Engineering Blog · Post #112

Inside the Clearance AI Agent: Six P&C Scenarios Showing How InsightUW Decides

Clearance is the most repetitive, most under-tooled, most audit-watched step in commercial P&C underwriting. Every new submission has to pass the same gauntlet — sanctions, duplicates, broker conflicts, capacity, territory, license, large limits — and a decision has to be made: CLEAR, ACKNOWLEDGE, INVESTIGATE, or BLOCKED. This post walks through the architecture of InsightUW's Corporate Clearance Agent and shows it deciding six real P&C submissions across D&O, Property, Excess Casualty, Marine, Cyber, and Workers Comp.

The architecture in one picture

The Corporate Clearance Agent runs as a four-band pipeline. Enriched insured context at the top is what the agent reads — it never re-fetches from external systems; the upstream Submission Enrichment Agent has already hydrated D&B, EDGAR, Capital IQ, and Pulse. Eleven evaluators fire in parallel across four rule families. AI produces a per-issue recommendation with cited evidence. The decision at the bottom picks one of four paths — and every path, including auto-CLEAR, writes a KMS-signed attestation row for the audit trail.

Corporate Clearance Agent architecture — four bands: enriched insured context, parallel rule dispatch across Sanctions/Identity/Product Overlap/License families, per-rule results and AI recommendations, decision routing to CLEAR/ACKNOWLEDGE/INVESTIGATE/BLOCKED with immutable attestation — The Corporate Clearance Agent — four bands (enriched inputs, parallel rule dispatch with four colour-coded families, per-issue AI recommendations, decision + signed attestation). All four verdicts produce an attestation; only BLOCKED routes to the Compliance queue with a draft decline letter and halts the cascade.
*Click the image to open at full resolution.*

Reading the four bands

Band	What lives there	Why it's there
Inputs	Insured master, principal roster, affiliate graph, external enrichment, submission context	The agent reads — it doesn't fetch. Hydration happens upstream so clearance can be deterministic and fast.
Pre-compute	Load active rules (scoped by LOB + tenant), hydrate OFAC / EU / UK / AU lists, restricted territories, capacity ledger	Reference data is loaded once per run and reused across the 11 evaluators.
Parallel evaluation	11 evaluators across four families: Sanctions & Compliance, Identity & Dedup, Product Overlap & Capacity, License & Appetite	Parallel because they're independent. Per-rule writes go to `UWClearanceRuleResult`; failures become `UWClearanceIssue` rows with severity.
Verdict + attestation	AI recommends per-issue actions with cited evidence; agent composes overall risk and an action verdict; decision routes to CLEAR / ACKNOWLEDGE / INVESTIGATE / BLOCKED; signed attestation row written either way	The audit trail is the deliverable. Every decision is reconstructable from one signed row + the evidence it points to.

The four verdicts in one paragraph each

CLEAR — all 11 rules pass with no issues. The agent writes the attestation automatically and the cascade resumes to Enrichment → Risk Assessment → Pricing. The UW never has to click. About 60–70% of submissions follow this path on most carrier books.

ACKNOWLEDGE — one or two low / medium severity issues need a UW's eyes (an out-of-appetite class code, a duplicate-insured suggestion, a large-limit threshold tripped). The cascade pauses; the workbench surfaces the gate as "Awaiting your action" with the specific reason. The UW reviews, accepts or edits, and signs off. The attestation captures who, when, and why.

INVESTIGATE — high-severity issues (capacity breach, BOR conflict, broker license expired in rating state, restricted-territory hit, adverse-signal severity). The cascade halts. The submission routes to a Sr UW or Manager with the full evidence package. Pricing doesn't run until INVESTIGATE clears.

BLOCKED — sanctions hit (OFAC SDN, EU/UK/AU list, restricted territory comprehensive list), or any critical-severity issue. Compliance owns the next step. A decline letter draft is prepared. The cascade is terminal — bind cannot happen without an explicit compliance officer override with CUO sign-off.

Six P&C scenarios

Each scenario below is constructed to exercise a different decision path with a representative P&C line and a representative trigger. The "What the UW sees" line is the actual gate-state surfaced on the InsightUW Live Console.

Scenario 1 · Clean D&O submission for a mid-cap public company CLEAR · auto-proceed

LOB D&O · Limit $15M · Effective 2026-07-15

Insured Acme Diagnostics Inc · NAICS 621511 (medical labs, public co.) · CIK on file

Broker Gallagher Specialty · NIPR active in all 50 states · carrier-appointed for D&O

What fires All 11 rules pass. EDGAR shows no recent restatements or SEC enforcement. No active D&O policy with this insured. Limit under the $25M Sr-UW threshold. NAICS classified as in-appetite tier-2.

What UW sees Live Console header: "0 gates need you". The Authority Gates panel shows the clearance gate auto-cleared, collapsed under "Auto-cleared by the platform." Cascade has already moved on to Risk Assessment.

Audit row UWClearanceAcknowledgment · action=CLEAR · attestor=clearance_agent_v3 · signature=KMS-signed · 7yr retention

Wall-clock < 4 seconds from intake to attestation.

Scenario 2 · Property submission, $40M TIV warehouse, prior incumbent ACKNOWLEDGE · UW signs off

LOB Property · Limit $40M · Single location, NJ · Effective 2026-08-01

Insured Bridgepoint Logistics LLC · NAICS 493110 (warehousing & storage)

Broker Lockton Risk Advisors · valid license, in-appetite

What fires Large-limit threshold (≥ $25M) triggers a med-severity ACKNOWLEDGE. The Affiliate / parent rollup evaluator notes Bridgepoint is part of a parent group with an additional $18M of inland-marine policies elsewhere on the book — informational rollup attached as evidence. Sanctions, BOR, territory, licensing all clean.

What UW sees Live Console header: "1 gate needs you". The Authority Gates panel surfaces a yellow card: "clearance — limit $40M exceeds Sr UW threshold; group capacity $58M including affiliated marine". Buttons: Review & Proceed. The UW reviews the AI-drafted summary, types a justification ("aware of group exposure; CAT zone is benign"), and signs off.

Audit row UWClearanceAcknowledgment · action=ACKNOWLEDGE · attestor=sarah_chen · role=senior_uw · justification stored · KMS-signed.

Wall-clock Agent finishes in < 5s. UW signs off when they pick the submission up — typically same business day.

Scenario 3 · Excess Casualty layer that breaches per-LOB capacity INVESTIGATE · cascade halts

LOB Excess Casualty · Layer $25M xs $25M · Effective 2026-08-15

Insured National Petrochemical Holdings · NAICS 325110

Broker Marsh & McLennan · long-term in-appetite

What fires The Aggregate capacity cap evaluator pulls the live capacity ledger: in-force + bound + in-flight Excess Casualty for the chemicals class is at $87M against a $100M cap. Adding this $25M layer breaches by $12M. Severity high. Adverse-signal screen also raises a flag: insured has two settled product-liability claims in the prior 36 months above the carrier's frequency threshold.

What UW sees Live Console header: "1 gate needs you" (orange). Authority Gates: orange card titled "clearance — capacity breach: chemicals Excess Casualty $87M used + $25M proposed > $100M cap; plus 2 adverse loss signals". Required role: Manager (L4). If a Sr UW (L3) is logged in, the button reads "Need Manager" and is disabled. The cascade has halted — Pricing has not run.

Resolution path Manager reviews capacity dashboard, decides to seek cession or decline. If they proceed, attestation captures the rationale ("ceding $15M to treaty XYZ; net retention $10M"). Cascade resumes.

Audit row UWClearanceAcknowledgment · action=INVESTIGATE → PROCEED-WITH-CESSION · attestor=david_park · role=manager · justification + cession reference stored.

Scenario 4 · Marine cargo voyage that crosses a sectoral-sanctioned territory INVESTIGATE · cascade halts

LOB Marine Cargo · Voyage Houston → Mumbai · Effective 2026-09-01 · $4.5M cargo value

Insured Stillwater Petroleum Trading · UAE-incorporated; principals KYC'd; no SDN hits

Broker Pacific Surplus · in-appetite Marine wholesaler

What fires The Restricted-territory check (sectoral) evaluator detects the voyage routing transits a US Treasury sectoral-sanctions zone. This isn't a full prohibition — it's a sectoral one (energy goods through a specific corridor). Severity high. OFAC + EU + UK lists clean on the insured and principals themselves.

What UW sees Live Console: orange card "clearance — voyage routing transits sectoral-sanction corridor (US Treasury Directive X). Cargo class = petrochemicals; war-risk endorsement required." AI recommendation panel suggests three next steps: (1) confirm cargo classification with broker, (2) require sectoral exemption certification, (3) attach war-risk endorsement with sectoral exclusion.

Resolution path Compliance officer reviews. If exemption documentation is acceptable, the action is recorded as INVESTIGATE → CONDITIONAL-PROCEED with the sectoral exclusion endorsement pinned. If not, it converts to BLOCKED + decline.

Audit row UWClearanceAcknowledgment + linked UWSanctionsCheck evidence row (7-year retention). Endorsement reference linked to the subsequent quote.

Scenario 5 · Cyber submission where an OFAC SDN hits on a principal BLOCKED · Compliance only

LOB Cyber · Limit $5M · Effective 2026-07-22

Insured Northern Lights Data Services (Latvia) · NAICS 518210

Broker Apex Wholesale Brokerage · in-appetite

What fires The OFAC SDN screen evaluator finds a fuzzy 0.93 match on one of the listed UBOs (Ultimate Beneficial Owners) — Cyrillic transliteration of a name on the SDN list, matched after the agent runs both Latin and Cyrillic name variants. Severity critical. The agent does not proceed to evaluate the other 10 rules — sanctions evidence is sufficient on its own to block.

What UW sees Live Console: red card "clearance — OFAC SDN match on UBO with 0.93 confidence; submission cannot proceed." Required role: Compliance (L5). The UW cannot ack. The cascade is terminal.

Resolution path Compliance reviews the OFAC evidence, escalates to CUO. Documented-exception process requires written rationale; in practice this scenario almost always converts to a final decline. Decline letter draft is already prepared by the auto_declination agent with the OFAC reason code mapped to state DOI taxonomy.

Audit row UWClearanceAcknowledgment · action=BLOCKED · linked UWSanctionsCheck evidence (immutable, 7-year retention). All cleared CUO overrides require a second signature.

Scenario 6 · Workers Comp where the broker's license is expired in the rating state INVESTIGATE · cascade halts

LOB Workers Compensation · Class codes 8810 + 5403 · Effective 2026-08-15 · IL

Insured Prairie State Carpentry · 47 employees · NAICS 238350

Broker Midwest Independent Insurance · IL license expired 2026-05-30 per NIPR

What fires The Broker NIPR licensing evaluator finds the producer's IL license expired three weeks before the submission was received. Severity high. Other 10 rules pass cleanly (no OFAC, no BOR conflict, in-appetite class).

What UW sees Live Console: orange card "clearance — broker IL license expired 2026-05-30; cannot proceed without reinstatement or producer reassignment." AI recommendation: "Contact broker producer-licensing desk; check if reinstatement is in progress; alternatively reassign to producer X (in-license, same agency)." Required role: Sr UW (L3) to hold pending reinstatement, or Manager (L4) to override.

Twist · WC mandate state IL is a WC mandatory-issue state — the carrier cannot decline this submission outright. So the auto_declination agent's mandate-check overrides the BLOCKED path. The cascade pauses for the license issue to resolve, but the submission stays open. The Compose-verdict step records this nuance in the attestation.

Audit row UWClearanceAcknowledgment · action=INVESTIGATE · linked UWClearanceIssue for license + NIPR API response snapshot · attestation pending broker reinstatement.

What the UW actually sees

The InsightUW Live Console doesn't show the UW a Proceed button on every rule. It groups gates into three buckets per submission, computed from the per-run state of every agent:

Bucket	What it contains	UI treatment
Awaiting your action	Pending (clearance has issues that need a UW sign-off) or blocked (something failed)	Yellow / red, top of the panel, with the specific reason on the card. Buttons: Review & Proceed, or "Need {role}" if the active persona lacks authority.
Acknowledged	Gates where a human has already cleared, with KMS-signed attestation	Green, with who, role, timestamp, and the justification snippet inline.
Auto-cleared by the platform	Everything the agent passed cleanly — no human touch needed	Collapsed by default. Click to expand if you want to see "why didn't this fire."

For Scenario 1 (clean D&O), the header shows "0 gates need you". For Scenario 3 (capacity breach), the header shows "1 gate needs you" in orange, the actionable card is on top with the reason, and the other 30+ agent gates collapse under Auto-cleared. The UW's eye goes to the one thing that needs them.

Why this matters for P&C

Manual clearance on a commercial P&C submission takes 1–3 days, lives in screenshots and email threads, and is unevenly applied — what one UW catches the next one misses. The Corporate Clearance Agent compresses this to 4–9 seconds wall-clock for the deterministic part, with the human touching only the submissions that genuinely need a decision.

Outcome	Traditional clearance	InsightUW Clearance Agent
Sanctions screen consistency	UW-dependent; weekend list updates often missed	Always against the latest list (with staleness alarm); evidence row kept 7 years
Capacity breach detection	Requires UW to remember to check the dashboard	Computed automatically against the live ledger; INVESTIGATE halts cascade
BOR conflict catch rate	Often discovered post-bind during PAS upload	Three-query detection at intake; bilateral broker notification fired the same minute
Audit trail	Email threads, screenshots, PDFs	One `UWClearanceAcknowledgment` row with KMS signature + linked evidence rows
Time to "ready for UW desk"	1–3 days	Seconds for the agent; minutes-to-hours for the human review on the small subset that needs it
Role discipline	UW signs off on everything; authority is a checkbox	Required role is enforced at attestation time — a UA cannot ack an INVESTIGATE

Tunables a carrier owns

Nothing about the agent is hard-coded for a single carrier. Everything below is admin-tunable per tenant and per LOB:

Fuzzy match threshold (default 0.85) — controls how aggressive duplicate / SDN matching is
Sanctions cache TTL (default 24h) — beyond this, staleness alarm fires and results are marked degraded=true
Aggregate capacity cap per LOB / peril / territory — driven by capital allocation, not engineering
Large-limit threshold (default $25M) — triggers ACKNOWLEDGE even if all rules pass
Active-policy lookback (default 365 days) — renewals beyond this don't BOR-conflict
Recent-submission lookback (default 90 days) — window for cross-broker submission flagging
BOR overdue + reminder cadence (default 5 / 2 days) — escalation timing
Per-rule severity override and failure_action — re-grade any rule per tenant without touching code
LOB scope on every rule — limit a rule to specific LOBs or leave empty for all

Role hierarchy is six levels (L0 anonymous · L1 UA · L2 UW · L3 Sr UW · L4 Manager / VP · L5 Compliance). Each rule's failure_action declares the minimum role required to clear an issue at that severity.

What's Next

This post covered the Corporate Clearance Agent end-to-end. Subsequent posts will go deeper on:

The Auto-Declination Agent — how the state-DOI taxonomy mapping, mandatory-issue overrides, and broker appeals workflow combine to produce regulator-defensible declines
The Aggregate Capacity Ledger — how InsightUW maintains a live, queryable view of bound + in-flight exposure across LOB / peril / territory, and how reinsurance cessions net out in real time
Per-run authority gates — how the workbench computes per-submission gate state (pending / blocked / cleared / auto-cleared) and surfaces only what needs the UW

Want to see the Corporate Clearance Agent run a real broker email end-to-end — including a BLOCKED sanctions hit and an INVESTIGATE capacity breach — in a 45-minute working session against your LOBs? Request a demo.