RLI has extended electronic interfaces to cut the time it takes to produce a policy for an end customer. Its aggressive use of technology to make life simpler for agents has brought it increased business while reducing the carrier’s internal costs.

A key innovation at RLI is its eSubmissions underwriting solution, created to provide a competitive edge in ease of conducting business. Available for several lines of business including general liability, commercial umbrella policy, marine, and directors & officers coverage, eSubmissions captures information from an agent or broker and directs it to an underwriter within the firm.

For accepted risks, the underwriter uses a browser in eSubmissions to generate a premium quote and specify terms accurately and quickly. The carrier rolled out eSubmissions at the rate of one new product every six months and now has about 175 internal users who are conducting an average of 9,500 transactions per month using the system.

RLI has won a reputation as the fastest and most responsive specialty insurer in the market. It gets policy forms with quotes and binders into the hands of its wholesale brokers significantly more quickly than its competitors, and its policies are also more complete and accurate than other insurers. RLI has a similar program for agents who need more narrow and specific coverages. It automates several steps and integrates manual workflow to produce underwriting decisions that are in most cases made without human intervention. RLI sets tight timeframes for responding. Within 60 minutes an underwriter makes an accept/reject/need more information decision, and generates a quote using RLI’s Duck Creek rating engine. The quote and binder are then sent to the agent within 30 seconds.

For its surety business – essentially performance bonds – RLI has developed a front end called RLink. With more than 1,000 types of bonds, some with a premium as low as $50, the surety business can be a challenging business to run profitably, but it is a way for agents to provide a full range of service to their customers and build a loyal customer base.

Written in .NET, RLink offers templates covering the terms and conditions of the bond. An agent fills in the fields and submits it to the company where an underwriter reviews it.

“If it is accepted,” said Light, “in less than two minutes an automated process takes the bond through rating, policy issue, and policy coding.”