From a quote request to a client and policy record
How the Insurance pack turns a quote request into a client and a policy record in one step, and the new-business workflow that starts when it does.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Insurance businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
A small business owner rings the brokerage: they have bought a second delivery van and want it insured by Friday. A young couple e-mails asking what life cover would cost now that they have a baby. A company's office manager forwards last year's schedule and asks whether you can beat the renewal. Each one is a quote request, and each one may or may not become a client.
What the brokerage does with them decides how much retyping follows. Too often the details are captured on a call sheet, typed into a comparison spreadsheet, typed again into a client file, and typed a fourth time into the mandate. Achekam's Industry CRM, with the Insurance pack switched on, handles the move from request to client as one step. This article explains that step and what it starts, for brokerages in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
What a quote request holds
The Insurance pack is built for a short-term and life insurance broker, and it keeps three kinds of record: Policies, Claims and Quote requests. A quote request is where a prospective client's enquiry lives before anyone has agreed to anything.
Capture enough on it to quote properly and to convert cleanly later:
- the person's or business's full name and contact details;
- what they want covered: the van, the building, the family's income;
- any current cover, the current insurer and its renewal date;
- what prompted the request, such as a new purchase or a renewal notice;
- who at the brokerage is handling it.
Each industry pack sets the words the screens use, its record types, its pipelines and its workflows, so the request sits in a pipeline your team can see, rather than in one person's inbox.
Converting creates the client and the policy together
When the prospect agrees to go ahead with the brokerage, you convert. Converting creates the customer and the industry's main record at once, and starts that record's workflow. In the Insurance pack, that means the client and the policy record are created together, and the client's details are entered once.
The new policy record begins its own journey through the policy stages: Needs analysis, Broker appointed, Quotes presented, In force and Up for renewal, ending as Ended or Not taken up. Converting does not mean the client has bought a policy. It means the brokerage has a client and a piece of work to do properly. How those stages are used is covered in the policy pipeline.
The new-business workflow that starts
Conversion starts the policy's new-business workflow. That workflow sends the broker's disclosure and the needs-analysis questions, has the broker mandate and the record of advice signed electronically, and records the policy number and renewal date.
| Workflow step | What it gives the brokerage |
|---|---|
| Disclosure sent | Proof the client received who you are and how you are paid |
| Needs analysis questions | The client's own answers, before any product is chosen |
| Broker mandate signed | Authority to act for the client |
| Record of advice signed | What was recommended and why, agreed by the client |
| Policy number and renewal date | The facts that drive service and renewal |
The mandate and record of advice in the pack are starter wording that the brokerage must review before use. Have your compliance officer adapt them to your licence and your country before the first client signs. The disclosure and advice steps are explained in more depth in new business: disclosure and the record of advice.
The Industry CRM can also refuse to let a record move into certain stages until set conditions are met, such as a customer being named or a signature being done. A policy cannot look further along than its paperwork.
What the broker checks at conversion
The pack has no rating engine and no link to any insurer. Premiums, sums insured and settlements are the broker's figures, typed in from the insurer's documents. It also collects no premiums: it invoices only the brokerage's own commission and fees, and claims are decided by the insurer. That puts the responsibility for accuracy squarely on the person converting and the person checking.
Before converting, confirm:
- The client's name matches their identity document or company registration.
- Contact details are current, because the disclosure and signing requests go there.
- The insurer you expect to place with is licensed for that business. In Nigeria, the National Insurance Commission publishes lists of licensed insurers, brokers, loss adjusters and agents alongside its regulatory guidelines; South African and Kenyan brokers should check their own regulator's register.
- Any figures you carry over came from an insurer's document you have kept, not from a phone conversation.
Quote requests that never convert
Many requests go nowhere. The van owner found cover through his bank. The couple decided to wait. The office manager's company stayed with its current broker. Converting these would create clients who never were and policy records that sit at Needs analysis for ever.
Leave them as quote requests until the prospect commits, and when a request goes cold, close it with a note of why. Over a year, those notes tell you whether you lose on price, on speed of reply or on the product range your insurers offer.
When a converted policy does fall through later, the stage Not taken up records the outcome honestly, and the client record remains for future business.
Before the pack goes live
Review the starter mandate and record of advice with your compliance officer, agree what the team must capture on every quote request, and decide who checks conversions. Then convert only when the client says yes, and let the workflow carry the paperwork from there.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
