Background

Transforming broker engagement

Jumar partnered with The Shipowners' Club to transform broker engagement through the development of a bespoke online portal enabling brokers to have access to crucial business information such as policy documents, claims loss ratios and broker statements.

The client

The Shipowners’ Club is a mutual insurance association that specialises in offering insurance solutions and services for the smaller and specialist vessel sector.  As a mutual insurer, the club is owned and governed by its members that share risk and operate on a non-profit-making basis. The Club’s board of directors is drawn from the membership.

Jumar has worked in partnership with the Club for over ten years, completing multiple projects during this time including Utom - a brand-new underwriting system that enables the Underwriting team at Shipowners to efficiently service the needs of their brokers through the policy life-cycle. In addition, since 2022, Jumar has provided a new IT support function as part of a five-year contract.  

The challenge

Currently, a large proportion of the broker engagement is driven by human interaction, a business model that has served the Club well. However, these sometimes long processes, other time-consuming activities, and the changing landscape as regards the Club’s competitors looking at future technological solutions, has driven the Club to start to look at automation and innovation to increase efficiency. This is all done with the backdrop of not losing the Club’s personal touch.
It is with this in mind that Shipowners is striving to strengthen its digital channels to ensure that it remains ahead of its peers by increasing efficiency through: 

  • People – helping its people to better serve its members by providing improved services for brokers with a 24/7 service and worldwide reach;
  • Process – ensuring that consistent, optimised processes support a better service and better decision-making;
  • Technology – to offer new and improved products and services wherever and however its brokers and members need them.

The solution

For the past two years, Jumar has been working as a strategic partner to build a bespoke online portal to enable brokers to have access to crucial business information such as policy documents, claims loss ratios and broker statements. In addition, the Club wanted to provide its valued stakeholders with the capability to bind quotations issued by Underwriters onto the portal. The Delegated Underwriting Authority (DUA) Portal enables cover holders to quote and bind new business quotes and upload bordereaux directly via the platform.

In the process of completing this piece of work, Jumar utilised service lines including Architecture, Agile Delivery, Development, Testing, DevOps, Project Management and UCD. Throughout this time, the primary drivers for Shipowners have been member and broker retention and driving operational efficiencies. Jumar focused on delivering a portal based on a self-explanatory and consistent user experience that optimises and integrates with the back-office applications to present accurate and real-time information.

As of February 2024, Shipowners has received positive feedback about the new portal from the brokers it works with. Following a successful pilot phase, in excess of 20 pilot brokers are now binding policy renewals directly through the portal. More than 470 policies have been bound to date with this number set to increase significantly now the Club has extended permissions to over 75 brokers in total.

The benefits

  • Brokers can access policy information 24/7
  • Improved debt management with immediate statements and links to the knowledge area
  • Streamlined handling of DUA business
  • Binding of renewals and renewing trading certificates, saving Underwriters on average 15 minutes per renewal by cutting out the need to process the renewal and issue the documents by email
  • Improved interactions between member and broker, providing a better and quicker experience overall

Shipowners is now considering future applications that provide a comprehensive range of services to support other lines of its business.

It has been great working in partnership with Jumar over the past two years. Their dedication and expertise have enabled us to successfully provide a bespoke market-leading portal that revolutionises how our brokers access crucial business information. This milestone achievement has greatly enhanced our operations, allowing us to serve our clients with increased efficiency and effectiveness. The team’s attention to detail and proactive approach resulted in a solution that exceeded our expectations.

David Rogerson

Operations & Change Manager, Shipowners