Friends,

I would love to get your opinion on my new startup Risk Matrix. The idea is pretty simple: the average insurance agent has no time or resources to know about all programs, wholesalers, mgas, carrier appetites etc that exist in the marketplace. There are thousands of carriers. So an average agent misses out on a lot of opportunities to work with a wholesaler because agent doesn’t know that wholesaler writes particular piece of business. On the other side, wholesalers and direct carriers spend A LOT of time declining business or advising agents that they don’t have the market for the piece of business they are trying to place. The whole system has to be more efficient. So I came up with the idea to create a matrix, kind of like periodic system in chemistry. Let’s say the agent needs to place an apartment building. He keys in several criteria’s (age of the building, construction type, occupancy) and based on that he gets that Nationwide would decline the risk, so would Starr Indemnity, but Colony through Hull & Co would. If agent is already working with Hull&Co, Hull&Co will be one of the first companies in the search queue. At that time, the agent will have the option to actually send the submission to the wholesaler through the platform and he will do so by completing risk specific questionnaires and accords. He will also have a tool to communicate with the underwriting team. Then, wholesaler would upload the quote to the platform and if the agent likes it he will have the opportunity to bind it through the system. At the end the idea is to help agents to know the marketplace and to help wholesalers to get ONLY the business the like to write.

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Thank you Steven for your reply. You got it exactly right, it's an interactive programbusiness.com, improved with features. I will probably start with GL, WC and PL and with the state of CA. I understand it's dynamic, so we will need to have some staff to keep things up to date, but i think at the ned everyone is going to win.

Felix,
We developed something similar for surety bonds. Our development and implementation is in its 15th month. I applaud you for taking on a large project. You may find that you can pull together several companies that have developed niche matrix. And then you are putting all of those companies under one umbrella. If you are interested in adding surety bonds to your mix, let me know. www.ezsuretybonds.com We have in-house underwriting and a stable of 15 surety markets, and we have automated the issuance of many bonds. We are licensed in all 50 states, but we would really like to strengthen our West Coast presence. Best Regards, Lamon Warnock, President Here's a summary video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaP-jGao4js

Great concept and would be very useful, as you accurately described several delimmas in the current marketplace. I work at Unisource Program Administrators and we are a WC Broker writing monoline WC nationwide and this, as it is described seems to fill a real need. I would be interested in seeing this work, more efficiency is needed. I, like Steven wonder how the dynamic marketplace can be continually updated but would be interested in learning more as your project evolves. Happy to answer any question you might have for brokerage side, I previously owned an agency, so some perspective there, as well. So feel free to contact and good luck with your project!

Thank you Lamon, great site! Thank you Lana for the words of encouragement. I am happy to see that the needs I see in a marketplace resonate with other insurance professionals. I hope to have the beta version out in a few months to test.

Felix, obviously its a worth endeavor. It sounds like you have already decided to focus on a small part, which I believe is the best way to start off.
The permutations given all of the markets and all of the states amid rather constant change is crazy.

Currently I mostly use mynewmarkets.com which is far from perfect. Never heard of programbusiness.com , but I will try it out.