As the insurance market softens in 2025, underwriting efficiency is more important than ever. Yet figures repeatedly show that underwriters spend too much of their time on non-core activities. For example, Capgemini’s World Property and Casualty Insurance Report 2024 found that 41% of underwriters’ time is currently focused on administrative and operational activities. Research has also found that three-quarters of insurance companies are still using legacy systems for core processes such as underwriting.
Yet, as the risk and product landscape has become more complex, underwriters must draw on an even greater diversity of data and information to assess and price risk accurately. This, combined with managing their other responsibilities, means operating across a range of disconnected legacy systems is highly inefficient, impacting response times, underwriting quality, and ultimately the bottom line. As a result, an increasing proportion of MGAs and insurance companies are choosing to implement an underwriting workbench.
What is an underwriting workbench?
Just like a tradesperson’s workbench, an underwriting workbench is a tool that consolidates all the information and data that underwriters need in the course of their work, helping to streamline workflows and manage operations more efficiently. By integrating existing technologies with the latest in AI, automation, and data-driven decision-making, an underwriting workbench removes the need for underwriters to keep switching between numerous tools. As a result, MGAs and insurance companies see increased underwriting quality, improved productivity, and better collaboration across teams.
Unlike a generic policy administration system (PAS) or customer relationship management (CRM) system, an underwriting workbench is designed specifically for the complex needs of underwriters, from submission through to policy binding. Bringing together all risk assessment data, policy wording, and clauses across a variety of products, as well as team management and collaboration functionality, these tools save underwriters time and energy constantly switching between systems, while maximising their output.
If your MGA or insurance company is considering investing in an underwriting workbench, these are the essential components to look out for.
Accessible data intelligence
Insurers can use underwriting workbench software to inform decision-making by integrating all relevant internal and external data into one location, presenting real-time takeaways in an easily digestible format. From rating engines and database integrations to spreadsheets, risk data, and financials and claims figures, a workbench can be customised to incorporate the tools and data sets you’re most interested in as a business. The data used can extend into compliance information such as Know Your Customer (KYC) checks and live sources such as Google Maps. Modern tools should also incorporate advanced analytics, predictive modelling, and machine learning algorithms to enhance risk assessment, identify patterns, and suggest optimal underwriting strategies.
Automated underwriting workbench software
Insurance underwriting workbench tools use rule-based, low-code software, AI, and machine learning to handle repetitive tasks, such as collecting customer information, generating quotes, and more. Insly estimates that these automated features free up over three hours of work per case. Employees can use that time to focus on higher-value activities, such as customer support or creating personalised policies for the highest value clients. These automated tools also provide an easy and effective way of ensuring regulatory compliance and auditing by aiding standardised workflows and process documentation. For example, Insly’s platform follows all standard security practices, such as sanctions checks, allowing you to administer fully compliant business processes.
Reporting features
Underwriting workbench software should also include comprehensive reporting features so teams across the business, as well as external partners, can be kept up-to-date with underwriting facts and figures. A breadth of reporting features and capabilities also enables MGAs and insurance companies to enable a flawless audit trail to assure financial compliance and data governance, avoiding costly compliance mistakes.
Document management
An underwriting platform should allow you to generate professional documents with one click and make changes to templates easily. Since workbenches are cloud-based, they enable documents to be stored, managed, and shared across teams, linked to a risk profile. . This helps to streamline the back-and-forth exchange of information with brokers or intermediaries, which is often critical to completing the binding process. A platform like Insly also lets underwriters change any aspect of the insurance product on the fly, including forms, workflows, and documents.
Customisable architecture
Every MGA and insurance company is different, so it’s important to look for a workbench that can be customised to your products and workflows. Customisable dashboards are critical so each underwriter can have specific data points in their personalised interface. Low-code solutions such as Insly are perfect because they are fast to implement, yet can easily be customised to suit a range of insurance organisations and ways of working. Plus, they can easily be updated as an organisation grows, responds to market changes, or adapts to an evolving regulatory landscape.
Collaboration and communication
MGAs and insurance companies should also assess workbench tools for their ability to enable enhanced communication and collaboration within teams, by facilitating structured workflows, task assignment, real-time feedback, and progress tracking. Senior underwriters can use a workbench to manage their teams more effectively, allocating cases and tracking individual underwriters’ performance. Managers can use the data to optimise workflows, improve performance, and increase satisfaction amongst staff.
Scalability
Finally, well-built workbenches are not only designed to streamline your back-office processes, but they should also be well-equipped to scale and evolve with your company. MGAs and insurance companies should therefore look out for workbenches with flexible, cloud-based architecture, seamless data integration, and responsive data support on hand.
Workbenches are no longer a nice-to-have but are now a necessary tool for insurers to stay competitive in today’s ever-changing marketplace. Providing enhanced data, automation, and a holistic ecosystem for underwriters to manage their diverse documents and responsibilities, the right workbench can transform the underwriting function, which is so central to success in the insurance marketplace.
Transform your underwriting processes with Insly
Insly provides underwriters with a centralised workspace, bringing together submission management, rating, document generation, compliance, and reporting so they don’t need to jump between systems. Built around the needs and processes of MGAs, Insly is low-code, acting like a configurable workbench where teams can adapt workflows, forms, and rules without heavy IT involvement. MGAs can also plug in third-party tools or data sources as needed due to Insly’s scalable, cloud-based, and API-first architecture.. And with automation baked in for repetitive tasks like sanctions checks, document generation, and bordereaux reporting, underwriters are freed up to focus on higher-value work.
