Why BiPRO is not an IT project but a matter for the boardroom

An expensive misconception

In many smaller brokerages and insurance companies, the question of BiPRO connectivity is still delegated to the IT department – or to the external service provider who already looks after the broker management system (MVP). That is understandable, because BiPRO sounds technical: interfaces, standards, data formats. Yet this reflex regularly leads to an expensive misconception. BiPRO is neither a law nor a finished product that you simply buy and install – it is a voluntary industry standard whose benefits only unfold through deliberate entrepreneurial decisions.

Anyone who treats BiPRO as a purely technical topic leaves one of the most powerful efficiency levers of their own business model to chance – or worse, to the inertia of existing processes.

The figure that should make every management team sit up

According to a broker audit by the German Association of Insurance Brokers, 50 to 70 per cent of all activities in an average brokerage are non-value-adding – in other words, administrative tasks with no direct customer benefit, such as manual data entry, collecting policy documents from various insurer portals, or maintaining portfolio data by hand. BiPRO is regarded as the central lever for reducing precisely these non-value-adding activities.

For a management team this means: BiPRO is not a technical side issue, but a question of how a significant share of the company's own personnel capacity is actually deployed – for client advice and sales, or for avoidable administrative work.

Why the decision cannot rest with IT alone

BiPRO itself is not a tool you can buy. The standard is used exclusively through a BiPRO-capable broker management system – without such an MVP, BiPRO delivers no benefit whatsoever. This dependency on software selection makes clear why the decision carries strategic weight: the choice of MVP provider, the extent to which BiPRO standards are actually used, and the prioritisation of implementation are decisions with a direct impact on efficiency, scalability and, in the long run, on company value – for example in a later sale or an investor participation.

An IT department or an external service provider can support the technical implementation. But the fundamental prioritisation – which standards come first, what budget is available, which process changes need to be supported within the team – is an entrepreneurial decision that requires backing and understanding at management level.

The pragmatic entry point: one standard with major impact

The good news for management teams that have been hesitant so far: although BiPRO covers more than 600 defined business transactions, for the vast majority of independent insurance brokers a single standard is the decisive lever – BiPRO 430, the cross-company digital mailbox. This standard allows policies and correspondence from different insurers to be retrieved and managed through a single interface, without staff having to log into individual insurer portals and extranets.

The entrepreneurial appeal of this entry point lies in its favourable effort-to-benefit ratio: instead of designing a comprehensive digitalisation strategy over many months, activating this one standard already delivers a noticeable, short-term efficiency gain – an argument that translates easily into an investment decision.

What management teams should specifically examine

Rather than delegating BiPRO to IT, management should be able to answer a few central questions themselves:

• Does our MVP support BiPRO 430 – and is the standard actually activated? Mere technical availability in the MVP in use does not automatically mean it is being used in day-to-day business.
• How high is the share of non-value-adding activities in our own team – and how much of it could be reduced through existing BiPRO standards? An honest internal review provides the basis for a robust investment decision.
• Which follow-up standards are worthwhile after starting with 430? After the basic standard for broker mail, sensible extensions often follow, such as mapping contract changes or premium arrears – prioritisation questions that should be decided strategically, not purely technically.
• Is our MVP provider fit for the future? Whether a provider supports current BiPRO standard generations and pursues a recognisable development roadmap concerns the long-term investment security of the entire operation – a question that goes beyond pure software evaluation criteria.

The strategic dimension: competitiveness instead of administrative burden

BiPRO standardisation has long ceased to be merely an internal efficiency topic. In a broker market increasingly shaped by consolidation and investor interest, a company's degree of digitalisation is becoming a valuation criterion in its own right – for example in company sales or partnerships. Those who treat the implementation of BiPRO standards as a strategic priority rather than a tiresome IT obligation gain not only short-term efficiency benefits, but also a better starting position for long-term entrepreneurial decisions.

Conclusion

BiPRO is not a topic that can be settled with a phone call to the IT service provider. Standard 430 may sound technically unspectacular, but its entrepreneurial impact is not: it helps determine whether a significant part of the company's working time flows into avoidable administration or into client advice and growth. Management teams that consciously make this decision themselves, instead of quietly handing it over to IT, secure a tangible entrepreneurial advantage – today in day-to-day business, and tomorrow perhaps also in the company's valuation.