New Innovator: ClearChoice

Paul Merriman is a financial broker whose experience of starting his own business in 2010 unexpectedly launched his career in a new direction. Driven by need, Merriman is now a software-as-a-service entrepreneur with a product called ClearChoice that helps brokers compare the benefits of different protection policies.

Merriman cut his teeth in the insurance industry for 14 years with RSA and Irish Life before striking out on his own. "The sheer scale of the market and rigorous Central Bank obligations felt somewhat overwhelming initially," he says. "I felt I needed a system that could help me navigate the protection market to ensure the advice I was giving was compliant and suitable to customers' needs. But I soon discovered such a system didn't exist. This presented the opportunity to create one myself."

Merriman had no experience of software development but he knew what he wanted the system to do and he was determined to end up with that. “I hired a developer and literally sat with him every day working through every detail until we had the solution working as I wanted. I then took it to the life companies for feedback at which point I knew we were on to something. Only then did we outsource the final software build,” he says.

The development of ClearChoice began in 2012 and the product was officially launched in March of this year. The company employs six people and its initial target market is the 1,200-strong group of Irish-based intermediaries. However Merriman says the product will work in other markets where regulation is similar. So far, 150 brokers have signed up for the product which costs €37 a month for four users for the first year.

"Our system will be of value to all insurance intermediaries advising consumers on protection policies such as income protection, life assurance and serious illness cover," Merriman says. "It compares, in an unbiased way, each of the 43 protection products on offer from the six largest life assurance providers in Ireland. Within these 43 products there are 1,587 different product specifications and theoretically, under Central Bank rules, these products should all be researched and compared to ensure that a specific product is suited to an individual consumer.

“Before ClearChoice, brokers had to spend a huge amount of time researching products by contacting each company individually. Products are also periodically changed so this research was ongoing,” he adds.

“With ClearChoice, brokers can see a peer-to-peer comparison of policies, with all products and specs in one location. We have co-operation from the providers to ensure our information is accurate and up to date.

Our system ticks a big box for intermediaries by complying fully with Central Bank rules on research and market analysis.”

Apart from making life easier for brokers, Merriman also hopes ClearChoice will benefit consumers. “We think standing products side by side will encourage product enhancements and we have already seen some movement by larger insurers to improve products exposed as subpar by the system,” he says.

It has cost around €200,000 to develop ClearChoice. This was funded by Merriman with support from the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown LEO and contributions from the six main life protection companies here. “We needed their permission to use their information and when I explained what we were doing they saw it as an opportunity to up-skill brokers and improve the level of advice being given,” says Merriman, whose company has been selected as Dún Laoghaire Rathdown LEO’s nominee for the 2016 National Enterprise Awards.

“Compared with the other software products brokers use, ours is very reasonably priced so our target is to get around 500 brokers on board. At that point we will begin reinvesting in the software and taking it in other directions,” Merriman says.

– OLIVE KEOGH