Engineering Blog · Post #57

Quality Scoring: How InsightUW Measures Submission Readiness Across 7 Dimensions

Priority tells you what to work first. Quality tells you what's ready to work. Together, they eliminate wasted effort.

The Problem

An underwriter picks up the highest-priority submission — a $15M Cyber renewal from a key broker, effective in 10 days. They open the file and discover: no application, no loss runs, clearance not started, no industry classification. The submission is high-priority but low-quality. The UW spends 30 minutes chasing missing info instead of underwriting. Meanwhile, a lower-priority submission with everything complete sits untouched.

Priority without quality is a recipe for frustration.

The InsightUW Approach

InsightUW calculates a 0-100 quality score across 7 dimensions that measure how "ready for underwriting" a submission actually is. Combined with the priority score, the UW can now answer two questions: Is it important? and Is it ready?

graph TD subgraph Dimensions["7 Quality Dimensions"] D1["Document Completeness (25) % of required docs received"] D2["Data Completeness (20) 10 key fields populated"] D3["Clearance Status (15) cleared = max, blocked = 0"] D4["Industry Classification (10) validated + internal class"] D5["Appetite Alignment (10) appetite score mapping"] D6["Submission Freshness (10) days since received"] D7["Broker Responsiveness (10) follow-up response rate"] end subgraph Tier["Quality Tier"] T1["Excellent (80-100) Ready for immediate UW"] T2["Good (60-79) Minor gaps, workable"] T3["Fair (40-59) Significant gaps"] T4["Poor (0-39) Not ready — chase info"] end D1 --> T1 D2 --> T1 D3 --> T2 D4 --> T2 D5 --> T3 D6 --> T3 D7 --> T4

Quality Tiers

Tier	Score	What It Means	UW Action
Excellent	80-100	All docs, cleared, classified, fresh	Start underwriting immediately
Good	60-79	Most factors positive, minor gaps	Workable — address gaps in parallel
Fair	40-59	Significant doc or clearance gaps	Chase missing info before quoting
Poor	0-39	Critical items missing	Don't start — send follow-up first

External Model Integration

The quality score is designed as an integration point for external quality scoring models. An actuarial team's ML model can push scores via the API, and the factor breakdown supports custom dimensions — making it compatible with any carrier's existing quality framework.

LOB-Specific Example

D&O for Apex Medical Group — Quality: 64/100 (Good)

The quality score tells the UW: "Data, clearance, and classification are perfect — but you're missing 4 documents and the broker hasn't responded to your follow-up. Chase the docs before investing in a full underwriting review."

What This Means for Underwriters

Work what's ready — don't waste time on submissions missing critical items
7 dimensions — not just "is the app complete?" but clearance, classification, freshness, responsiveness
Action-oriented — poor quality tells you to send follow-ups; excellent tells you to start underwriting
Paired with priority — high priority + high quality = work now; high priority + low quality = chase info now
External model ready — integrates with actuarial quality models or ML scoring engines

What's Next

Next: Prior Year Decision History — Learning from Past Declinations and Wins

Want to see quality scoring on every submission? Request a demo.