PIA-endorsed Floodbroker.com Now Offered to PIA Members
PIA-endorsed Floodbroker.com Now Offered to PIA Members
For 23 years, Evan Spindelman has sold insurance. During that time, he has seen for himself the gap that exists between what insureds think their homeowners policies cover and what the policies actually include. “So, I became sort of a flood expert,” says Spindelman. He didn’t want to be trapped as so many agents have found themselves after Hurricanes Irene, Lee and Sandy. “You don’t want to be the agent taking a call from a desperate insured seeing whether they have flood coverage in such a circumstance.”
The second thing agents really don’t want: To defend against an errors-and-omissions lawsuit. The customer-policy content disconnect is exacerbated by the fact that floods can—and do—happen anywhere. In fact, over the span of a 25-year mortgage, says Spindelman, homeowners have a 4 percent risk of flood damage, as compared to .04 percent risk of fire, and each claim can carry deductibles that start at $2,500. This leads to an increased danger of costly E&O litigation. And, if an agency has a concentration of customers in an area that happens to be hit by a flood event, it is likely to be exposed to dozens of claims—not just one or two.
“The errors-and-omissions exposure created by not offering a particular coverage haunts every agent. It is a well-established fact that following a hurricane, not offering flood insurance to your clients is a leading cause of E&O claims,” Spindelman says. “Groundless or not, E&O claims are real and have a detrimental effect on all parties concerned. The highhazard zoned properties will be far more likely to have some form of flood insurance due to bank insistence. While Floodbroker.com rates many high-hazard flood risk properties (even those that require elevation certificates), the program serves a significant market segment of property owners who are not obliged by a bank to buy flood coverage as well.”
As a PIA member, Spindelman knew his association would be the most appropriate partner to bring this important product to agents who need it. “The first reason is that I know PIA’s primary concern is to help agents run and protect their businesses. Floodbroker.com and PIA have the same mission,” he says. “Secondly, the association is an efficient marketing partner that has the infrastructure, staff and wherewithal to get this product into the hands of customers that need it—professional, independent agents.”
PIA Management Services Inc. and Floodbroker.com announced their partnership early in 2014, offering the product exclusively to members in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and New Hampshire. This month, PIA National announced it too has entered into an agreement, extending the exclusive availability to PIA member agents throughout the country.
“After our members experienced the damaging storms of Irene, Lee and Sandy, PIA has continued to look for ways to help our members as storms of this magnitude appear to be increasing in frequency,” said PIA Management Services President and CEO Mark LaLonde, CPIA, CIC, AAI. “We identified Floodbroker.com as a valuable resource to help agents sell coverage and provide them with important documentation and defense should an unfortunate E&O claim arise after disaster strikes.”
The primary goal of Floodbroker.com is to help agents sell more flood insurance. This is done by creating agency-branded microsites for participating agents. These microsites contain a proprietary National Flood Insurance Program quoting engine and have a unique URL such as www.Flood broker.com/agents/agencyname. Agents direct insureds and prospects to their Floodbroker.com microsite where they input information about their property and generate an NFIP quote. This quote is emailed to their agent who completes the sale using the agency’s regular write-yourown flood carrier(s). Floodbroker.com is a quoting engine only: It does not retain data that is input into its system and PIA members’ insureds and prospects are not shared or retained.
Floodbroker.com’s flood-zone database tracks with FEMA’s digital flood insurance rate maps. There are communities around the country that are not yet digitally mapped, so cases exist where the Floodbroker.com system may not be able to generate a quote. In some other situations the person completing the onlineform may not be able to provide all of the information necessary to obtain a quote. In both of these cases, the individuals completing the online form can still submit the information that they have input into the form. That information is emailed to their agent so that he or she can follow up and continue the flood insurance sale.
For a monthly fee of just $50, an agency’s website becomes a part of the exclusive Floodbroker.com network, from which it can offer online quotes to all of its clients—while documenting against E&O losses. And, set up is easy: an agency simply needs to send Floodbroker.com its logo, an email address to which leads should be forwarded; and a URL and contact information for the agency. The product is available to PIA members in all states and territories in which the NFIP writes business. PIA membership is required to access this program.
PIA members interested in the PIA-exclusive Floodbroker.com can sign up to get more information at http://pages.pia. org/floodbroker. For information on PIA membership, agents are encouraged to call PIA at (800) 424-4244.
