Insurance and care service provider icare has said that brokers have welcomed a new direct platform for workers’ insurance, in New South Wales, as they still have a role in the insurance market.

The new direct offering, launched last week, is designed to improve customer service by making it faster and easier for employers to arrange workers’ insurance.

New business owners in New South Wales will be able to quote and bind workers’ insurance policies directly with icare, rather than through a scheme agent.

These developments led CGU to withdraw from the market last week, but icare group executive of workers’ insurance, John Nagle, said the new platform was designed with brokers in mind.

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“It’s about providing customer choice in purchasing workers’ insurance, and making it easier and faster for new businesses or their brokers to do so,” Nagle told Insurance Business.

“We’ve already had some fantastic feedback from brokers on our new portal, both during the pre-launch info sessions that we held, and on day one of the portal being live – they told us it was easy, quick and transparent.”

The new portal was designed following work alongside the broker community over the last several months.

Nagle said that more than 100 new business-owners a day will take out workers’ insurance directly with icare as the new multi-channel offering will also provide direct access to icare’s customer support centre for quotation and policy needs. icare will also provide direct access to its specialist underwriting team to discuss premiums or tailor an insurance package and, later this year, will offer the ability to manage a policy online via access to claims and policy data.


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