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When it was announced in June that San Diego, Calif.-based Arrowhead General Insurance Agency Inc. was selected as the program administrator for QBE North America's small commercial insurance portfolio, it immediately raised one big question.
Why was a carrier with a strong history of writing small commercial business for many years in the U.S. using a program administrator?
That question was put to Jamie Luce, senior vice president of commercial insurance at QBE. He was quick with an answer.
"To help it drive a more efficient engagement on small commercial for agents and brokers," Luce said.
In short, QBE will be relying upon Arrowhead for the technology to manage its small commercial business in an arrangement the principals see as an alternative to carriers having to invest more in their legacy technologies or rely on insurtech developments.
Luce called it "a unique solution" because it's taking a large amount of small commercial business and using the Arrowhead platform to create "more efficient engagement for our overall book."
Arrowhead, a subsidiary of Brown & Brown Inc., is a national insurance program manager for commercial and personal products. QBE North America, headquartered in New York, is an operating division of Sydney, Australia-based QBE Insurance Group Ltd.
Luce and Steve Boyd, president of Arrowhead, talked with Insurance Journal about the deal and what it will mean to their clients and the agents they deal with.
QBE's small commercial insurance portfolio consists of property/casualty business accounts under $100,000 in premium.
Effective July 1, agents were given access to a broader array of products and services through an operating platform for the small commercial market, according to those involved in the deal.
The QBE small commercial business will be the centerpiece of Arrowhead's offering, complementing its other products in the small commercial space. The program will be called Arrowhead core commercial.
As the insurance provider, QBE will retain full financial responsibility for premiums and losses and manage the products and appetite for risk, and as the program administrator Arrowhead will perform all...