General insurance (GI) provider Paymentshield has launched a new service where advisers can refer their clients to purchase a home insurance policy directly.

The new online journey allows advisers to opt clients in to entering their own details online in order to receive a home insurance quote, which they can then click through to purchase in their own time.

Clients will benefit from Paymentshield’s optimised quote technology and partnership with third party data provider Lexis Nexis, which enables property data to be pulled in from external sources – meaning they only need to provide minimal information in order to get a price for their insurance.

Following referral via Paymentshield’s Adviser Hub platform, the client is sent a link via email/text to access the online platform where they can enter their details in their own time and buy online once they’re ready.

Louise Pengelly, proposition director at Paymentshield, said: “We’ve always been clear that we believe advised GI is best, but we recognise that an online journey might be the preferred approach for some customers, especially those with more experience buying insurance, or those who might experience less interaction with their adviser, such as re-mortgage and product transfer clients. This is about making sure our advisers are in a position to help every one of their customers with GI.

“With our new digital journey, advisers can be reassured that at the end of it, their customer is still getting a quality insurance product. The alternative is often to leave the client to navigate comparison websites alone which, because the quality of products on these sites varies so much, could leave them without the cover they need.”

The digital self-serve option will sit alongside Paymentshield’s advised telephony referral service, which launched earlier this year and has already seen average quote to sale conversion rates hit 65%.

Along with telephony referrals, all GI sales made via the new online journey will be integrated into the Adviser Hub dashboard.

Pengelly added: “Together, our telephony referral and our digital customer platform create a really compelling proposition for those adviser businesses who may be new to offering GI, or who simply don’t have the time to offer it themselves.”