Not an insurance company. A middleman between you and one.
An honest assessment of Simply Business — an online broker that quotes you from a panel of carriers and adds a fee for doing it, and why we would rather you dealt with whoever is going to write the policy.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
What Simply Business actually is.
A quoting platform
They collect your information and present quotes from a panel of insurance companies. They are not the insurer.
Without it — Worth knowing before you compare them to a carrier, because you are comparing a shop to a manufacturer.
Broker fees
Fees can be added on top of the carrier premium for arranging the policy.
Without it — Check the fee line on the paperwork. It is a cost that a commission-paid agent does not add.
The same carriers you could reach anyway
The panel is made up of insurance companies that other agents also place with.
Without it — If the carrier is reachable elsewhere without a fee, the fee is the whole difference.
What people ask us about Simply Business.
Is Simply Business an insurance company?
No. They are a broker — they arrange the policy and an insurance company carries the risk, so the name on your certificate will be somebody else’s.
What is our honest view?
That you are paying for a step rather than for expertise. In our experience the value an agent adds is the marketing, the form comparison and the claim advocacy, and a self-service quoting layer with a fee attached is not doing those things for you.
What should I check on the paperwork?
Two things: which insurance company is actually writing it, and whether a broker fee has been added to the premium. Both are on the documents and neither is prominent.
Why go through a broker instead of buying direct?
Because it does not cost you anything, which is the part that surprises people. Broker compensation is built into the carrier’s rate whether you use one or not — buying direct does not remove the cost, it removes the person being paid to be on your side of it.
Commercial insurance is 96% of what we do — it is not a department here, it is the whole business. Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.