Underwriting — Personal Lines

Receive applications (ACORD forms, agent submissions, online quotes), review exposure data, pull loss runs and MVRs, classify risk into tiers: preferred, standard, non-standard, decline. Check CLUE reports, roof age, protection class, territory for homeowners. Pull driving records, credit-based insurance scores, VIN data for auto.

You pull CLUE reports for prior claim history, request loss runs from prior carriers, check MVRs, and interpret the results. A single at-fault accident vs. two water losses in three years vs. a pattern of minor property claims all tell different stories. You weigh frequency vs. severity, at-fault vs. not-at-fault, open claims vs. closed.

Once you've classified the risk, you review the indicated premium against your judgment. Is the rate adequate for this exposure? Are there schedule credits or debits warranted? In commercial lines, you're comparing the model's output against your experience with similar accounts.

You manage a book of business through renewal cycles: reviewing expiring policies, checking for loss activity, evaluating rate adequacy at the account level, deciding retention strategy (renew as-is, renew with changes, non-renew). You prioritize by premium size, loss ratio, and strategic importance.

You manage aggregate catastrophe exposure: tracking PMLs by peril, territory, and concentration. You use cat models (AIR, RMS, CoreLogic) to estimate hurricane, earthquake, wildfire, and severe convective storm exposure. You make individual account decisions with an eye toward aggregate limits.