30 years of Paymentshield

30 years of Paymentshield

6 July 2022 sees Paymentshield celebrate our 30th birthday. Over the last three decades everything we do is to protect the things that matter most to intermediaries and their clients… from the adviser’s income and reputation right through to the customer’s home and family.

Tech

Over the last 30 years we’ve listened to what advisers need to help them convert general insurance business and been pioneers in delivering tech which does just that. Our priority guiding this innovation is that technology in the insurance space should always optimise quotability and price to ensure it is as effective as it can be in providing the best possible outcome for both advisers and their customers.

From launching our Inertia quote and apply software back in 2001 to the delivery of our unique Adviser Hub platform system our tech has always delivered a quick price without sacrificing accuracy.

Then, more recently our Quick Quote has further sped up the quoting process for advisers, by enabling adviser to provide an indicative price to the client based on only 5 pieces of information. This is supported by our integration with data provider Lexis Nexis which enables pre-population of data fields so there’s less information for advisers to have to key in.  And, just last month we launched introduced the ability within Adviser Hub to get a a new quote at the click of a button should a pending policy expire meaning advisers don’t have to rekey in their client’s information in order to issue them with a new price.

However, our tech is not just about speed, we’ve remained committed to supporting the advised conversation and helping advisers to help their clients. So, our Adviser Hub platform also delivers a personalised dashboard to enable advisers to pro-actively manage their clients and keep tabs on your GI performance. Within Adviser Hub, advisers also have access to Defaqto Compare, a valuable tool to help to highlight the features and benefits of Paymentshield’s products compared to others on the market. Plus, where advisers or customers do have questions, our intelligent webchat service means we can quickly respond.  Whether you need to know about quotes, claims, commission or any of our products, we can provide the answer to you via the chat, without you needing to pick up the phone.

Over the last number of years we’ve also had a keen focus on developing digital solutions which support businesses in building their customer relationships. For example, our suite of flexible APIs have been developed to help businesses who want to integrate with us embed an online insurance journey within their sales process and we’re committed to harnessing technology such as this to deliver a future proof GI proposition.

Products

However, not only do we provide intelligent tech to advisers we’ve continually strived to offer high quality insurance. For example, our Home Insurance has been 5 Star Defaqto Rated for the last 8 years so your clients can feel reassured knowing they are being offered the highest level of features and benefits compared to other home insurance available in the market.  Our Landlords Insurance and Tenants Contents insurance products are also 5 Star Defaqto rated…

For the last 10 years we’ve also successfully adopted a panel approach for our Home, Landlord’s and Tenants Contents Insurance with insurers all signed up to a single policy wording for each product. The panel approach gives more choice to customers and means advisers don’t need to worry about learning the ins and outs of multiple products but most importantly the insurer panel and journey that supports them, are specifically designed to provide the optimal balance between price, quotability and the adviser experience.

Indeed, it’s the attention to detail and customer focus with our insurance which makes us stand out, for example we offer up to a nine year no claims discount and automatically provide first time buyers with a two year no claims discount to help save them money amongst all the expense of getting on the property ladder for the first time.

This focus on detail has also enabled us to stand out in the lettings space as well as we offer specially designed Tenant’s Contents and Tenants Liability Insurance products which do not require detailed property knowledge from the tenant in order to get a quote for cover. We’ve recognised that not only the product, but the questions we ask need to be tailored to ensure customers can get an accurate and competitive quote at the point they need to arrange insurance.

Support

We pride ourselves on helping advisers make the most of every GI opportunity and have grown our sales support team to become the largest team in the intermediary space supporting advisers with GI. They’re always on hand to offer support. They can help support your business’ needs on a range of matters from high level business planning through to providing training on our products and technology to help you maximise the GI opportunity.

We also have a dedicated team who help support our Lettings proposition and who are on hand to answer any queries.

For businesses looking for help when onboarding new advisers, or simply advisers looking to brush up on their GI knowledge, our GI Academy, which was launched in October 2021, is loaded with 6 training modules covering everything from Paymentshield’s proposition to the recent GI pricing practice changes and how to nail your sales technique. The modules are also the first independently verified CPD accredited content on general insurance that’s freely available online to all UK financial advisers regardless of their preferred provider.

This support is then further bolstered by our marketing toolkit which is home to over 80 resources to support the conversations with your clients, ranging from point-of-sale flyers and customer guides, to adviser ‘how to’ videos to get you up and running with Adviser Hub.

Customer service

We recognise that providing adviser with quality tech, products and support still means nothing if we don’t take care of your clients. That’s why customer excellence is central to our brand values and we’re passionate about ensuring an equal focus across both our adviser and customer proposition.

This passion continues to drive the customer and adviser feedback we receive being rated as Excellent on Trustpilot with a score of 4.9 (based on over 3,200 reviews). Plus, in our recent adviser survey 86% of advisers said they had confidence in Paymentshield’s products and services.

One of the key elements of our customer service offering is our Customer Portal which allows customers to easily access their policy documents online using any device even when they’re not at home but perhaps what we’re most proud of is our support of those customers who we identify as needing extra support. 

We recognise the previous few years have been challenging for everyone and, at Paymentshield, we understand it’s our responsibility to make sure that we’re looking after our customers in the best way possible. To help alleviate any worries, we offer a choice of payment options which enables us to assist with vulnerable customers who may have difficulty keeping up with their payments. And for anyone who needs to make an update during their policy, our single admin fee covers your customer throughout their entire policy meaning they can make as many changes as they want, with no hidden fees.

Finally, it’s just left to say that we understand that reaching our 30th birthday wouldn’t be possible without your support and trust in us to look after your clients when it comes to protecting them and their biggest asset. Thank you!