What submission intake means

Submission intake is the work between a broker sending a risk and an underwriter being able to assess it. The intake agent does that work. It does not quote, price, or accept the risk. The underwriter does.

The intake starts when a broker sends a submission. It ends when the underwriter has the answers, documents, checks, and open questions in one file.

Where submissions stall

A proposal form collects answers. An inbox collects attachments. Your policy administration system stores the result. The stalls happen in between.

• The schedule of locations or vehicles is missing.
• The loss history is out of date or covers too few years.
• The turnover on the form does not match the accounts.
• The risk address on the form differs from the one in the survey.
• A scan is not readable.
• The broker does not know which document you need next.

Each of these becomes an email to the broker and a wait. The file is in your system, but underwriting cannot start.

Use Form. Fact. Verify.

Form

Build the guided submission for one product. Ask for the answers and documents that product needs. When an answer changes what you need, for example a fleet above a certain size, the next question changes with it.

Fact

Define the details your underwriter needs: sums insured, turnover, number of employees, risk address, claims in the last five years, expiry date of the current policy.

Every detail taken from a document links to its source. The underwriter can open the document and read the passage behind the value.

Verify

Check details against each other and against the systems you already use, such as the chamber of commerce register for the policyholder. Show the result to the underwriter.

A failed check is not a declined risk. It is a visible result the underwriter assesses.

Ask the broker during submission

Do not wait for the underwriter to find each gap. The agent asks the broker for the missing item while they are still submitting.

The request is specific. It names the document or answer and says what is wrong with what arrived. It never exposes an internal check or an underwriting rule.

Keep the decision with the underwriter

The agent prepares the file. The underwriter makes the call. Keep these outside the intake agent:

• accepting or declining the risk;
• pricing and terms;
• referrals to the insurer;
• fraud decisions;
• claims handling decisions.

Start with one line of business

Do not start with every product. Pick one that comes in often, has a clear document list, and has an underwriter who owns it.

1. Choose one product.
2. List the answers and documents a complete submission needs.
3. Define the details your underwriter needs.
4. Define the checks that support intake.
5. Run test submissions, both complete and incomplete.
6. Review every source link and every follow-up question.
7. Measure the time from submission to review.

Measure the intake

Track operational numbers:

• time from first submission to a file ready for review;
• rounds of back and forth with the broker per submission;
• underwriter time spent before the actual assessment;
• missing items caught before underwriting starts.

Do not ask a model for an accuracy or confidence score. Review the evidence and measure the work.

Read how we built our AI intake agents around the whole case, including what happens when a broker's reply changes an earlier finding. The article includes a reusable pilot test sheet.

See it for MGAs

The MGA page shows how Klarefi collects, checks, asks, and hands off a broker submission.