account sweeping—”If the agent is willing or would like to have a sweep of their accounts using an electronic funds transfer, that can also be accommodated,” added McAllister. “The agent would have to provide us with forms authorizing us to do so with the appropriate accounting information, and then when the insured is in the office, the insured would simply hand the agent a check for the down payment or the full payment, and we would then go and sweep that agents trust account that night.”

Payan explained the reason for IBA West’s continuing development in trying to ease the underwriting process for agents. “IBA West, as a trade association for agents and brokers in California, provides a lot of services to our members, and a number of those services are products that we actually put together for our members to have access to… So, when we put together a program what we’re trying to do is make something available to our members that they might not have available to them otherwise… We offer products that our members can access that they can buy for themselves, their own insurance, as well as then that they can sell to their clients.”

Pacific Specialty, rated “A” by A.M. Best, offers the following personal lines property coverage:

• HO-3 (Homeowners, both standard & preferred)
• DP-1 & DP-3 (Dwelling-fire)
• HO-4 (Contents Only-Renters)
• HO-6 (Condominium/Townhouse)
• Mobile Homeowners

All programs are available in California; HO-3, HO-4, and HO-6 are available in Georgia. “[The programs] all have a specific set of underwriting criteria,” explained Bill Guthrie, assistant vice president of Product Development at PSIC. In regards to mold coverage, Guthrie said, “We currently do exclude mold. Our rates and programs and the rate structure and pricing were never developed with mold in mind.” He added that PSIC is carefully monitoring the status of mold-related legislation, as well as the actions of their competitors. “At this time, all of our programs do exclude mold.”

IBA West is currently developing a marketing campaign that will kick off sometime in the near future to promote their new joint venture with PSIC.

“The Pacific Specialty program is pretty indicative of what we’re trying to do,” added Payan. “[The] homeowners market appears to [have] tightened up in California because some of the mold issues and some other things, so we’re hoping that our members recognize this program as a good alternative for them to provide coverage for their clients that they may not be able to get somewhere else. It really gives a broader availability of markets to our members.”

Guthrie added, “Our independent agents are our bread and butter. So any distribution channel that can accommodate them, and assist them, we will provide it to them. So whether or not they want to call on the phone, whether or not they want to use desktop rating software, in this instance, whether or not they want to do it all on the Internet. We try to accommodate our entire production force and provide every possible distribution channel for them.”