New System Helps Dealers Buy Insurance

A company's new web-based software system is intended to make it easier for auto dealers to buy property and casualty insurance.

“For years, dealers have struggled to understand their insurance proposals,” saysJustin Engel, founder and president of Compared Insurance, a Reno, NV-based firm that developed CompariSys, the patent-pending software.

“I never knew a dealer who could read through an insurance policy and fully understand it,” says Joe Coulter, a vice president of the firm. “Dealers can pay $20,000 to $1 million a year in insurance premiums and they cringe at the process.”

Compared Insurance's process provides detailed comparisons of insurance proposals for specific dealerships. They are sent to the dealer principal before he or she meets with an insurance agent.

The process is an automated program without manual analysis. Here's basically how it works, using various click-on functions:

Dealers are asked to fill out a profile, indicating their insurance needs. The profiles and requests for proposals go to insurance companies.

The companies then submit bids, which the system sorts out and summarizes by “core-value propositions.” It allows dealers to decide the level of coverage they want, says Coulter, who likens the system to offering the services of a consultant.

The dealer, dealership chief financial officer or comptroller obtains dashboard-format reports and updates during the process so there are no last-minute surprises just before an existing policy expires, leaving dealers in a tight time spot, Engel says.

“Dealers can see which agents are doing the work and how many have answered any questions the dealers might have,” he says. “Dealers have a lot of important information in hand before getting a formal proposal.

“It takes a lot of fear and doubt out of a daunting process.”

The cost is $895 for a single-point dealership.

Engel, who oversaw the development of CompariSys, says he tried to make its use easy for both dealers and insurance agents.

“We're dead in the water if it is not easy to use,” says Coulter.

Engel is a former credit representative with General Motors Acceptance Corp. He was an account executive at Universal Underwriters for more than 13 years.

Coulter served as an executive vice president at Universal for 27 years. Other officers in the company are fellow insurance industry veterans Bob Asthon and Bob Maeyama.