Real-time rating is the best and most accurate way of selling and servicing Personal Lines.
Combining the advantages of web rating and comparative rating provides you the most reliable way of finding the best combination of coverage and price for your client. It can also increase the likelihood they will sign up with your agency instead of an internet insurance company or a single carrier direct writer as you can quickly show all your carriers.

As are carrier web sites, the real-time environment can be less forgiving about inconsistent, incorrect, or incomplete data although there is some variation in data validation between carrier real-time engines.

Strange meaningless messages may appear if the carrier has not anticipated the data error involved. Thing like "Automation Error" or a string of numbers means it dropped through all of their checks to a default message. After checking your data, should this happen call your carrier help desk or Capital to see what was the cause. We have helped carriers fine tune situations and catch the error so as to display a meaningful message.

Here are common things we have identified that can cause real-time to display data verification errors or not return rates. These are not Capital's rules, but ones enforced by the carrier's rating engines.  If a risk is outside these rules you may have to contact your underwriter for a quote.

• BIG ONE - two drivers cannot have exactly the same name. For instance father and son both named John William Smith. It will cause an error 9 as it confuses the carrier logic. Change the middle name of one of them to say W for instance so they are not identical. Though the birthdate will be different they don't look at that and compare to see if it is possibly a different person.
• Enter correct credentials - they will be the same as those you use to enter in the carrier's website
• Effective date must not be prior to today's date.
• Relationship of 2nd client to 1st client must be Spouse if 1st client is marked Married
• If Marital status is married then 1st and 2nd client last names must match
• Marital status of 2nd client cannot be Married if 1st client is marked Single
• Marital Status of 2nd client must be Married if 1st client is marked Married
• Marital Status of Two males or Two females cannot be marked as Married
• Vehicle Vins must not be incomplete or invalid. If a carrier displays an invalid vin error first make sure there was not entry error. If entered correctly, call your underwriter to see if they have it in their tables and if not what to use that will validate. 
• Requesting Limits the carrier does not offer will cause zero rates to be returned from that carrier
• Failure to answer all questions, especially prior carrier as some have unique lists can cause inaccurate quotes.(Safeco for example)
• Marking prior Carrier as "Other" can cause higher rates than they should be. (Safeco, Citizens, others)
• Incomplete or invalid address information can cause a quote not to be returned.(PO Boxes for instance)
• Low or incorrect prior limits and/or Lapse in Insurance can cause a quote to fail if it does not meet carrier standards or to be incorrect if entry is inaccurate.
• Failure to enter complete Accident/Violation/Comp Claim Information will cause the policy to be different from the quote.
• As with web quoting, Real-time quotes do not run MVR or CLUE reports until you order the quote to be issued as a policy.
• Credit score is run on all Real-time quotes by the carrier.
• Incorrectly configured Firewalls/Anti-virus/Spyware and Microsoft security patches may block XML files from going out to the carriers rate engine. They must also be configured to allow XML files in. We found in late January there was a Microsoft server patch made available in late 2010 that blocks these files. It took the combined efforts of Grange techs and ours to uncover that one!
  
  
  
  

  A few Carriers will not return a quote for reasons unrelated to data errors but to restrict certain kinds of submissions.

• Foremost will not return rates to any comparison rater effective April 2012 to slow business. You can however rate from their site. As of Nov 2013 this restriction is still in effect. Until this is lifted Capital does not make any charge to have Foremost in your lineup.
• Mercury recently decided to return a Zero premium if you do not rate auto as PIF (Paid in Full)
• A couple of carriers will not return a quote where none of the vehicles have comprehensive or collision
• A few others have put restrictions on submissions by returning zero premiums for reasons we are not at liberty to disclose.  These carriers want you to contact underwriting.

Most important - Always use LINK to retrieve your quote on the carrier site. Never go to the site and enter it from scratch. They will not match!

There is a quote retrieval code returned to us to LINK you to the correct quote on their site  If you do not link you will be entering an entirely different quote

A number of carriers are now returning proposals in pdf format to present to your client. These are on the carrier's letterhead and are similar if not identical to the ones you get from their website.

Consistant and accurate entry of data has always been the best way of getting your insured an accurate quote.

Save this page to favorites to easily return here as it will be updated as more information is discovered. Specific carrier information will also be published here.

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