Tony Cid, Head of Commercial Insurance at Intellect SEEC writes in PC 360 about how technology can create a new breed of underwriters

1. BY TONY CID
An exciting new frontier of
improved customer service and
profitability is emerging in the
Property and Casualty insurance
industry — that of underwriting.
Where historically an underwrit-
er’s job has been viewed as one
of accepting or rejecting risks and
also one of creating a homogenous
portfolio of risks, we are witnessing
the emergence of a new breed of
underwriters because the advent of
new technology. This new class of
underwriters is leading the change
in revolutionizing the insurance
business and better equipped to
handle risk management.
Technology holds the key to
the shifting sands of market dy-
namics in the industry. We are
surrounded by a combination of
market forces that are moving
customer expectations. There is
a greater number of millennials
joining the workforce, customers’
preferences and expectations are
being reshaped and sharpened
by providers such as Facebook,
Amazon, Alibaba and Seamless.
Even our transportation is becom-
ing on-demand with providers
such as Uber and Lyft. Money is
being increasingly digitalized. In
such a stimulating and progres-
sive environment going through a
great amount of flux, the nature of
risk assessment and selection must
address not only internal require-
ments, but those of the insured
and the agent.
STATUS QUO IN
UNDERWRITING
In conventional underwriting,
agents send in their applications to
an underwriting contact within the
carrier’s organization.
The underwriter receives the appli-
cations in a paper-based and mostly
manual environment. The underwrit-
ing process is cumbersome, with the
underwriter spending a considerable
amount of time in researching the risk
and populating data subsequently in
an internal system. This stage common-
ly involves a lot of navigation back
and forth through non-regularized
systems such as e-mails and legacy
systems, such as policy administration.
The underwriter is left with little
bandwidth in closely examining, quot-
ing and optimally pricing the risk.
As an industry, there is an over-
whelming need for technology to
create fluid connections among the
various stakeholders in the insur-
ance process.
The technology must include robust
analytical capabilities that free the
underwriter to address customer and
agent needs as well as ensure ap-
propriate risk pricing and positioning.
A cohesive technology that spans
across agent portal, policy and
claims systems, document manage-
ment and e-mail, to predictive mod-
els, analytics, business intelligence
tools, and a variety of data services.
MAY 16, 2016
Technology can create a new
breed of underwriters
FILED UNDER: CARRIER INNOVATIONS, TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION
www.propertycasualty360.com
Underwriting is one of the few areas in the insurance industry that has yet to use technology to the fullest.
(Photo: iStock)

2. The application must also take into
account the interconnected nature
of the process and should bring in
workflow capabilities to move tasks
from agents to underwriters seam-
lessly. Empowered by technology, the
underwriting staff can expand their
view of risk by working with agents in
real time to better manage their risk.
Agents also have a window into the
missing information about risks and
exposures, and can remove obstacles
the application process encounters.
TECHNOLOGY AS A
DIFFERENTIATOR
As an industry, we have focused the
underwriter’s role around receiving data
that comes from the producer, check-
ing to make sure the data is accurate
and determining based upon the data,
whether the risk is acceptable or not.
In addition, underwriters must
assess whether the risk is even a risk
that they would like to write. Technol-
ogy has progressed to the extent that
a volume of the risks that the carrier
organization is screening can be
underwritten through rules-driven pro-
filing and straight-through processing.
Carriers can take on the risks suited
to their appetite by setting pre-qualifi-
cation and eligibility rules. This helps
build a better book
of business and
positively impacts
profitability.
The present under-
writing ecosystem is
burdened with a pol-
icy-centric view of customers, leading
to not meeting customer expectations
of a seamless interaction with com-
panies. The process must become
customer-centric. Modern technology
perfectively positioned should provide
a single view of the insured’s account
across the enterprise, lines of busi-
ness, policy systems and devices.
Applying these capabilities enables
the underwriter to focus on increased
agent efficiency and meeting custom-
er expectations while better analyz-
ing and pricing every risk.
WHY IS THIS NECESSARY?
These new applications are rich in
the sources of data available to the
underwriter, which will increase the un-
derwriter’s effectiveness and help them
better manage their risk by reducing
the amount of time spent searching
through various data sources.
Standardizing the data used by the
underwriters, embedding consistent
rules throughout the organization and
allowing underwriting knowledge to
be codified and maintained will pro-
vide a single source of truth for the or-
ganization. As importantly, underwrit-
ers will be able to identify cross sell
and upsell opportunities across lines
of business. In general, these applica-
tions will allow the underwriter to be
more surgical in their approach to the
business and generate loss ratios that
will outperform the industry.
Underwriting is one of the few
bastions left to fully leverage and
use technology to the fullest. Given
the current competitive landscape, it
is essential that available technolo-
gy be applied to the greatest extent
to accurately price risks, create
stronger relationships with agents
and better serve customers.
Tony Cid, Global Head of Commercial
Insurance at Intellect SEEC.
tony.cid@intellectdesign.com
MAY 16, 2016
Reprinted with permission from the May 16, 2016 edition of PropertyCasualty360 © 2016 ALM Media Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited.
For information, contact 877-257-3382 or reprints@alm.com. #PC3-05-16-02
www.intellectSEEC.com
(Photo: Shutterstock)
On the whole, we need to increase the
ease of doing business between the carriers
and the agents to better serve the insured.