Here in the UK, if you include all types of business from sole traders all the way up to multi-national corporations, there are over 1.5m active trading ventures. So, when asking the question “how quick can I get a business insurance quote?”, you need to think about the type of business first of all. If we consider businesses that have a turnover of less than £2,000,000, which account for approximately 90%, then you should be able to get a quote within one working day, at the very latest.
Most will be able to get a quote within a couple of hours. This morning, as an example, we had a phone call at 08.15 UK time from a customer looking for a new fish and chip shop insurance quote. They have spent the last three weeks getting a new shop ready and they are looking to start trading later today. Sensibly, they are taking the approach of starting on a Monday, which will hopefully be the least busy day of the week, building up to the busy Friday and Saturday.
Writing this blog, at 09.10, we have already obtained all the relevant details from the customer, obtained three comparable quotes and emailed through the most competitive. In addition, the best price one included commercial legal expenses, so at £632.00 the customer has, in my eyes, got themselves a bargain. We are now awaiting the phone call to proceed later on. But, and it is always a bit of a pain, that the quicker we get back, all we do with some customers is to set the bar for them to try and beat.
They will, as we always advise, go to more than one business insurance broker for a quote. When this happens, the lazy broker simply says “what is the best quote you have got, and we will beat it”.
The problem is that they may on the odd occasion be able to get a better quote than us, but from experience getting better cover, excesses and terms is very unlikely.
But, when the customer is faced with a cost saving they are sometimes swayed into taking the cheaper one, without consideration to the cover. This is just one of those things I am afraid we have to live with. We cannot sit back and try and second guess when we can/should get a quote to a client. We pride ourselves on turning quotes round quickly and efficiently.
If we are quick and others use that as a benchmark, we just have to live with it. In answer to the question posed, you should be able to get a full, emailed, written quote within two hours of providing all relevant information for most package type products.