Underwriting Decision Support

The Challenge

A commercial lines insurer writing manufacturing, construction, and transportation risks faced increasing competition and margin pressure. Their underwriters were spending too much time on data gathering and not enough on risk analysis.

The issues were compounding:

• Manual data gathering - underwriters spent 60% of time collecting information
• Inconsistent evaluation - different underwriters assessed similar risks differently
• Missed risk factors - relevant information buried in submission documents
• Slow turnaround - 5-7 days for complex commercial quotes
• Junior underwriter ramp - 18+ months to develop experienced judgment

"Our best underwriters have incredible intuition built from years of experience. But that knowledge is in their heads. We needed a way to scale that expertise across the team."

— Chief Underwriting Officer

The Solution

We deployed an underwriting decision support system that automates data gathering, surfaces relevant risk factors, and provides recommendations based on historical outcomes.

flowchart LR
    Documents[Submission] --> Extract[Extract Data]
    Extract --> Analyze[Analyze Risk]
    Analyze --> Recommend[Recommendations]
                

Intelligent Document Processing

The system automatically extracts and structures data from:

• ACORD applications (all variations)
• Loss runs from multiple carrier formats
• Financial statements (income, balance sheet, cash flow)
• Supplemental questionnaires
• Prior policy documents

Risk Factor Analysis

AI analyzes submissions to surface risk factors that might be missed:

• Loss pattern analysis (frequency, severity, trends)
• Financial health indicators
• Operations red flags from applications
• Geographic and industry risk factors
• Comparison to book of similar accounts

Decision Support (Not Automation)

The system augments underwriter judgment rather than replacing it:

• Presents findings with explanations, not black-box scores
• Suggests questions to ask based on identified risks
• Provides pricing guidance with confidence ranges
• Flags accounts that need senior review

Results

After 12 months in production:

• 35% improvement in risk selection (measured by loss ratio)
• 58% faster quote turnaround on complex accounts
• 4.2 point improvement in overall loss ratio
• 89% adoption - underwriters actively use the system
• Junior underwriters performing at 2-year experience level within 6 months

"It's like having a research assistant that already read every document and highlighted what I need to pay attention to. I can focus on the actual risk analysis instead of hunting for information."

— Senior Commercial Underwriter

Technical Details