Underwriters spend the majority of their time on quote and bind procedures. However, when you are handling these activities manually, much of the time is spent on repetitive processes that don’t add value to your company.
Tasks like emailing brokers to exchange risk information, opening spreadsheets and databases to calculate premiums, checking price information, the list goes on and on.
That said, some manual underwriting tasks are essential for managing business risk; checking and verifying information, for example, is key to minimising errors and eliminating fraud.
However, underwriters can benefit from tools that help ensure they’re only performing manual tasks that benefit the business’s bottom line, while automating the rest. In this post, we’ll walk through some of the tools that can help underwriters do their job to the best of their ability.
Risk submission
Manual underwriting method: Brokers submit risk information via email. From there, the underwriter may (in extreme cases) need to open a zip file containing information scanned from paper documents.
Automated quote and bind method: Insurance software tools like Insly can automate risk submission for simple cases that require minimal underwriting input, delivering a quote moments after risk information is submitted online. For more complex cases, automated quote and bind tools can send a referral notification to the underwriter, prompting them to take a closer look. Nora, Insly’s AI layer, takes this further by reading broker submissions in any format and extracting the data underwriters need automatically, rather than relying on brokers to submit in a fixed structure.
Customer background checks
Manual underwriting method: Background checks are essential. Underwriters performing these tasks must log in and submit customer details on credit checking sites and sanction databases andverify information against listings on sites like Companies House. These individual checks can take up to 30 minutes to complete if the underwriter (or their assistant) has to enter the same information multiple times.
Automated quote and bind method: Information entered in risk submission forms can be instantly checked against background-checking resources, with any errors or inconsistencies flagged for the underwriter. Modern insurance quote and bind software is API-native and automatically updated by site developers, so underwriters can be assured their sources are up to date and reliable.
Calculating premiums and producing quotes
Manual underwriting method: The underwriter manually enters risk information into a spreadsheet to calculate base premium costs, then adds discounts and further conditions before entering the final calculation into a document, exporting it to PDF and attaching it to an email back to the broker. If there’s an error in the pricing, the underwriter needs to repeat the whole process and send the updated PDF back to the broker, who then has to inform the customer that a mistake was made, the kind of error that can harm a company’s reputation.
Automated quote and bind method: Risk information is automatically entered into the underwriter’s insurance rating engine, instantly bringing up the correct premium price. Insly’s onboarding team will take your existing premium spreadsheets and configure them into your underwriting system so you can optimise this stage of the sales process seamlessly. The system flags any discounts or conditions that need to be applied to the final price and the finished quote is automatically added to a document, converted to PDF and sent directly to the broker.
Bonus benefit of an automated quote and bind tool: Connecting your quote and bind functions with document generation also eliminates common errors in document formatting, spelling, logo placement, spacing and more. Insly can help you configure document generation to align with your brand colour scheme, logo and font preferences, so your customer-facing documents are correct and presented well every time.
Which quote and bind method saves you more time and costs?
We may be biased, but we believe Insly’s automated quote and bind toolkit saves underwriters a lot of time and removes much of the risk of human error in this crucial part of the business.
At the same time, some manual processes will always need to remain, verifying information used in background checks and reviewing premium price and policy conditions among them. But for simpler risk cases, our platform lets you complete the quote and bind process with little to no human intervention, freeing up time in your underwriting team’s day.
Automate quote and bind with low-risk insurance software
Insly is built as low-risk insurance software: a low-risk, modular platform, so automating quote and bind doesn’t mean losing control over pricing, rules, or documents, you can adjust all of it yourself as your business changes. Nora, Insly’s AI layer, adds a further layer of automation on top, from submission to referral.
We work with 70+ MGAs and insurers and on average our customers handle double the gross written premium they managed on their previous systems.
