Naperville, IL – Earlier this year, Hiscox, the global specialist insurer and an innovator in entertainment insurance, made a strategic decision to bring workers’ compensation insurance in-house by issuing the coverage. The move allows the company to exercise greater control over underwriting decisions for this essential component of its production, theatrical and commercial business. To support the move, Hiscox has partnered with MIS Insurance Services, using Instec Quicksolver software, to handle back-office processing.
Hiscox has been covering the entertainment industry for over 50 years, since former Chairman Robert Hiscox first underwrote production package insurance at Lloyds of London in the 1960s. Today, Hiscox simplifies entertainment insurance with Hiscox One™, a comprehensive policy that covers over 20 types of risk across all aspects of the entertainment business.
“We view the entertainment business as a huge growth opportunity for Hiscox,” said Joanne Richardson, Media & Entertainment Practice Leader at Hiscox USA. “If there’s even one coverage in our entertainment policy that we don’t underwrite and control ourselves, we’re limiting the opportunities we can pursue. That’s the problem we were facing at the beginning of this year with workers’ compensation, and that’s why we decided to bring workers’ comp in-house.”
The decision to bring workers’ compensation in-house was only the first step. Hiscox also needed to supplement its back office operations with the skills, expertise and processes to handle this new coverage. For help, the company turned to Instec, whose Quicksolver policy administration system Hiscox used to handle its entertainment package. Instec recommended long-time partner MIS Insurance Services.
“MIS has been a great partner for us because they can help our customers fill gaps in their back-office operations,” said Rob Reed, Vice President of Sales at Instec. “They offer business process outsourcing through a simple web interface built on top of the Instec Quicksolver system that Hiscox was already using, so they were a natural fit.”
Hiscox first met MIS in February and was in production by March, a ramp-up time virtually unheard of in the industry.
“Everyone’s talking about speed-to-market. We actually deliver it,” said Kris George, president of MIS. “We partnered with Instec because they have a reputation for fast implementation and always-current bureau-based content. We add to that highly-efficient processing. At Hiscox, we’ve cut the time to rate, quote, bind and produce a workers’ comp policy exponentially.”
Bringing workers’ compensation in-house and outsourcing back-office operations has paid dividends for Hiscox. The company can now pursue new opportunities and focus on quality of risk. In fact, since partnering with MIS, Hiscox is rating and quoting more policies per day and has doubled its entertainment book of business.
“MIS and Instec have helped put us on the growth path we’ve been seeking for our entertainment business, and we couldn’t be happier,” said Richardson.
Source: Instec