Don’t waste time on out-of-appetite submissions
As the insurance industry’s talent crisis continues, carriers are finding it increasingly difficult to hire and retain qualified underwriting talent, putting a huge crunch on underwriting operations. To maintain strong relationships with their distributors and insureds and continue growing profitably, it’s more important than ever for carriers to seek out new ways of improving efficiency.
One common challenge lies in submissions. Without a structured approach to prioritizing submissions, underwriting teams can find themselves wasting time on submissions that are out-of-appetite, leading to delayed quotes, loss of good quality business, staff fatigue, and reputational damage among distribution partners.
Developing a standardized approach to clearing and triaging submissions can ensure that underwriters devote more time toward those that are profitable while quickly declining or rerouting those that are not.
Let’s take a look at how one insurance carrier partnered with ReSource Pro to do just that.
CASE STUDY: IMPROVING UNDERWRITING EFFICIENCY
A leading A.M. Best A (excellent) rated excess and surplus (E&S) lines carrier found itself facing a flurry of submissions. With no standardized approach to clearing and triaging them, the carrier struggled to keep pace and faced challenges prioritizing and quoting in-appetite business in a timely fashion.
SOLUTION: SUBMISSION TRIAGING
Realizing the importance of the matter, the carrier engaged with ReSource Pro to support its submission clearance and triage process.
As a first step in the engagement, a dedicated ReSource Pro team assumed responsibility for submission clearance, allowing the carrier to free up resources to focus on the quote-rate-bind journey. The ReSource Pro team then worked with the carrier to develop a triage process and rules to auto-decline submissions that did not meet the established criteria, including underwriter instructions, distribution channel, geography, lines of business, and industry.
Rather than “submit-to-quote,” the process transformed into “submit-to-triage” and “triage-to-quote.”
THE IMPACT: MORE QUOTABLE BUSINESS AND FASTER FOLLOW-UPS
After partnering with ReSource Pro and implementing the necessary changes, the carrier soon saw submission review time drop from days to 24 hours, including clearance, declinations, and distribution to the correct underwriting team. Thanks to the new submission triage process, approximately 35% of submissions were declined or triaged to different teams. Consequently, nearly 100% of the business that underwriters did see was quotable.
By working with ReSource Pro to integrate people, process, technology, and data across their underwriting and policy servicing department, the company was able to:
- Follow up on profitable business quickly and effectively
- Ensure timely response to the distributors
- Create and maintain a work environment in line with the company’s culture
With ReSource Pro as a partner, the carrier better aligned its book of business with company strategy, enabled its underwriters to become more effective, and created greater satisfaction among its broker partners.
Read more about ReSource Pro’s approach to carrier operations
- Best Practices for Developing an Automation Mindset Across an Organization (Carrier Management)
- 3 Questions Carriers and MGAs Should Ask Themselves (ReSource Pro)
- White Paper: Differentiation in the Age of Consolidation (ReSource Pro)
Looking to enhance your underwriting or another aspect of your operations? Learn more about our Underwriting Toolkit, or contact us to find out how we can help.