Understanding rates and eligibility/declines
Many agents who use SinglePoint may not know how real-time rating works in SinglePoint and how rates are determined.
You enter your customer’s risk information in SinglePoint and click “RATE ALL PLANS” or “RATE” on the Premium tab, but then what happens? SinglePoint, working in partnership with your carriers, sends this data to your carriers’ web portal in a safe, secure manner. The data is consumed by each carrier’s web service and, in turn, is run through a series of calls to their services that include underwriting rules, predictive modeling, 3rd parties services (such as RMV or Credit verifications or distance to coast), and pricing algorithms. All of this happens within a few seconds.
The carrier then pings SinglePoint back with a message, i.e. a rate for this risk, a decline or an error. SinglePoint does not determine the rate or eligibility. We just display the rate or the message for each carrier. We like to think that SinglePoint is the “scoreboard” that displays carrier rates in a simple comparative format. Nearly all quotes displayed in SinglePoint are done in this real-time manner. However, there are a handful such as MAIP and FAIR plan rates that are “manufactured” by Boston Software. That is, SinglePoint stores the base rates, algorithms, and rules in our rating engine.
Please note: more carriers have been declining new business in the last 6 months or so for various reasons including rising repair/replacement costs and reinsurance. Agents often think SinglePoint is doing the declining or displaying errors. We get phone calls and emails from agents wondering “hey, what is going on with some of these carriers who won’t give us a rate?”
But again, SinglePoint is just displaying what the carrier returns during the real-time rate service. We have spoken to various carriers about the increasing number of declines for new business. They tell us some risks may be quoted but only after the carrier performs additional underwriting. They suggest agents contact their underwriters or marketing managers to discuss each specific risk.
