The submission arrives already read. An agent extracts the data, checks it against appetite, flags gaps and drafts a risk summary and indicative terms. The underwriter spends the day on judgement: whether to write the risk, at what price and on what conditions. Binding cover and decisions outside authority stay held for a named underwriter.
Where did the underwriter’s hours go before?
Into reading and rekeying. Submissions arrive as emails, schedules, broker presentations and loss runs in different formats. Someone extracts sums insured, locations, claims history and occupancy, checks them against appetite and chases what is missing. Only then does underwriting start.
On a busy desk, that preparation crowds out the work underwriters are paid for.
What does the agent do at each depth?
| Task | Depth | The underwriter’s part |
|---|---|---|
| Reading submissions, loss runs, prior files and guidelines | 1, read | None |
| Drafting the risk summary, gaps list and indicative terms | 2, draft | Reviews, adjusts, decides |
| Issuing routine renewals with no material change, within authority and rating rules | 3, execute within bounds | Samples, reviews the exceptions |
| Binding new cover or quoting outside guidelines | Held | Named underwriter decides |
Binding is hard to undo. Once cover is on risk, the insurer owes the policyholder. That is why it sits at the top of the depth scale and, in most firms, stays held whatever the agent’s certification.
What does a working day look like now?
Take a commercial property underwriter at a mid-sized insurer. At nine, twelve new submissions are in the queue. Each has a one-page summary from the agent: the key exposures, how the risk sits against appetite, what is missing and why it matters, and draft terms.
The underwriter reads the summaries rather than the raw packs, and opens the source documents only where something looks wrong. Each fact in the summary shows its provenance. A sum insured taken from the broker’s schedule is declared, not verified. A claims history from the insurer’s own system is sealed. That distinction tells the underwriter where to probe.
Two submissions are outside appetite and the agent has said so. One is a large warehouse with a sprinkler system the broker describes but no survey confirms. The underwriter asks for the survey. Another is a renewal the agent would normally issue at depth 3, but it held it because the loss ratio crossed the firm’s referral trigger.
What responsibilities are new?
Reading provenance as well as numbers. The underwriter now judges how far to trust each fact, using its source class. Pricing a risk on declared figures as if they were sealed is the new way to get it wrong.
Deciding referrals with the record in view. When the underwriter approves a held quote, the decision is filed in the append-only record with the facts the agent used. A later claims dispute or audit can reconstruct exactly what was known.
Setting and watching authority. The agent’s limits mirror the underwriting authority framework. If authorities change, the agent’s limits must change the same day.
Knowing the regulatory weight. Under the EU AI Act, risk assessment and pricing for life and health insurance is listed as high-risk, which brings human oversight and record-keeping duties. Other lines may carry similar expectations from supervisors.
What stays with the underwriter?
Appetite judgements at the margin, pricing for unusual risks, conditions and exclusions that change cover, declinatures that affect a customer, and every bind outside routine renewal. Also the broker relationship: negotiation is still a person’s work.
The point is made more broadly in your job descriptions are out of date the day an agent goes live: an underwriter’s role description should now include review and approval of agent work, not just underwriting.
Insurance support roles change in parallel; see what changes in a customer support agent’s day and what changes in a collections agent’s day. The overview is in AI agent skills by role.
How do you prepare an underwriting team?
Start with what each underwriter must recognise: depth, the four verdicts, the provenance classes and when a certificate lapse returns work to them. Certificates lapse after 90 days, and a run that clears no depth drops the agent to depth 1 the same day. New joiners need a structured start, set out in onboarding a new underwriter to an agent workspace.
Where the Academy fits
Underwriters who approve agent work fit the Operator track of Pryme Intelligence Academy; those who design and certify underwriting agents fit the Builder track, which ends with a capstone agent certified in Attest to depth 2 or higher. Module tests are set in the learner’s own industry and role, so the questions are about underwriting.
Questions people ask
Will agents price risks?
An agent can apply the rating rules and draft a price. The underwriter decides it, especially where judgement or loadings are involved.
Can a broker tell whether an agent drafted a quote?
Firms should decide and apply a disclosure rule. The underwriter who approves the quote remains responsible for it.
What if the agent’s summary misses something?
The underwriter corrects it and records why. Repeated misses of the same kind should change the agent’s brief or sources before its next certification.