Day In The Life of An Underwriter Job | Exposure Management in 10 min! - YouTube

Hi everyone it's Larry, I wanted to make  this video because I’ve received quite a  

few comments on previous YouTube videos as  well as messages that have been sent to me  

through email or social media asking about what  is it like to be an underwriter what is the job  

of an underwriter what does an underwriter  really do and what are some of the skills  

needed to excel and exceed as an underwriter in  today's market so with this video I’m here to go  

over those questions and answers all right first  an underwriter is essentially any individual who  

works for a company or who works for themselves  they are essentially looking to make a decision  

at the end of the day an underwriter's job is to  make some sort of decisions and if you think about  

different aspects of underwriting we basically can  think about insurance comes to mind actually this  

is an insurance channel but there's a property  insurance underwriters there's commercial  

insurance underwriters and then there's also  underwriting outside of the insurance industry  

such as a mortgage or home loan underwriters  or any loan for that matter there's usually  

underwriters involved in some regard typically  there's also underwriters when it comes to  

getting credit cards or any sort of line of credit  and so essentially what an underwriter is doing is  

they're looking to make sure that if they take  on giving some sort of financial protection or  

financial benefit to another party the underwriter  is essentially making a decision to determine  

whether or not this is the right move in order  for the company or the underwriter to accept  

that individual or entity or risk into the  portfolio and those decisions are stand by a  

lot of different factors it could be based off on  the company's risk appetite it could be based off  

the company's financials and wherewithal it could  also be based off factors in packing impacting the  

entity or the individual themselves like credit  worthiness or previous experience or previous  

history those are just a few elements that goes  into the underwriting process but as i alluded  

to there are just various aspects in which you  can be an underwriter if you like uh opportunity  

or you like roles where you can actually make  decisions and actually be more entrepreneurial  

and you like to do research underwriting is  really the right career in the right role  

if that's something you're interested in so now  I want to talk about what is it like to actually  

grow and excel as a provider what are some  of the skills needed in order to excel  

as an underwriter today and really there's  three attributes that I kind of look at when  

I think about underwriting now and kind of  where underwriting is going for the future  

and the three attributes that I link to is right  behind me essentially these are data driven  

it's going to also be critical thinking and soft  skills those are really the three attributes that  

are really core to the skill set needed for an  underwriter and so with regards to data and that's  

essentially we talked about the investigative  the research I’m really making sure that you  

have a good foundation baseline for making those  decisions and those data sources could be internal  

sources they can be external sources they give  me questionnaires with the customer or with the  

entity I’m reviewing paths experience or past  loss history all of those attributes goes into  

the underwriting process and that's really stamped  by data and making a decision without data can be  

not a good thing because if there could be a  loss or something unforeseen happen with that  

risk if deceptive that could actually come back  when an underwriter says your manager or your  

boss might ask you why did you make that decision  and you never want to be in the situation where  

you have to answer that question and if you do  have to answer that question you want to make  

sure that the answer is based off the facts and  the data that you had that basically caused you  

to make that decision I’m really in the  data driven aspect and we look at three  

different areas that's really exposure profit and  product and typically when you're doing your data  

analyses or you're looking at your analytics as  an underwriter underwriting is really focused  

on analytics now and really with the whole  insure tech movement and with how fast things  

have changed and the speed in which your customer  gets a quote when that down policy is found it's  

very fast now look at data driven one look at our  exposure what is the exposure that you're ensuring  

as an underwriter and that's kind of the nber one  thing you want to ask yourself as an underwriter  

what is the exposure and once you can identify  what the exposure is you can then go about  

figuring out if that exposure meets your risk  appetite if it meets your expected profit model  

profit margin that the company or the entity has  for that particular risk knowing your product  

knowing your market and what your product is in  is really important as an underwriter because  

you want to make sure you have the data to nber  one understand the customers or the policyholders  

in your market you want to understand who  the agents are within that particular region  

typically most underwriters will have an assigned  region or territory that they're responsible for  

and it's really important to understand and always  stay up to date with what's happening within  

that particular region and if you have to make  product changes or if you have a separate product  

development team you want to work with your  product team or your product manager and  

really bring to their attention some of the  things you're seeing as an underwriter because  

at the end of the day if you accept that risk  and overall you forgot the product side of things  

that could lead to unforeseen hazards that maybe  you didn't anticipate before you want to make sure  

that the policyholder is as informed as possible  about any hazards about any uh risks that might  

not be foreseen by them and just letting the  policyholder know and training and educating that  

policyholder could actually help them mitigate  their own risk in many cases in my experience  

they're really thankful for that and that's kind  of where underwriting is going and it's really has  

been and it's now going forward even more it's  really solution space where the underwriter is  

working hand in hand with the broker or the agent  with the policyholder to figure out what solutions  

can be identified in order to mitigate future  losses and even avoid those losses in many cases  

regarding the critical thinking aspect of things  really critical thinking is essential if you're  

an underwriter in today's market or even looking  to be an underwriter maybe your college graduate  

thinking about going into underwriting critical  thinking is very essential because the job of an  

underwriter now is to really think about all the  different aspects that might be impacting that  

potential risk that could also impact the  company that they're basically looking to  

ensure the risks with understanding what those  exposures are understanding the concentration  

within those territories or within those  regions is really important not just from  

a profit product and exposure perspective  but that's where critical thinking really  

comes in and helps the underwriter to identify  things that they may not have identified before  

and critical thinking isn't just about the  underwriter working or thinking about it  

themselves but they're also working with their  product teams they're working with their actuarial  

groups working with their management team  maybe they're also working with the sales and  

marketing team working directly with the agents  and so as you see underwriting is really core to  

everything as it revolves around the insurance  process and the underwriting process leveraging  

technology or different analytical tools or  illustrative tools to help you as an underwriter  

kind of identify hazards more quickly and there's  a lot of data providers in the markets just  

you can talk with your carriers or  talk with your management team to see  

which data providers that might be of interest  for you as the underwriter and or your company  

soft skills is a trait that I cannot stress enough  soft skills in the insurance industry can be  

very important if you hadn't thought about that  it's not just online or electronic transactions  

although there is a certain part of the business  that is very technology focused which doesn't have  

as much customer interaction but even still  soft skills is important for the underwriter  

yourself when you think about self-awareness as  an underwriter typically if you're it's easy to  

have blinders on I’ve done it before in my career  where you kind of just are very tunnel focused on  

making your decision and you or you may be pressed  up against the deadline or you may have a lot of  

risks that you have to review for the day and  then sometimes you may just get just focused on  

just thinking about things yourself and I’m kind  of being more self-aware of that to say maybe  

I should just pause take a break and talk to my  co-worker and just get my co-workers opinion about  

this risk before I accept it or before I deny  it or talking with the agent more and asking the  

agent more questions that might help you identify  things that you didn't know about initially  

and so that's really very key of the whole soft  skills is even if you don't interact directly with  

the agent or the broker or entities or proxies  you still have a responsibility to kind of be  

aware of like your own soft skills in terms of  like how you react and how you respond to things  

if you communicate with agents when you're  working with brokers you want to have that  

direct line of communication typically it's  better as an underwriter especially if you're  

talking more technical focus you want to just pick  up the phone and you want to call the agent I know  

many of you like cringing right now just hearing  that you got to pick up the phone but really if  

you're talking about technical related items it  might be better to just go ahead and pick up the  

phone and call the agent broker or the customer  and explain some of the concerns that you have or  

before you deny it you may want to talk it over  with them first before you just issue the denial  

and then that way you can have that open dialogue  and that's really great for the relationships.