More Than a Comparative Rater: What bolt Delivers That Others Don’t

If you’re approaching the bolt insurance quoting platform as just another comparative rater, you are already losing out. With the right partner, you can skip the narrow comparative rater lens and expand your focus to a complete, modular platform that supports you seamlessly. 

Using bolt as a comparative rater alternative lets you expand your market access and automate workflows, unlocking new revenue channels and boosting your growth. When you focus only on “rater” capabilities, you risk overlooking how the right partnerships foster long-term growth and efficiency, so you can truly thrive.

Exploring the Limitations of Basic Comparative Raters

Traditional insurance comparative rater solutions do one thing well. But that’s only a fraction of the challenges that face today’s insurance agencies, especially those aiming for growth and scale. They may handle carrier quotes well, but leave agencies struggling with their broader goals of driving sales and better servicing their customers. We are currently in a low-growth market, with organic growth rates having hit 8.4%, the lowest we’ve seen since late 2021.

Operating in isolation like this can quickly create data silos and throttle the full-scale visibility you need to run your agency at its best. Manual data re-entry and fragmented data management inevitably follow.

Agents end up wasting valuable time re-entering information between their systems, while quotes sit in limbo, waiting for further underwriting details. Opportunities slip through the cracks, as no single system offers you visibility across your customer journey. 

Further to this, limited customization options mean these tools can’t be properly shaped to the agency’s unique workflows, while these insurance comparative raters fail to help agencies expand their market access. You’re forced to rely on the same handful of carriers – the ones everyone else is also using.

Faced with these limitations with basic insurance comparative rater tools, agencies often plateau their growth. Ironically, their supportive technology is now their new bottleneck, not the ultimate solution.

How bolt Handles Quoting Differently

Luckily, there is a more efficient way to get things done. As we’ve highlighted in previous blogs, according to the 2024 Agency Universe Study, agencies that embrace digital solutions are seeing the growth they crave. And they aren’t sleeping – 32% of agencies in the study have already added digital self-service options, with 27% focusing on digital interactions to give them the leverage they need for success in a tough market.

Their secret? Moving past the limitations of siloed, traditional insurance comparative raters, and instead focusing on intelligent and streamlined processes that help to address these critical friction points.

With bolt, you get more than just another insurance quoting platform. Our one-pass quoting system allows your agents to generate quotes across Personal and Commercial Lines and Excess and Surplus markets, using a single, dynamic questionnaire that responds automatically to the data they input. No more juggling of multiple forms or repeating the same data across different carrier portals.

This smart pre-fill technology, paired with AI-powered quote intakes, helps keep keystrokes (and rework) to a minimum. As the agent begins the quote, bolt automatically populates their known information, showing only relevant questions based on the specific coverage scenario. This cuts quote time in half, while improving accuracy.

The bolt platform also includes multi-line and bundled quoting capabilities, helping to improve quote-to-bind conversion. This allows agents to offer comprehensive coverage to customers, increasing their per-account value. Unified proposals, rather than isolated coverage lines, help show prospects that you care about what concerns them, as well as increasing cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

Beyond the Quote: Full Platform Advantages

When considering a comparative rater vs. quoting platform for your agency, bolt goes beyond simply improving your quote responsiveness, too, offering:

Market Access at Scale

With bolt, you get access to a wide network of national carriers across more than 20 lines of business. This includes built-in wholesale appointments and comprehensive surplus lines support. Not only does this open up more options for your agency, but it also helps you better refine your market positioning into a strategic tool. Our insurance CRM offering seamlessly integrates with the expanded carrier network, so every new appointment can become a new business opportunity.

CRM and Lead Management

The native insurance CRM in the bolt insurance quoting platform ensures that your client records and documents, as well as clear, audit-ready communication chains, are all centralized. Unlike the typical add-on CRM solution, which needs middleware and integration work, the bolt system puts customer relationship management at the core of your agency.

Automated renewal processes ensure no policy falls through the cracks, while remarketing options help you address lost business. Everything is tracked and documented through the insurance CRM, ensuring your data is always accessible for strategic decision-making.

D2C and Referral Portals

It’s time to think beyond traditional marketing channels. Using bolt as a comparative rater alternative lets you capture leads 24/7, all in a fully brandable package that gives you a clear brand identity on customer-facing offerings.

Using partner referral portals with comprehensive tracking and attribution built in helps agencies build scalable (and traceable) distribution networks. Your partners can quote and bind coverage within your agency systems, giving you full visibility and control.

Integration Hub

The architecture of your insurance agency growth tools matters too. At bolt, we use an API-first architecture. Simply put, this approach treats the software as a modular platform, making integration with existing agency management systems (AMS), insurance CRM platforms, and even your telephony and marketing tools not just easier, but also more cost-effective, without the need for expensive middleware. Using this approach to insurance workflow automation lets you make the most of your existing technology investments without losing access to bolt’s enhanced options.

Workflow Automation

AI-driven lead nurturing lets you engage prospects throughout their decision process. Meanwhile, centralized dashboards make sure you always have real-time visibility into your overall customer pipeline and its performance. Our compliance-ready data handling helps you meet your regulatory requirements without additional workload and administrative tasks. By using insurance workflow automation, you can remove manual tasks that take up time without generating revenue, freeing up your agents’ workday for higher-value activities.

Comparing bolt to Competitor Insurance Quoting Platforms

Making the most of the tools bolt offers has helped agencies triple their distribution reach, all with a simple 12-week launch cycle, while expanding quoted premiums by 41%.

Compared with two other popular insurance comparative raters across core features, here’s how bolt stacks up:

• UI and UX: Competitor 1 is known for its powerful UI/UX, but it is consistently rated as complex, with a steep learning curve. Competitor 2, meanwhile, compares more closely with bolt for intuitive and user-friendly cloud-based offerings. However, bolt is consistently praised for clarity and digital simplicity.
• Integration: While both competitors are known and trusted for their certified third-party integrations, many users feel bolt’s open Insurtech exchange offers greater flexibility for embedded insurance options.
• Rate Accuracy: With competitor 1, rate accuracy was strong through carrier integrations, but user complaints noted the UI limitations affecting visibility. Competitor 2 likewise carries a high score, but data mapping issues needing manual intervention are often mentioned. bolt shone for scaled quoting and consistent delivery using trusted technology.
• Wholesale Access: While both competitors are strong, competitor 2 is traditionally associated with personal lines, relying on bolt’s infrastructure to expand its commercial lines offerings. Competitor 1 leans toward commercial lines support. bolt was highlighted for its diverse carrier access and deep distribution networks. 

While competitor 2 is known for an intuitive interface and strong personal lines quoting, and competitor 1 was seen as well-suited for enterprise-grade integrations, offering impressive customization, bolt shone through all criteria for embedded flexibility and global distribution scale, offering much more than a traditional AMS can.

Using bolt as More Than a Comparative Rater: Your Takeaways

It’s time to do more, without overburdening your existing staff and workflows. To make the most of insurance workflow automation that grows with you, start by:

1. Auditing your quoting process, identifying inefficiencies beyond simple rate returns.
2. Look for solutions that integrate insurance CRM, market access, and renewal support alongside traditional insurance comparative rater offerings.
3. Don’t lose sight of scalability. Your tech stack should support future growth without needing costly replacements along the way. 

While a traditional insurance comparative rater may quote, bolt offers you the tools and support you need to grow your agency to new heights. Are you ready to see the difference a growth-focused insurance quoting platform can make? Request a demo today, and see bolt in action for yourself.