Branch Insurance Exchange
Carrier website links, underwriting access points, mapped product lines, and appetite notes in one place.
This appetite summary is only a guide. Confirm eligibility, submission requirements, restrictions, and binding authority directly with the carrier or underwriter before relying on it.
Carrier appetite summary
Branch Insurance Exchange is a preferred/standard personal lines market focused on bundled home and auto business, written largely through its reciprocal Branch Insurance Exchange and select underwriting partners. Homeowners appetite and eligibility are enforced primarily through automated rules exposed in their rating/quoting API. Preferred / target home risks - Standard, owner‑occupied apartments and single‑family homes; Branch explicitly states that it covers apartments and single‑family homes under its home product. - Risks that fit a preferred/standard personal lines profile; agency guidance emphasizes Branch is “100% geared” toward preferred/standard business and does not want borderline non‑standard risks. - Bundled home + auto accounts are strongly preferred; agency material shows higher commission and production expectations tied to bundled business and a desire for highly bundled books. Key home eligibility & decline triggers (from API underwriting rules) Branch surfaces many of its underwriting rules as error/eligibility codes in its public Quote to Bind API documentation: - Property claims history: multiple codes (10009–10012) indicate that property claims history alone can make a home ineligible. Submissions with significant or frequent prior home claims are typically declined. - Prior home characteristics / construction: - Homes with square footage above Branch’s internal maximum will not be written (code 50002). - Homes with occupant counts above Branch’s maximum are ineligible (50003), effectively restricting very high‑occupancy or group‑living arrangements. - Homes built before a state‑specific build‑year threshold are ineligible (50005); Branch enforces a minimum construction year by state, effectively avoiding older housing stock beyond its tolerance. - Homes on stilts are declined (50009), limiting exposure in certain coastal or elevated‑structure areas. - Homes with wood roofs are declined (50010), avoiding higher fire and hail risk roof types. - Exterior Insulation and Finish Systems (EIFS) are not accepted (50008), eliminating that construction type due to water intrusion and defect concerns. - Replacement cost limits: - Risks with an estimated replacement cost below Branch’s minimum or above its maximum are ineligible (50011–50012). Branch targets a mid‑range dwelling value band and avoids very low‑value and high‑value homes outside these bounds. - Geocoding / location data: - Quotes can be blocked where distance‑to‑coast or lat/long are needed and not available (e.g., 50022 and 5023), signaling that Branch uses these to apply coastal/catastrophe rules and may restrict certain high‑cat areas. - Address & occupancy data quality: - PO Boxes are not accepted as property addresses (5013). - Incomplete or invalid address data (e.g., missing unit number, invalid ZIP) will stop a quote (5024–5025). Geographic notes - Branch sells home and auto insurance via the Branch Insurance Exchange where licensed, and via partner underwriters elsewhere; eligibility and terms can differ by state and by whether the risk is placed in BIX or a partner program. - API rules include checks tied to distance to coast and build year by state, implying tighter underwriting in catastrophe‑prone and coastal territories. - External communications indicate occasional state‑level withdrawals (for example, exiting Alabama homeowners in 2024), so state availability for home should always be confirmed at point of quote. Submission & data expectations - Branch’s digital-first model expects clean, structured data at quote: full physical property address (no PO boxes), accurate square footage, occupant count, construction year, roof type, and complete claims history. - The API will hard‑fail or require cure when key fields are missing (e.g., lat/long, distance to coast, unit number), so producers integrating or using comparative raters must ensure these details are collected upfront. - Prior property and auto claims and violation data are heavily used for eligibility and pricing; submissions with undisclosed or extensive prior losses will frequently be declined outright by automated rules. Broker / producer notes - Branch distributes via both direct and independent agents; when working through the agency channel, Branch expects: - A predominantly preferred/standard personal lines book (roughly 85%+ standard risks). - Strong emphasis on bundled home/auto accounts; elevated share of monoline business (especially monoline home) is discouraged and can be grounds for terminating an appointment. - Agencies must maintain acceptable loss ratios (around 75% or better on personal lines) to be considered or retained. - Agencies are asked to provide a business plan with a lead‑generation strategy favoring referrals and long‑standing relationships; Branch explicitly prefers that no more than roughly a quarter of leads come from internet marketing. Operationally, Branch’s homeowner underwriting is highly rules‑driven: producers should expect immediate eligibility decisions at quote based on property age, construction (no EIFS, no wood roofs, no stilts), size and occupancy thresholds, replacement cost bands, prior property claims, and state/cat‑exposure rules. Risks outside these automated tolerances should be treated as declines, as there is little indication of manual exception appetite for non‑standard or borderline risks.