General insurance (GI) solutions provider Paymentshield has introduced a new, optimised home insurance quote journey that it claims will bring greater efficiencies for advisers while ensuring they can still deliver the best outcomes for customers.

The enhanced quote journey, now live in the Adviser Hub platform, asks fewer questions than before, meaning advisers can now generate a quote for their client in in less than one minute. The total question set has been reduced by over half, with advisers finding they can now complete the quote journey in as little as 40 seconds.

To facilitate this, Paymentshield is sourcing key additional property data from global data provider LexisNexis Risk Solutions to automatically populate information. This includes property type, build year, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, wall type and brick type.

In addition, Paymentshield has also removed questions that have minimal impact on price and quotability. This includes questions customers typically don’t know the answers to, such as the types of window and door locks on their property, and repetitive personal information, such as marital status and property occupancy.

As well as providing the new quote journey via its Adviser Hub, Paymentshield has also developed its API offering so its integrated partners can deliver the same improved GI experience within their own platforms.

This latest digital enhancement from Paymentshield directly responds to feedback from advisers requesting a quicker and easier means of producing quotes. In a survey Paymentshield conducted with over 300 advisers, one quarter (24%) said they’d like to see fewer questions in the Home Insurance quote journey, and one fifth (21%) said more data integration to reduce the amount of information they have to key in would be beneficial.

It also allows advisers to fulfil an important role, plug knowledge gaps, and add value to the client relationship. In a recent YouGov survey commissioned by Paymentshield and conducted with 2139 UK adults, one quarter of respondents (26%) said they’d be unconfident they would understand what a policy covers if they purchased one from a price comparison site – highlighting the risks posed by a DIY approach to GI.

The remodelled quote journey was Beta trialled with The Openwork Partnership’s 4600+ advisers before its full roll-out.

Louise Pengelly (pictured), proposition director at Paymentshield, said: “Striking the right balance to ensure both our adviser and customer audiences receive the best possible experience has been a core priority for Paymentshield throughout the development of our new home insurance quote journey.

“We’re confident we’ve got it just right to enable advisers to deliver quick, accurate and competitive quotes. We also know from our market research that there is a strong appetite from consumers for expert advice and financial reassurance this year, and our approach with the new quote journey enables advisers to still do just that. GI is a really important financial decision and our new journey keeps advisers at the heart of that, giving GI the attention it deserves.”