The Perfect Ten: Good Underwriting Submissions Guarantee More Sales

The better your underwriting submissions, the better for you, your companies — and your clients.

Nothing is more discouraging to an experienced, professional large account underwriter than a poor submission. If you want to improve your hit ratios on new account activity and retain their existing business in a highly competitive environment, you need to provide professional underwriting submissions. Formal correctness does influence the underwriter’s thought process.

Because your insurance carrier should be an enthusiastic partner in the new account, it behooves you to create a conducive atmosphere. A “Perfect 10” underwriting submission would have the following characteristics:

1. Completed ACORD applications for all lines of coverage requested. Never submit handwritten applications — ever.
2. A thoughtfully written cover letter over the signature of a respected member of the firm, briefly describing all operations and answering questions which could arise during a review of the applications. These might include such issues as named insureds, wide swings in payrolls or sales, and changes in geographic exposures.
3. A documented loss history and analysis for all lines of coverage. Be sure to include insurance carrier loss runs, currently valued, for at least three full years, plus several months of the current year. Your underwriter will be grateful, and perhaps more receptive, if you provide an experience recap to simplify the underwriting analysis.
4. Comments on the physical properties of the account, including current photographs of representative locations or problem exposures. A good picture is worth a thousand words.
5. Identify the agency contact for additional information or discussion. This seems to be simple but is rarely done, leading to unnecessary delays. To keep the interest at a high pitch, be sure the contact replies immediately to carrier requests for additional information. If you determine that the carrier is no longer “in the hunt” (seeking business) compared with other carriers in the agency, notify the proper person there. It poisons the company-agency relationship to waste time quoting when one party is out of the equation.
6. Furnish the current program structure if it’s available to you (remember that you are working together), and spell out your pricing needs. This is a quick way to prequalify the interest of your carrier.
7. Furnish as much information as you can about the competition. This would include special coverages or services, or suggested alternative approaches to problem solving. This is the time to bring something new to the table and to begin to develop points of difference jointly.
8. Describe your agency’s long-range plan for managing the account. Begin to build a strategy for the agency and carrier to work together to lock up the account for a minimum of three years before the account is marketed again.
9. Outline the proposed timeframe for your carrier to release the premium quotation and describe any special assistance expected with the delivery of your proposal. More and more sophisticated and successful agencies are involving their best carriers in the delivery of proposals to strengthen the sales team and station an expert on site for any needed last-minute revisions.
10. Postmortems are an important part of the agency-company relationship. If a carrier provided a proposal to your agency and wasn’t awarded the business, ask for the courtesy of a post mortem discussion to learn the reasons behind the placement decision. This closes the loop and improves your future chances with that carrier.

Follow all these steps when submitting large accounts to your markets and you’ll see your hit ratios improve dramatically while the best underwriters will be standing in line to work with you. That’s a “Perfect 10” for everyone - including your clients.