Commercial Lines Underwriting: Data, AI, and Automation

Traditional types of data used in commercial lines underwriting have typically been accessed from submissions, public records, and various databases. In recent years, there has been an explosion of types of information available, and technology that has simplified underwriters’ access to that information.

Fundamentally there are two kinds of underwriting automation.

1. Complete straight through processing (STP).
2. Process automation in which some, but not all, processes or sub-processes are automated.

As Figure 1 illustrates, a complete underwriting process can be straight through, or some combination of manual and automated processes.

Figure 1: Manual and Automated Underwriting Workflows

This report clarifies the differences between “Making a Decision AI” and “Summarizing and Organizing Gen AI.”

The report provides brief profiles of three representative solutions that support decisions in commercial lines underwriting processes: IntellectAI, Gradient AI, and FRISS.

Data and information (internal and external), “Making a Decision AI” and “Summarizing and Organizing Gen AI” are slowly but inexorably making small and some midsize commercial underwriting processes smarter and faster.