How to choose analytics software for insurance brokers: questions, data and traps

Most buying decisions for analytics start from a feature list. For brokers the better start is the questions that come back every month, the files already on hand, and the traps that make a tool look right in a demonstration and wrong in the first board meeting.

Start from the questions

Any tool you consider should answer these from your data, not from a sample. Ask to see it.

The data you already hold

• Policy ledger
• Activity log
• Placement ledger
• Client schedule
• Estimates by source
• Client master
• Quote records
• Claims file

If a vendor needs a warehouse built before it can read these, count that in the cost and the time.

Ten questions to ask any vendor

1. What does it need in place before the first answer? A warehouse, a data model, a modelling language, a partner? Ask for the list and the typical weeks.
2. Who does the setup, and who maintains it? Your team, the vendor, or a partner, and what that costs after year one.
3. Does the AI calculate figures, or choose from computed ones? A language model that writes queries or code can produce a plausible wrong number. Ask what it is allowed to do.
4. Does every total reconcile to a control figure? Ask to see a bridge that does not sum and what the product does about it.
5. Can every figure be opened to its rows? An answer nobody can check becomes a debate in the meeting.
6. What does it cost in the first year, all in? Licences, consumption, implementation, modelling and training, not only the seat price.
7. How does data arrive, and who holds credentials? A file your systems already export, a scheduled drop, or a live connection with the vendor holding keys.
8. What happens to the data, and where is it stored? Residency, retention, deletion, and whether names can be replaced with identifiers.
9. Can we see it on our own data before we sign? A demonstration on a sample dataset tells you little about your own.
10. What does the tool do when it cannot answer? It should say so. A confident guess does more harm than no answer.

Checks specific to insurance brokers

Ask whether the tool enforces these, and what it does when they fail:

• Retention: Due = renewed + renewed late + lost + pending
• Placement: Client premium by line sums to the placement ledger; carrier shares sum to 100 percent per line
• New against lost: Opening income + new − lost ± rate and exposure change = closing income
• Book mix: Every client has one executive

The traps

Placement share. The ledger records what was placed. What the client bought elsewhere appears nowhere unless someone asks and writes it down.

Income retention. Count retention is reported because it is higher.

Carrier concentration per line. Seen as a placement matter until the carrier withdraws and forty renewals need a new home in one quarter.

Measures to leave out

Policies in force. A count that treats a fleet and a single van alike.

Quotes issued. Cost, not achievement.

Gross written premium as the only growth measure. Moves with rate; income and client numbers show what the office did.

A scorecard

Where Covirage fits

Covirage reads the exports above, answers the questions with figures our tools compute and check, and is set up for you within a week. See analytics software for insurance brokers compared, AI analytics for insurance brokers and Covirage for Insurance brokers.

For the measures in full, with formulas and exports, read Sales KPIs for commercial insurance brokers.