Bunker is a digital brokerage embedding liability insurance into the contracting process. Founded in 2015, Bunker's platform provides small businesses and individuals with a fast, simple, and affordable way to obtain Certificates of Insurance that exactly meet their contract requirements.
Bunker launched the first quoting portal focused on providing flexible liability insurance policies to freelancers and small businesses where customers could easily enter their information, receive quotes, and purchase policies online.
Bunker’s core customers are small business owners who want to purchase insurance easily, so it’s important to deliver quotes quickly to them. However, when Bunker first started, their users had to wait for Bunker’s advisors to manually reach out to carriers to generate quotes. This process was not only tedious for advisors, but also lengthened the time customers had to wait to obtain quotes. Bunker wanted a solution to retrieve quotes immediately to create a better experience for customers.
Bunker’s first solution was to integrate an API from one carrier partner into their platform which would enable users to receive quotes immediately for that one carrier. Their hypothesis proved successful as real-time quoting increased advisor efficiency and improved user satisfaction. However, doing this with one partner and one line of business only automated 10% of their flow; 90% of the time, Bunker advisors still had to manually find quotes for customers. Bunker was determined to build off their success to increase their automation rate and continue to improve customer experiences and team efficiency.
Bunker’s first idea was to repeat what they had done with their initial effort: build a direct connection to additional carrier APIs. However, their first integration had been time and resource intensive. Reaching a goal of even a few more integrations would require a heavy investment from Bunker. Furthermore, Bunker knew that the maintenance time and cost required as their integration set grew would also be high. They had already experienced the maintenance burden with their single integration and were worried about that expanding.
"Our original integration was built directly into our quoting portal, which not only took significant time and resources to build, but also made it difficult to iterate on as more carrier APIs became available. We saw our automation rate decreasing over time, while the potential available in the market grew exponentially." - Jordan Simkin, CEO of Bunker
What Bunker wanted was the ability to connect their quoting platform to multiple carriers and lines of business via API rather than the singular one they originally had. This would enable Bunker’s customers to receive quotes immediately across multiple products and carriers. In turn, Bunker looked to Herald as a partner to enable this connectivity quickly.
Herald is a digital infrastructure provider that connects software developers to commercial insurance carriers through a single API. With just one integration with Herald, Bunker would be given access to multiple carrier and lines of business via API.
Bunker set an aggressive goal to connect four lines of business digitally with Herald. Working with Herald, Bunker was able to make GL available via API for four products in the first two months. Over time, Bunker expanded to eight products across seven carriers and four lines of business through Herald.
Compared to the single integration Bunker had at the start of 2022, Herald has increased Bunker's API-enabled products by 8x!
Herald has enabled Bunker to see both increased efficiency in how they work as well as a step change in what they can deliver to their customers.
Bunkers’ advisors now spend significantly less time manually searching for quotes as operational efficiencies have greatly improved. They have seen a 40% decrease in the amount of manual work they need to complete, reflecting increases in automation.
Not only do Bunker’s customers obtain quotes faster now, but they also also receive more value with access to a larger breadth of quotes across a range of products. Since integrating with Herald’s infrastructure, Bunker has seen:
These changes reflect how Bunker's partnership with Herald has helped propel them towards their mission to provide customers with a fast, intuitive, and seamless insurance experience.
Throughout the year of working with Bunker, Herald and Bunker’s partnership has continued to grow through building strong relationships and providing excellent customer experience.
"Working with Herald has been a great experience. Not only was Herald constantly on top of all the different moving pieces especially when we were very busy, they have also been incredibly helpful and quick in acting whenever we needed them. The entire onboarding experience felt very cohesive and we’re really proud of the partnership we’ve built with them.” - Mara Benowitz, Head of Product at Bunker
As new features on the horizon launch from Herald, such as bind and servicing via API, they will allow Bunker to further accelerate automation throughout the policy lifecycle and enable them to deliver a better, faster, and more cohesive experience to their customers.
About Bunker
Bunker is a digital brokerage embedding liability insurance into the contracting process. Founded in 2015, Bunker's platform was designed to provide small businesses and individuals with a fast, simple, and affordable way to obtain Certificates of Insurance that exactly meet their contract requirements.
Visit www.buildbunker.com to learn more about partnering with Bunker or to get in touch with our team.
About Herald
Herald builds digital infrastructure for commercial insurance. Developers who use Herald can quote and bind insurance from multiple carriers through a single API.
For brokers and technology providers looking to engage with carrier partners via API, Herald helps construct reliable connections and dramatically accelerate product development timelines. For carriers and MGAs enabling connectivity via API, Herald builds and manages integrations with new and existing distribution partners.
If you’re just interested in learning more about Herald, visit our website or feel free to email us at hello@heraldapi.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay up to date.