Zurich North America Unveils ‘Virtual Consulting’ Web-Based Service

Zurich North America (www.zurichna.com) announced the launch of a new web-based service that provides small business insurance agents and their customers with industry-specific risk engineering support.

Called Virtual Consulting, the system helps small businesses identify causes of loss and recommends possible control strategies that can be implemented by business managers to reduce these exposures.

Available free of charge through Zurich’s eZSB Web site for small business agents, the Virtual Consulting service generates an industry-specific loss prevention report consisting of exposure information, major causes of loss and strategies to prevent losses. The report is created in Adobe (pdf format), allowing agents to easily view, save, print or e-mail the document to customers.

“Armed with Virtual Consulting, our small business customers can make real strides in reducing risks in areas like employee and customer safety, property protection and auto liability,” said Ray Thomas, CEO of Zurich Small Business at Zurich North America. “So many small companies don’t have access to risk engineering services of any kind, even though they could substantially benefit from them. Virtual Consulting changes that for our agents and their customers.”

In developing the Virtual Consulting platform, Zurich’s Risk Engineering group, working with Zurich North America Small Business, analyzed statistically valid loss data to determine loss trends by industry group. Industry specialists at Zurich developed risk control tools and management solutions based on those trends.

The platform allow users to obtain a customized report of exposures and corresponding controls by location; access a database of risk engineering tools related to each exposure; and reach customer service to learn more about specific risks and how to access other risk-related information.