What’s the future of comparative rating?

Comparative rating vendors are increasingly finding themselves competing with carrier Web sites. Though the carriers generally don't provide comparisons, agents find that they can get “to-the-penny” accurate quotes and often complete the whole submission process in minutes — without going through endless correction cycles with the carrier.

Complete MVR, credit score, claims history, and other underwriting and pricing functions are available through the carrier site and make traditional comparative rating increasingly out of step with the real thing. On the other hand, comparative quoting is valuable to agencies and, even when they can submit information to multiple carrier sites without re-entry, time is lost in trying to sort out apples to oranges quotes.

Is comparative rating a soon-to-be extinct dinosaur, or does it have an important, though perhaps different, role to play than in the past?
Will the ACORD XML quoting standards be widely adopted, and can rating vendors use them to get accurate rates on behalf on an agency customer?
Can rating vendors create multi-carrier complete point of sale functionality the way carriers are doing individually?
What is the future of commercial lines rating? Is it important to agencies? Does it have a role?

We welcome your participation in this forum. Please us with your comments, questions, and your own point-of-view!