How Better Policy Visibility Supports Commercial Auto Quoting and Underwriting

Are Crucial Policy Details Missing at Point of Quote?

When writing new business, commercial auto insurers are frequently required to make rapid quoting and underwriting decisions based on self-reported prior insurance information from applicants or agents.

A declarations page may seem like a good starting point for verifying information such as drivers, vehicles, policy limits and deductibles. But obtaining these documents takes time and businesses often grow faster than static documents can reflect. 

The problem is not only a lack of critical data elements. It’s also a lack of visibility into prior policies.

When self-reported information is incomplete or inaccurate, the impact can be immediate: slower quotes, more underwriting follow-up and business that isn’t priced to reflect its true exposure.

To help enable more confident risk determination and more accurate pricing, commercial insurance carriers need access to information about their existing coverages as well as a more complete history of prior-policy information all provided instantly at the point of quote.

Confirm, Don’t Assume 

A declarations page reflects a previous commercial auto policy as it was written. A business may have added drivers or vehicles mid-term, experienced a lapse in coverage or undergone other changes that could impact its risk profile.  

Assuming self-reported information is an accurate representation of how a business operates today can leave meaningful risk signals undiscovered. Manually collecting and validating information can lead to costly delays in an increasingly competitive market.

LexisNexis® Commercial Auto Data Prefill helps to simplify quoting and underwriting by pre-populating the latest driver, vehicle and policy information and allowing applicants to then verify— helping to reduce errors, improve operational efficiencies and enhance the customer experience, by providing commercial carriers with a more holistic understanding of risk without sacrificing the time to bind.

But building a more complete commercial risk profile is only the first step. Once underwriters have a current view of the business, they still need to verify the policy history behind it.

It can take carriers an average of three days to complete a commercial auto quote.¹

See Beyond Your Book

Every commercial insurance carrier has valuable data about the risks they insure. But when information remains siloed within individual books of business, visibility into prior policy history is inherently limited. To verify prior-policy details before a policy is bound, underwriters need access to collective industry insights that extend beyond what any single carrier can observe on its own.

LexisNexis® Current Carrier® Commercial is a contributory solution that brings together prior commercial auto policy details from participating carriers into a single, standardized source for policy and coverage verification. Carriers that contribute their commercial auto policy history details to Current Carrier Commercial can tap into collective industry insights delivered directly into quoting and underwriting workflows.

This single source of actionable intelligence helps participating carriers validate what matters upfront: prior carrier information, term dates, coverage limits, number of drivers, vehicles and lapses in coverage. 

With a more complete picture of prior coverage, commercial carriers can more easily provide like-for-like competitive quotes by automatically populating existing policy details — helping them better align rates to risk while enhancing efficiency and profitability. 

Historical policy data can help drive up to a 33% increase in drivers found and up to a 22% increase in vehicles found.^2*

^{*Based on results observed through similar LexisNexis solutions within the personal auto market.}

Enabling a True 50-State Prefill Solution

Current Carrier Commercial serves as an additional data source within Commercial Auto Data Prefill, extending vehicle discovery capabilities through commercial auto policy history data contributed by participating carriers.

Together, Commercial Auto Data Prefill and Current Carrier Commercial can help commercial insurance carriers move from collecting information to confirming it, surfacing the drivers, vehicles and prior-policy insights needed to support more confident quoting and underwriting decisions.

Sources
¹LexisNexis® Risk Solutions Commercial Auto Market Research, 2023
² LexisNexis® Risk Solutions Commercial Auto Market Research, 2023