An underwriter reading a submission is doing one thing: pricing uncertainty. Every blank field, every loss run valued six months ago, every exposure that moved without an explanation is uncertainty, and uncertainty is priced conservatively or declined. A market-ready submission is simply one that leaves the underwriter nothing to guess.
In short
- Five things decide it: the applicant, exposures, the property schedule, five years of losses and the expiring program.
- Gaps should be stated, not hidden. An open item the broker names is a conversation; one the underwriter finds is a reason to doubt the rest.
- Freshness matters as much as completeness — a loss run valued more than 90 days ago and an SOV more than a year old both read as stale.
What an underwriter needs, line by line
| Line | Exposures that rate it | What gets queried |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial property | Total insured value from the SOV | Construction, year built, sprinklers, values that add up, old roofs, TIV by state |
| General liability | Revenue | Operations, contracts, the loss ratio and the largest loss |
| Commercial auto | Vehicles, drivers | Driver counts against vehicles, radius, the loss frequency |
| Workers compensation | Payroll, employees | Class codes, open claims, experience |
| Umbrella / excess | Revenue | The primaries underneath, fleet and premises exposures |
| Cyber | Revenue, personal records held | Controls, records, incidents |
| Management liability | Revenue, employees | Financials, claims history, employment practices |
These are exactly the exposures InsightPlacement’s exposure engine asks for per line, and a missing one is marked against the line that needs it.
The six questions every SOV draws
- What is the construction class of this building?
- When was it built?
- Is it sprinklered?
- What is the building value? (Not just a TIV.)
- Why doesn’t building + contents + business income equal the TIV on this row?
- How old is the roof?
A schedule that answers these on every row draws no questions. One that misses them on one row in ten draws a list of questions and, usually, a more conservative price.
Losses: five years, every line, fresh
Underwriters want five years of losses per line — claims, incurred, paid, open, the largest single loss — valued recently. A loss run valued more than about 90 days before submission reads as stale; a line with no loss run reads as a line with something to hide. The loss ratio against the expiring premium is the first number they compute.
industry, revenue,
employees"] --> S["Market-ready
submission"] B["Exposures
this year vs last"] --> S C["Property schedule
6 checks per row"] --> S D["Loss history
5 years, fresh"] --> S E["Expiring program"] --> S S --> G["Open items,
stated by the broker"] style S fill:#e8f8f4,stroke:#10b981,stroke-width:2px
State the gaps
Nearly every submission has something missing at the moment it must go. The difference between a good one and a weak one is whether the broker says so. InsightPlacement’s submission package ends with an Open items section listing every gap by area — the drivers not collected, the location without a construction class — and the submission builder will not propose approving a version while a high-severity item is open at the data-collection stage.
For how this works step by step, see building the market-ready submission and cleaning up the SOV and the exposures.
