Chesapeake Employers’ Insurance Company, the largest workers’ compensation carrier in Maryland, is increasing their appetite visibility and opening the door to more opportunities with Ask Kodiak™. In this interview with Chesapeake Employers’ Marketing Program Business Analyst Corey Grunert, find out how Ask Kodiak is helping Chesapeake Employers with appetite and eligibility.

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What was your process for communicating appetite to your agents before using Ask Kodiak?

Chesapeake Employers’ Insurance Company is unique in that we offer workers’ compensation insurance in every industry across Maryland. Since our creation as a state fund over 100 years ago and today as a private company, we continue to write policies for every type of business.

In the last two decades, we have worked closely with our agent partners to promote our services to all of their clients and highlight our discount programs. Now with Ask Kodiak, we look forward to connecting with agents who are less familiar with our products to serve the needs of their customers.

What business drivers and/or challenges prompted Chesapeake Employers to look at Ask Kodiak?

We began working with Ask Kodiak when starting a new project with Ivans to offer more seamless quoting.

“We saw the tool [Ask Kodiak] as a great opportunity to highlight the range of businesses we cover – all of them – and share class codes that may be eligible for higher savings and dividend programs.”

Corey Grunert
Marketing Program Business Analyst
Chesapeake Employers

Most of our local agents know that we will offer coverage even when other carriers do not, but not everyone realizes the scope of safety-oriented discount and dividend programs that make us so competitive in Maryland’s workers’ comp market.

How are you currently using Ask Kodiak?

Ask Kodiak is an excellent tool for agents to find us and work with us, particularly for new business opportunities.

For agents with existing clients who want to know additional coverage options, we spotlight key class codes for which we offer savings programs for industries like construction, nonprofits, restaurants, arborists, car dealerships and more. From 10-15% discounts and group dividends, we link potentially eligible class codes directly to our savings program flyers.

How is Ask Kodiak helping Chesapeake Employers create efficiencies in doing business with agencies?

Agents who have never submitted business with us can quickly assess if a risk falls within our appetite and begin the onboarding process from our Ask Kodiak homepage.

“Even for agents who currently do business with us, they can now easily identify which risks we will cover and which class codes might be especially competitive.”

How do you feel your staff is benefitting from leveraging Ask Kodiak?

We are so excited to make our savings programs more visible through Ask Kodiak. An agent trying to place coverage for a construction account in Maryland, for example, may find that their customer is eligible for a 10% discount for belonging to Associated Builders & Contractors, for Maryland Building Industry Association membership, for employing eligible union workers, or for having a Maryland Home Improvement License. There are so many ways to save with Chesapeake Employers that agents may not otherwise know about without submitting a full application.

Whenever we write a new program account, we recognize the many mutual benefits that we, the agency, and the customer receive – from higher retention for the agency and for us to savings for continued workplace safety for the customer.

Ask Kodiak allows Chesapeake Employers to share appetite across the AMS systems and technology platforms that agencies already use today. How important is that for the agent experience?

Wherever we can, we strive to make doing business easier for our agents. That includes meeting agents where they are and bringing information and resources directly to the platforms that they already use.

Ask Kodiak also powers appetite on the Ivans Distribution Platform. Can you tell us why offering a digital quoting experience is important to Chesapeake Employers?

Chesapeake Employers Insurance has partnered with Ivans for years to streamline downloading policy documents directly into agency management systems. Now we look forward to offering our agent partners even more efficiencies with quoting within their agency management systems to make the application process easier and quicker. That time saved can be the difference in an agency having the resources to serve their existing customers better and attract and retain new business.

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Real-Time Appetite Matters

Ask Kodiak is the search engine for commercial insurance products and a single place for you to manage Commercial Lines appetite and eligibility information. It is also now integrated with Ivans Distribution Platform, the industry solution for quoting and submissions. You can find out more on the Ivans website.