February 2021 – This report is a digest of recent Novarica research on how changes in technology are affecting insurer underwriting capabilities, processes, and results.

The way insurers collect risk information, analyze it, and make decisions is changing rapidly with the evolution of technology and the proliferation of data. The challenge of the insurance industry used to be collecting scarce data. Now access to data is ubiquitous, and the challenge is managing and analyzing it effectively.

Technology is also changing the role of the underwriter, reducing their administrative workload and monopoly on decision-making and increasing their productivity and time for developing relationships with distributors. Digital workflows and straight-through processing (STP) are becoming widespread, leading to improved response times, reduced errors, productivity gains, and improved risk selection.

This report presents a digest of Novarica research on the topic of underwriting, culled from reports on business and technology trends, technology-enabled capabilities, the impact of emerging technology, core systems plans, vendor information, and insurer case studies.

Source reports are listed in the appendix.