Digital Insurance Agency & API

[cswarren]

Hi there! 

The company that I work for (a digital insurance agency) is attempting to launch a new life insurance product with the hope of hosting the consumer experience (quoting through product purchase) within our website, which is currently built on, and hosted by Hubspot. Traditionally, this is done with an API and with web developer help (assuming that most websites are built by web developers), but given that our company doesn't have those resources or tech capability (we're more WYSIWYG/plug-and-play experts), we were hoping to host this new experience via an iFrame and have our carrier partner host the actual experience (and background tech needs and data capture) on their end.

It was determined by our partner's tech resource that we can't host this experience within an iFrame due to tokens and other security parameters that an iFrame can't (as far as we've been told) innately accommodate. It was further represented to us (by the partner we're working with) that Hubspot, in general (via API or otherwise), would not be able to accommodate this user experience AT ALL due to security limitations and/or needs. We were told that one of our only options would be to host this experience/page externally on another web build platform (outside of Hubspot) in order to be able to customize the website code and incorporate the security features (like unique user IDs, tokens, timeouts, etc.) that are required for this particular experience. 

It was suggested by our Hubspot account manager that we reach out to the developer community to see if there were any alternative solutions available to us, outside of having to obtain a new domain and build this quote-to-purchase experience externally (via API or otherwise) and presumably with a hired web developer since this is far from our area of expertise. (I don't even know if I'm using "API" in the correct context.)

I appreciate your guidance, suggestions, and notes on previous experiences and solutions as it relates to this topic and scenario! 

-Chelsea

[IsaacTakushi · Accepted solution]

Welcome, @cswarren.

Thank you for sharing such a carefully crafted query  I'm happy to offer my two cents.

To be transparent, it will be almost impossible to build a secure and seamless quote-to-purchase experience without developer assistance. Should you decide to seek external help in this regard, I recommend starting with HubSpot's certified Partner Agencies.

You and your partner's tech resource are correct in believing that such a web app cannot be built with HubSpot WYSIWYG tools or Marketplace components alone.

That said, could you describe the "security limitations and/or needs" the partner raised in greater detail? I can try to address or at least validate specific concerns.

While you might have to host your web app externally, one bit of good news is that you should not have to obtain a new domain. You could place the app on a different subdomain of pendella.com like app.pendella.com.