Being “always on” is one of the realities in a modern work environment. This is especially true for many independent project professionals and management consultants. Walking into new clients with new cultures in the norm. Once you start the new engagement, the relentless pressure to impress is very present and real. Sometimes overcome through “over delivery”, to secure a client impression of a quality hiring decision.
With all these distractions to deliver and impress with little bandwidth, it becomes harder to find time for housekeeping such as ensuring your insurances are right and current.
Help is close to hand with the convenience of online insurance. This gives contract project professionals and management consultants a whole new level of control and flexibility with their professional indemnity and public liability insurances.
More than just convenience, there are other reasons for getting insurance online.
- Cost effective
Online insurance premiums are generally more cost effective as there are no “old world” insurance brokers involved in the process. Customers transact directly through a lower cost distribution channel.
- Instant
Typically, old world insurance brokers will take two to four days to get all insurance documents in place. But in the current environment of “interview today, start tomorrow”, clients will not have the patience to wait two or four days. Therefore you need your insurance partner to act fast.
Purchasing insurance that is truly 100% online, enables you to get an fast quote, instant cover with all your documents now sitting neatly in your inbox. Once you have experienced this, you won’t go back to the old ways. Just to make a distinction here, for online professional indemnity insurance, there are very few providers that are fully online. Many have a web page for capturing data but a time impacted manual process is required to complete the transaction.
- Ease of transaction and servicing
Online means paperless, and paperless means no long forms to complete. Filling out forms can be tedious, especially since you complete almost the same details every year! This is not the case with online insurance providers as you only typically have a few checkboxes to tick and drop downs to select. Moreover, the completed applications can be captured ready for next year’s renewal so you will not have to go through the complete application process again – phew!
- 24/7 and on any device
Now more than ever, people will want and need to buy insurance outside the normal office hours. Online insurance makes it possible for you to secure a quote or request for a cover at any time of the day. And customers can have accesses to the services through mobile phones, tablets or PC.
- More control
For independent project professionals and management consultants, it is important to exercise control over your own financial matters. This includes knowing the best type of coverage for your occupation. Experts believe that many individuals buy insurance policies without paying attention to what they really need. For instance, most insurers provide professional indemnity insurance covers for hundreds of various occupations, and often risk profiles are lumped together. As a project professional with low-risk occupation, you may be paying for others with higher-risk occupations, such as those in mining and construction.
But online platforms enable specialist insurance organisations to address the needs of a specific group of customers without subjecting them to high premium rates. Also, online insurance allows customers to decide fully on the type of cover they need.
What are your views on online insurance? Share your insights with us.