Masterclass: Maximising Taxi Renewals

Sophie Dodds (00:00)

Welcome everybody to our webinar session focusing on how brokers can maximize taxi conversions and win business. With the upcoming renewal spike in the taxi market, brokers have a key opportunity here to win more business and retain their existing clients, but competition is fierce. In this webinar, Flock and Granite Underwriting break down exactly how brokers can use telematics, dynamic pricing and smarter claims handling to convert more taxi fleets.

We'll cover the numbers behind the Telematics taxi market and where brokers can gain an edge. How connected insurance and fleet insights help improve conversion rates. How fast claims reporting and risk reduction have led to sustainable renewal pricing and the support Flock provides to brokers to help them close more deals.

So without further ado, let's introduce our panel. I'm Sophie Dodds, I'm the Broker Distribution Manager here at Flock, working in partnership with Granite. Emma, would you like to introduce yourself?

Emma Collins (01:03)

Hello, I'm Emma Collins. am head of pricing for Granite Underwriting, covering off all the products that Granite puts out to the market.

Sophie Dodds (01:12)

Thank you Emma. And Jay, would you like to intro yourself, your role and a little bit about Granite Underwriting as well?

Jay Rennie (01:18)

Yeah, so I'll start with myself. So I'm Jay Rennie. I'm the head of specialist products for Granite Underwriting. I look after a variety of different products, but probably the predominant one is our Motorfleet proposition. In terms of Granite Underwriting, so we've been established since 1982, specialising in non-standard and niche products. We're a managing general agent on behalf of Haven Insurance. We currently

partner with a broker panel of approximately 250. And one of our strategic clients moving forward is Fleet. And by partnering with Flock, we think this is going to only enhance that proposition.

Sophie Dodds (02:01)

Thanks very much, Jay. And Ben, would you like to introduce your role and a bit about Flock as well?

Ben Allen (02:08)

Sure. My name is Ben Allen, Senior Customer Success Manager here at Flock. I used to be a broker before and then joined when we first launched Intermotor to give a fresher perspective onto the insurance side, but also to provide a service that I always desired when I was a broker. Flock is a commercial motor fleet MGA who's trying to revolutionise the way that insurance is both perceived and transacted in the market by leveraging connectivity through

telematics data and real time insights to be able to provide brokers and customers with what they need to both improve safety and reduce their insurance costs as they move throughout their journey with Flock.

Sophie Dodds (02:50)

Perfect, thanks, Ben. So let's dive into the first sort of question set for you here, Jay. What businesses are Granite targeting and how can brokers use the Flock product?

Jay Rennie (03:02)

Quite simply, are targeting taxi fleet risks that have 25 or more vehicles who also have a strong emphasis on risk management and driving down their insurance costs. By way of accessing [the Flock] product, brokers can quickly access the Flock Appetite Guide by speaking with either a broker distribution manager at Flock's end or at Granite Underwriting's end.

Sophie Dodds (03:29)

And how valuable are the broker relationships here, Jay?

Jay Rennie (03:33)

So we've done a lot of work recently on insights into the market and where the volumes sit from a business perspective and we see a good 80-90 % of this market is dominated by wholesale brokers. They are absolutely crucial to the value chain and that's why we're keen to kind of grow our presence in this space.

Our focus is on strengthening both existing partnerships and creating new opportunities, giving the brokers tools to sell more risks and obviously retain existing risks.

Sophie Dodds (04:06)

Absolutely. One for you here, Ben. How successful has the launch into taxi been and where is the opportunity for brokers? This is a flox taxi launch circa about a year ago now.

Ben Allen (04:20)

So far [the taxi launch] been very, very successful. We've onboarded 43 fleets since we launched into taxi covering 3,646 taxis to be absolutely precise to date who have driven over 90 million miles since they've began their journey with us. I think for brokers, a lot of this has been driven by the value of the service that we provided from the get-go and the model that we have provides a digitised understanding of insurance through our Flock portal. And since we've started it, the taxi fleets have found this incredibly useful and their brokers too, to be able to manage their insurance policies online, gain all of the transparency they need and interact better with their customers because of the information they see on the portal. Especially working with Granite, what we've seen is they've played a crucial role in being able to provide brokers with not only just competitive pricing,

for expertise and best in class claim support to give both a fast and reliable solution to all of our customers that have come on board. As well as that through our in-person safety reviews, which I offer that focus on providing insights to brokers and customers around their insurance policy has created value in every interaction that we've had, which means that you're not just left to your own devices. You're feeling like you're supported throughout, especially from when you begin.

Which means that from a new business standpoint, there's always that confidence that as soon as you bind a policy with Flock, we will jump on and give you that immediate support to give you that competitive advantage and show the client why you placed that business with Flock.

Sophie Dodds (06:02)

And if anybody's seen Ben's calendar, it is back to back with these customer success meetings. there's huge buy in here, which is great to see. Emma, in regards to Granite underwriting taxi fleets, what factors impact pricing here?

Emma Collins (06:22)

So as Jay referenced, we've been in the taxi space for over 40 years. So we've got a wealth of expertise when it comes to providing competitive pricing. whilst historically that has been very important and predominantly price-driven, Telematics is now shifting that conversation to value. Everyone will be aware that driving behavior in particular, such as speeding and cornering, are very important. But what we found as much in the fleet space is that it's critical that fleet owners themselves are engaged with the proposition.

We found a clear correlation between how a fleet's performance improves across a policy term based on that level of engagement. And not only does that reduce our costs, which is great, but also ensures a fleet can maximise any rebate potential.

Sophie Dodds (07:01)

Yeah, exactly, obviously, speeding and cornering, they're all precursors to incidents. So, you know, really having a highlight on those can only help to improve. And I think another key question is when does Telematics insurance become cheaper?

Emma Collins (07:22)

Ultimately, it depends on a fleet's behavior. Safer fleets will save money over time rather than just competing on that upfront price in your business. So through the rebates and better renewal pricing.

Sophie Dodds (07:35)

So talking a little bit about the quotation process here, Emma, how fast is it?

Emma Collins (07:42)

If a fleet and broker provides all the information that we require, then we appreciate the importance of a very quick turnaround time and we'll aim to get that back within a couple of hours. But critically, making sure they've got their confirmed claims experience along with their submission, we can ensure we can turn that around as quickly as possible.

Sophie Dodds (07:59)

And you mentioned that the claims experience and the claims listing, is there anything else that would be required sort of information that you'd need to ensure a super quick turnaround?

Emma Collins (08:09)

I think most notably understanding, I guess, where our footprint stands in terms of referable drivers and making sure they've got details of anybody that falls outside of appetite.

Sophie Dodds (08:18)

Let's move over to claims now. A question for you here, Ben. How are Flock and Grunit handling their claims?

Ben Allen (08:27)

Nice. Thanks. Well, generally when it comes to talking about claims and dealing with claims, the idea is not to have any at all. Well, as much as we wish that that was the case, like Emma said, the engagement that we have with directors of businesses and fleet managers means that they've now understood the importance of handling claims and using the product, but also how to notify us of claims and change the way that people think about claims, their perceptions of it and the landscape of how it actually works.

So through our online portal and the work that our team have done, when I started interacting with people, was, well, why don't you report claims? What are the problems? And generally what we tended to find was it was a very manual process, a lack of understanding on the why around reporting claims. And when we brought these two factors together, we've created through our online platform, a report and incident form.

Through digitising reporting, we've taken on average claims that used to take over an hour to report through ringing up, spending time on hold, emailing 15,000 questions and responses to a three minute form where you can log on through your phone or your mobile 24 hours a day to be able to report claims as quickly as possible. But not just report claims, give all of the information that we need within minutes.

So whether that be indemnity documentation, third party details, and especially the incident details, as quickly as we can get that information, the quicker we can do our work to handle that claim and reduce any third party costs surrounding repairs or credit hire, for example. So by giving fleets that ability to report quickly and give brokers that transparency as well, that will allow all of our brokers to get an

understanding of the fleet so they can actually work closer with them throughout the year. Because not only will they get a notification that a fleet has reported a claim, they'll be able to see their claims in real time uploaded onto the portal. So gone are the days of having to constantly request claims listings and how much does this cost. You can see it all in real time, which means that you can take a far more proactive approach to handling claims, which is what then we do as well on our side once we catch it.

Sophie Dodds (10:44)

And it's a great point there to sort go back to the point of this webinar. How can we maximize taxi conversions and help brokers win business? The digital online portal is a massive USP. That three minute reporting time frame over the standard hour, it's a huge selling point there for brokers. Jay, I'd be keen to get your thoughts on this as well.

Jay Rennie (11:09)

Yeah, so just tagging on to the benefits that Ben's highlighted there. I think what we've seen since we partnered with Flock is a really strong collaboration between both Haven's claims teams and Flock's claims teams. And what's that resulting in is working together to manage claims efficiently and ultimately reduce their party costs. Digital reporting obviously means fleets can report accidents in minutes. And as Ben highlighted earlier, the quicker you report a claim,

the more beneficial it is for the client from both an intervention liability and obviously resulting perspective. Common questions that we get from brokers is how the claims work in terms of the process. Quick reporting leads to faster payouts and lower third party expenses. And you can touch base with Flock or Haven at any point to understand how to report a claim in the various different methods.

And ultimately brokers want to know what impact is this going to have on a client's renewal? And to kind of summarize this into two or three points, fleets that report claims faster see better long-term pricing benefits. And one of the other things that we've really brought to life recently from a fleet perspective is having a dedicated fleet claims team. And by having that central point of contact throughout a policy term,

This ultimately leads to better intervention, a common understanding of liability positions and ultimately better loss ratios. And I do think with risks of the size that we're targeting through this proposition, the liaison elements of it is absolutely critical. We recognise that both brokers and clients prefer to speak to familiar handlers, people who understand their risks, people who understand the challenges they have with reporting, etc.

and just having that common focal point is really key to the proposition that we put out there.

Sophie Dodds (13:07)

And a point we'll speak about in a moment with Ben, but the impact on renewals here, reporting claims quicker, it's a rebate factor. So FLOC have that 10 % rebate unlock for different metrics throughout the policy term. And time to report is one of those. So ultimately, you know, get a bit of money back at your renewals. So Ben, talking about telematics impacting driver behavior, how does it impact driver behavior and fleet safety long term?

And a second question to that, how can brokers utilize this as a selling point?

Ben Allen (13:43)

Thanks, so When it comes to the telematics data by Flock providing you with the telematics devices or you coming to us with already installed devices, we can help you take a more proactive approach, not only to understand the driving behavior of your fleet, but to prevent claims before they've even happened through taking a proactive approach to managing behavior that you see within your fleet. Given that the people who we speak to generally are the ones who are paying for the vehicles,

the insurance policy and the assets that are at risk. What's really important is that the drivers are driving them in a manner which is safe. And therefore that will translate in the future to telematics driven pricing, which will reward you for being safer. So we have features within our products, such as like Sophie said, the 10 % rebate, which will go into after where the safety score that we provide you based on your speeding is a factor to earn money back.

And what's really important is that through the sessions we run, we make it easy for you to understand this data. So we leverage internal dashboards, the portal to embed a culture of safety within the businesses. So they understand that not only does safety give you less risk on the road, therefore reducing your claims risk and therefore getting higher prices at renewal. But we're also trying to do with safety is to try and make fleets understand the operational savings that it has.

You'll have less vehicle downtime. You'll have to maintain vehicles less if they're being driven in a more safe manner. And as well, the less time you have to deal with small incidences on the road or claims in general, your time can be better spent elsewhere to deal with more pressing matters and to provide more value in your business. So in terms of the long-term goals, buying fleets becoming safer and hopefully having less claims. Not only are you joining FLOC,

on their mission to make the world quantifiably safer. But you can sustain your pricing over time by getting rebates, forming relationships with us, and essentially becoming a safe fleet. And by doing so, that will allow you to get the benefits of cheaper pricing and essentially a safer road on the UK.

Sophie Dodds (16:04)

That's great. Thanks, Ben. We've spoken a little bit about premium rebates. How do the premium rebates work, How can brokers use premium rebates as a competitive edge?

Ben Allen (16:16)

Nice. So many insurers will have things like low claims rebates, but It's really important that we engage people into our mission to make them safer and to offer them an incentive for doing so. As a result, we've created the Flock rebates whereby as fleets come on, you will connect your vehicles. So in order to qualify for the rebate, you will have to ensure that all of your vehicles are connected above 75 % in order to qualify for that.

The other qualifying metric is that you have to keep your loss ratio below 50%. So in order to gain the 10 % rebate back, those are the two factors you will need to qualify for that. So as we move through the sessions throughout the year, where you'll talk to me, we will ensure that you always stay connected and that you as the business owner or the broker will know what the loss ratio is at any one time so that we can ensure your progress and tracking towards that rebate.

There are three ways that you earn the 10 % rebate back. So that 10 % is split across three individual variables, constituting to 4%, 3%, and 3 % respectively. The largest rebate percentage, so the 4%, is for loss ratio itself. We want to incentivise fleets to crash less and spend less on their claims. Therefore, the largest amount is for that. Essentially, you could view it as a profit share.

where if you claim less, then we will pay you back 4 % of your rebates if you hit under 30%. So I know the qualifies 50, but to gain that maximum 4%, you would have to get under 30. But how do you control your loss ratio? These are where the two other variables then come in to form the 10%. We believe that if you improve safety, then you are therefore less likely to have claims.

So the second variable is the safety score. So we aggregate all of your speeding data to give you a nice shiny score out of a hundred. The higher your score, then the more rebates you will earn. To earn back the top 3%, you would have to have a score of 90 out of a hundred, for example. So in the sessions that we do, we will give you all the tips, tricks, and understanding of how to get your safety score to at least, you know, into the low risk areas onto 90 and above. The final way that you control your loss ratio,

like James alluded to earlier is by reporting claims quickly. The quicker that we have those claims reported to us, the faster that we can intervene with third parties and control the cost of claims. Or if your vehicle's damaged, then we can ensure that you get rapid support to get that vehicle reutilised and back on the road. So we ask for all claims to be reported within 24 hours. And if you report all of your incidences within 24 hours, you will earn back the full 3 % rebate there. So controlling your loss ratio

Improving speeding and improving your reporting time will get you on track to earn back that 10 % rebate.

Sophie Dodds (19:13)

Brilliant. Thank you very much, Ben. Final part of our questions set here. keen looking at you and Emma and Jay. Emma, looking at the taxi sector over the past few years, what are your thoughts on current taxi pricing stability?

Emma Collins (19:34)

Yeah, I think it's been a very challenging time for the taxi market across the last five years. Not only did COVID hit the market incredibly hard, we've then had a period of very high inflation and government targets to try and hit net zero, meaning more vehicles are becoming electric, which further increases the cost for a fleet. We've seen a number of new entrants try to get into the market, providing incredibly competitive pricing, but found it an unsustainable strategy.

Not only that, but there's been quite a number of mergers and acquisitions which have led to capacity limits being reached and insurers pulling out of the space temporarily. So it's created a lot of uncertainty for brokers in where to place their business and ensure they'll have somebody there that will be there the following year. But what, sorry. What brokers do get with granite is with Haven as our sole capacity, we don't have any.

limits and we adopt a sustainable pricing approach that we can be sure that we're here next month and in a year's time when it comes to renewal.

Sophie Dodds (20:41)

And Jay, where does the granite and Flock partnership fit into that?

Jay Rennie (20:49)

Yeah, so just echoing what Emma's just articulated. So stability in a volatile market is key for our broker partners. We've been a stable proposition for the best part of 15, 20 years. We're absolutely not here to sacrifice margin for the benefit of GWP. And by partnering with Flock, it's all about enhancing that stable position that we've kind of had over a number of years. And obviously the benefits of Flock's proposition

around risk management, driver safety and obviously the message of quantifiably wanting to make the world safer resonates with our stability and our focus moving forward from a fleet perspective.

Sophie Dodds (21:36)

Thanks, Jane. I appreciate that. Thanks everybody for joining. And in conclusion, question here, what are the next steps for brokers interested in working with Flock? So you can submit, we're as quickly through your BDM, whether that's myself or Adam Smith. If you are new to Flock and you would like to apply for an agency, you can apply via our website, flockcover.com forward slash brokers. And again, special thanks to Emma, Jay and Ben for your time today on today's session.

The recording will be available on floccover.com as well as at flocc's YouTube channel for future downloads. We'll email all those details over. And if you wanted to hang on for another five minutes or so, we will give you an overview and a demo of the portal itself. Thanks again.

Welcome everyone. Thank you for sticking around for a demo of the portal, showing the support Flock gives fleets to help brokers win more business and ultimately make roads safer. Today, I'm going to walk you through our portal, our all-in-one tool for managing fleets efficiently and maximizing value. We've designed the platform with four key areas to help fleets stay in control, reduce risk and improve performance. Now you'll see on the left-hand side at the bottom, I have got demo mode toggled on. This is a live client of Flock's.

And this feature is now live on all live policies for brokers to use. So if you wanted to demo the portal to a potential new client, you can do so by toggling onto demo mode on any of your live policies. It will hide out any sensitive information for GDPR purposes. Okay, so moving over to our landing page of the fleet overview. This is your command center for staying on top of your fleet coverage. You can instantly see how many vehicles are on cover.

off cover and scheduled to go on cover and the connectivity status. So our minimum threshold is 75 % and this will feed into the rebates structure later on as well. And if we scroll down, it will give you an overview of your fleet, vehicles that are connected, not connected. You can export the fleet on the right-hand side and then off easy MTA function on the left-hand side of add vehicles. So if we click into this, it'll give you two options, quick add,

Pop in the VRN, the cover on date, a date in future, and the cover off date. If you don't know what the cover off date is, it will assume it is end of policy and pro after the premium from there. Click next and it's done. Upload to the MID automatically and also upload your documents in the Documents Library, which I'll show you in a moment. There's lots of MTAs that need to be processed. Click on bulk upload. There's an easy template to download. Pop and drag your file here. Click next.

And again, update to the MID and update to the document straight away. This is for broker and client use. So if it's outside of office hours on the weekend, the client is able to utilize this function themselves. Dropping down to rebate structure here, we believe good performance should be rewarded when renewing with FLOC. And that's where the rebates come in. On the top left-hand side here, you'll see the two eligibility criteria. Average grid connectivity has to be above 75%.

and the loss ratio has to be below 50%. Once those two metrics are met, it's then broken down into these three factors at the bottom, loss ratio, average safety score, and the average time to report. Each of these three key factors contribute to your final reward. And Ben Allen, who joined our webinar earlier, will ensure this is highlighted in each quarterly safety review meeting to help clients fully understand how to unlock the maximum 10 % here.

It's all based on the safety insights. So if we have a look at this safety overview, it will give you a policy safety score, your safety score history, which we would hope to see an improvement over the course of time, and then an overview of the worst scoring vehicles as well. It will give each vehicle a score and then an adjustment over a 30-day period, whether they've improved or potentially gone backwards. If you want to drill down into these a bit further, click into speeding and it will show your speeding over time.

The worst speed is in the fleet with a few more metrics here as well. Mile spent speeding per vehicle and the average speed limit exceedance. As well as on the top right hand side, it will give you a speeding breakdown categorizing the driving from safe driving up to critical driving. We can look at per vehicle data as well. So this will give you a vehicle safety score again, and as well as a 30 day period change. And dropping down to trips.

This is a performance on a trip by trip basis, time and date stamped with a map showing the exact location. This will also be categorized in the speeding breakdown, whether it's safe, minor, major or critical. Our section on claims, obviously nobody likes dealing with claims when they do happen. This ensures you can stay informed and in control. You can instantly see the key metrics of how many have been reported, how many are open and the time to report.

Again, reminding that this does feed into the rebate factor. The time to report within 24 hours allows you to unlock the full benefit for that metric. So everything is green is what we want to see and anything outside of 24 hours will be in red. Scrolling down, it will give you an overview of your loss ratio as well as a claims listing here as well, which again can be exploited the same as the fleet schedule. Reporting claims again, never been easier. We have report incident button here.

and a reminder further down on the left-hand side here. This will take you to an external page for a quick, easy customer journey, less than five minutes to take in the instant information we need to start mitigating costs and intervening as soon as possible. So I won't take you through the full report here, otherwise it will log a claim to this live client. However, to give you an idea of how it works, your first landing page, full name, number, email, what's happened.

The second page, incident details, this is where you'll upload any video or photo footage. And then the third page is the third party details. Submit and that's it, we can start working on that claim for you. Should whoever's notifying us of this claim via the online portal come off of this page for any reason, we do have email notifications to be sent within 24 hours, reminding that person to go back in and submit that claim, try to keep them within that 24 hour time to report period. So back.

To the portal on further underclaims, we have mileage. This is an additional benefit for clients to easily get an overview of the mileage on their fleet. Keeps a measure for various reasons, dependent on the company themselves and what they might use it for. For example, there could be lease vehicles that can't go over a certain amount of miles. So they can start swapping vehicles out on routes, whatever they might need it for.

And then the last page on here is our Documents Library. It's a go-to place for any documents needed. As I mentioned earlier, MTAs update the policy schedule automatically, which will always be in this Documents Library. And all important documents stored in one place, easy to access when you need and what you need. The portal is about empowering clients to reduce costs, improve safety, and better manage their fleet, as I mentioned previously. And with the Telematic Safety Insights, easy access

policy and claims information, clear financial incentives, it allows the client to take control of their fleet like never before. As I mentioned in our webinar with Granite and Flock, the rebate structure, the access to instant MTAs, claims efficiency, online reporting, they're all amazing features brokers can use as a tool to help drive conversions and ultimately win more business. Should you have any further questions, want to submit a risk, open a new agency or even a more in-depth demo,

Please reach out to your BDM. Thanks very much, guys.

‍