Next-level P&C Insurance Underwriting

Excess & Surplus insurance demand has surged over the past few years, and for underwriters, that means more cases to sort through every day. We’ve heard from professionals across the segment about how high the case volume has gotten and how challenging it is to keep up.

So what’s driving this? We’re talking about one of the fastest-growing lines in insurance, with a 21% compound annual growth rate over the past five years, according to Insurance Journal. The growth comes from the segment’s ability to handle uncertainty like economic shifts or environmental changes, which have gotten more complex in recent years.

We’re talking about one of the fastest-growing lines in insurance, with a 21% compound annual growth rate over the past five years

One example is a cannabis business trying to get insurance. That kind of risk wouldn’t even be considered a few years ago. Since E&S takes on the risks standard carriers won’t, it’s absorbing more business, especially as admitted carriers get more cautious with the economic changes. At the same time, wholesale brokers—experts in hard-to-place risks—are sending more business than ever to E&S carriers. 

The market's growth has also led to increased participation from both newly-capitalized and re-capitalized insurers, as well as managing general agents entering the distribution side. This influx has intensified competition, resulting in a decline in market share for 14 of the top 25 E&S players in 2021, according to Risk & Insurance.

The Hidden Bottlenecks in Quoting

As the market surges, underwriters are buried in rising case volumes and more complex risks. With more players, competition, and pressure from wholesale brokers, getting quotes back quickly isn’t just nice to have–it’s critical for winning and retaining business. But what is currently causing delays in the quoting process?

As the market surges, underwriters are buried in rising case volumes and more complex risks

1. Many submissions, no easy way to filter them

E&S carriers receive all the non-admitted risks that standard insurers decline, often from a wide range of wholesale brokers. That volume adds up fast. The immediate impact? Underwriters have a hard time identifying the winnable opportunities and spend time working on cases that are out of their appetite.

2. Quoting process is mostly manual

A big part of the quoting process is manual. There’s a lot of data entry, systems that don’t help with prioritization, and information in all kinds of formats.

Because of that, E&S underwriters are still spending a lot of valuable time on manual tasks. In some cases, quoting can take up to 30 days. Think about incorrect routing between departments, incomplete information from brokers, and offshore teams handling SIC/NAICS code classification.

All of that slows everything down. And brokers? They’re expecting fast answers.

And brokers? They’re expecting fast answers.

3. Complex risks with tight deadlines

E&S risks are complex, and they take time to quote. But with the amount of submissions coming in, there’s just not enough time in the day to go through them all manually.

Underwriters need fast access to the key information that actually matters. That’s the only way to speed up quoting or quickly say no to risks that don’t fit.

The Result

All of this leads to premiums not being looked at, slower response times to brokers, and losing good deals to the competition. In a segment where demand is high and it’s nearly impossible to assess every risk, it’s key to spot high-quality submissions earlier in the process so carriers and underwriters aren’t stuck spending time on risks that won’t bind. 

And when that happens, it’s not just GWP left on the table—it’s lost time and momentum.

Just think about the amount of premium carriers could capture by identifying the right opportunities from the start. Especially in a market that reached $130 billion in direct premiums in 2024 according to Insurance Insider US.

Imagine recieveing 50 submissions and already knowing which ones to prioritize, which ones fit your guidelines, what’s worth pricing creatively, and what’s a fast no

So, how can underwriters identify the right risks? 

It all starts with quickly understanding whether a submission matches your appetite through an efficient triaging process. Imagine receiving 50 submissions and already knowing which ones to prioritize, which ones fit your guidelines, what’s worth pricing creatively, and what’s a fast no. 

It’s not about writing any piece of business, it’s about writing the right ones for your business. With proper triaging, underwriters can move faster, get back to brokers quicker, and focus on what matters.

So, how do you actually get to the right risks faster? That’s where Sixfold comes in.

AI that Instantly Identifies Your Top Risks

Sixfold’s triage solution speeds up decision-making with instant, appetite-aligned scoring. Here’s how it works:

1. Showcasing the cases you want to quote

Sixfold ingests each insurer’s underwriting guidelines to learn the company’s unique risk appetite. Then, based on SOVs, applications, loss runs, and additional data, Sixfold’s AI runs the risk assessment, using both the documents uploaded and relevant company info it pulls from the web. It looks at the data points that matter for the insurer, such as for example construction year, occupancy, loss history, and more. From there, it generates a risk score for the submission from 0 to 5.

• 0 means it doesn’t fit your risk appetite at all 
• 5 means it’s a highly qualified risk for you

Solving the front door issue by filtering risks immediately means underwriters can respond faster, whether it’s a quote or a decline

The impact? Underwriters know right away which incoming applications are worth their time. Wholesale brokers are strategic partners for E&S carriers. But when underwriters get too busy, they are sometimes left waiting for a reply. Solving the front door issue by filtering risks immediately means underwriters can respond faster, whether it’s a quote or a decline.

2. Classifying businesses with > 90% Accuracy

In E&S, sometimes a small difference in business activity can immediately make a risk fall out of the risk appetite. That’s why accurate NAICS and SIC code classification is key.

Sixfold automatically matches each submission to the correct business classification code, even for highly nuanced and complex industries, so no more time is wasted trying to figure out what type of business the company is. This supports better routing and faster underwriting decisions.

3. Presenting contextual risk factors 

Sixfold surfaces the risk signals that matter most, whether they disqualify a submission, negatively impact it, or strengthen it. Everything is aligned with the insurer’s appetite and focused on the factors that drive the overall decision. Underwriters get precisely what they need to make confident calls.

Underwriters get precisely what they need to make confident calls.

See It in Action 

The volume of submissions in E&S isn’t slowing down. But with the right triage process, underwriters can focus on decision-making, quote the right risks faster, and bring in more premiums. 

The carriers winning today aren’t working harder; they’re triaging smarter.

Join our E&S product demo on May 21 with Alex Bontz, Customer Success Operations & Growth Lead. He’ll walk through how Sixfold quickly triages complex submissions and delivers the key risk insights underwriters need to take action.

Looking to catch up in person? Come find us at the E&S Reuters Conference on May 28. We will be there to connect with insurers looking for ways to improve their underwriting process with purpose-built AI.

Today, we’re excited to introduce the first-ever AI Accuracy Validator built for insurance underwriting. 

This application provides our commerical insurance customers with a transparent and comprehensive way to evaluate Sixfold’s accuracy—reinforcing our commitment to bring reliable and trustworthy risk assessments to underwriters.

Why did we build this?

For an AI solution to truly add value in underwriting, it needs to be both efficient and accurate. Many claim to be both—but is there proof?

For an AI solution to truly add value in underwriting, it needs to be both efficient and accurate. Many claim to be both—but is there proof?

Measuring efficiency can be fairly straightforward—reducing manual work, processing submissions faster, and automating repetitive tasks all provide clear benchmarks. But accuracy? That’s a completely different challenge.

How does it work?

The Accuracy Validator compares Sixfold’s AI-generated insights to the ideal version—what an experienced underwriter at the carrier would expect. It checks for accuracy, scores the results, and provides feedback to improve alignment with human analysis.

Here is a video overview from Lana, Head of Product at Sixfold, on how the validator works:

AI that speaks Underwriter

‍‍For AI solutions built for underwriters, accuracy isn’t about finding a single “correct” answer—it’s about reasoning like an underwriter. Take a risk summary as an example, an AI-constructed risk summary shouldn’t just condense information; it should highlight the key risk factors that matter to each carrier.

But what happens if an AI summary leaves out a key risk detail? How do you measure how off it is? What do you compare it to? And when a model is updated, how do you know it’s actually improving accuracy—not just changing the output?

So we started searching for an evaluation tool that could help us answer these questions — but nothing existed.

These were the questions we asked ourselves. So we started searching for an evaluation tool that could help us answer these questions — but nothing existed. It wasn’t just that we couldn’t find the right tool—we realized the industry wasn’t even thinking about accuracy in an insurance-underwriting-specific way.

So, we built it. With this capability in place, we can continuously improve Sixfold’s output, ensuring underwriters receive factually correct, reliable, and actionable insights for every risk assessment.

Benefit #1 - Track progress over time

Evaluating AI accuracy isn’t just a one-time task—it’s about ensuring consistency and continuous improvement. With clear benchmark metrics, insurers can easily track progress and see how Sixfold’s AI aligns with their underwriting standards over time.

Accuracy benchmarks help insurers assess Sixfold’s performance during the pilot phase, ensuring it delivers value to the underwriting team before moving to full implementation.

Considering a Sixfold pilot? Accuracy benchmarks help insurers assess Sixfold’s performance during the pilot phase, ensuring it delivers value to the underwriting team before moving to full implementation. Want to keep tabs on accuracy? No problem. We offer on-demand reports to give our customers a real-time look at how well our AI is performing, whenever they need it.

Benefit #2 - Confident AI adoption

From day one, our goal has been to build an underwriting AI solution that users trust. If underwriters can’t trust Sixfold’s insights, why would they rely on them for critical decisions?

Even in low-stakes tasks, AI’s accuracy isn’t always guaranteed. Take general-purpose LLMs—they handle simple research tasks and tasks such as summarizing reports, but even then, you might find yourself second-guessing their output. They’re right sometimes—but how often? And can you tell when they’re not?

The result? More confident decisions, stronger justifications, and a clearer business case for when to quote—and when not to.

That kind of guesswork isn’t good enough for underwriting. The high-stakes decisions underwriters make every day demand high-stakes trust.

With transparent accuracy reporting, underwriters know exactly how reliable Sixfold’s insights are. The result? More confident decisions, stronger justifications, and a clearer business case for when to quote—and when not to.

Benefit #3 - Audit-ready records

To support insurers’ audit and compliance needs, we conduct regular assessments using this application — both after code updates and at scheduled intervals—to prevent model drift and ensure reliability. This process helps identify inconsistencies and flag any deviations from expected results before they impact underwriting decisions.

The Accuracy Validator generates a transparent, audit-ready log for each assessment, allowing insurers to:

✅ Verify the reasoning behind AI-generated insights and decisions.

✅ Monitor model performance over time to proactively address potential drift.

✅ Demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements by providing clear, documented AI processes

Feedback from customers

As we’ve started to introduce this capability to insurers, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Some have even asked if they can use it to evaluate some of their other AI applications — a very clear proof of its value from day one. Others have asked to use the Accuracy Validator outside of AI applications to monitor overall underwriting accuracy.

Another key feedback we’ve received is that no other AI solution offers this level of structured performance measurement and tracking.

Another key feedback we’ve received is that no other AI solution offers this level of structured performance measurement and tracking. Sixfold is the first to give insurers a clear way to validate AI impact and track results over time in underwriting.

Curious to learn how you can get started with Sixfold? Check out the FAQ section to learn more about our pilot program, designed to help insurers fully assess the value of Sixfold before scaling up.

Reach out with any additional questions!

Sixfold’s in-line citation feature is all about building trust and confidence with underwriters by making it effortless to trace the source of Sixfold’s insights. And now, with our latest update we’re making this feature even better on our commercial platform! 

So, what is new?

When reviewing an applicant’s case, you'll notice these improvements:

• Exact Source Page: No more searching through the entire document—now you’ll see the exact page where a fact was found.
• In-line Fact Attribution: Each fact provided by Sixfold will include a specific source citation.
• One-Click Verification: Click any citation, and it will instantly open the source page for you.
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It’s now even easier and more intuitive to check exactly where Sixfold’s insights came from—whether a questionnaire, loss run statement, webpage, or any other source. This improves traceability and gives underwriters extra peace of mind. No need to read through a full report or scroll through multiple pages to validate Sixfold’s insights.

“This feature exemplifies our commitment to building trustworthy and explainable AI with elegant simplicity.”

- Drew Das, AI Software Engineer

Get in touch to get a full demo of Sixfold's platform.