What is AI underwriting? How agentic AI is transforming insurtech

In the insurance industry, underwriting is all about evaluating risks and deciding how best to manage them. Traditionally, underwriters have relied heavily on manual methods, sifting through mountains of data spread across various platforms. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) underwriting is reshaping the insurtech landscape, making this crucial process smarter, faster, and significantly more accurate.

In this blog post, we’ll break down what AI underwriting really means, explore how agentic AI is reshaping the insurtech landscape, and show why these technologies are transforming how insurers assess risk, manage portfolios, and drive profitable growth.

What is AI underwriting?

AI underwriting leverages advanced algorithms, machine learning, and predictive analytics to automate and enhance the underwriting process. Instead of manually analyzing risks and determining pricing strategies, AI-driven systems process vast datasets in real time, helping underwriters quickly and accurately identify profitable business opportunities.

AI underwriting doesn't replace human expertise; rather, it complements and amplifies it, allowing underwriters to focus more on strategic decision-making and relationship building rather than routine tasks.

Key benefits of AI underwriting

Enhanced accuracy and speed

With AI underwriting, insurers see a significant reduction in quote processing times, sometimes by as much as 89%. These systems quickly assess policy applications by automatically extracting and analyzing relevant information from third-party data sources, reducing the need for manual data entry and verification.

Improved risk assessment

AI underwriting uses historical data and real-time analytics to better predict outcomes such as loss ratios and profitability. By analyzing thousands of data points, from customer interaction patterns to past claims history, AI helps underwriters pinpoint accounts with the highest likelihood of being profitable.

Optimized portfolio management

One of the most powerful advantages of AI underwriting is its ability to help insurance companies manage their portfolios in real-time. Instead of relying on static, outdated reporting, insurers can track portfolio performance instantly, identifying trends or accumulation issues and adjusting their strategies proactively.

Increased efficiency and reduced costs

By automating routine underwriting tasks, insurers can reduce operational costs significantly. Automation allows underwriting teams to process more submissions with fewer manual interventions, directly impacting the bottom line and improving the insurer's competitive edge.

Agentic AI underwriting is transforming insurtech

As insurers face increasingly complex risks like climate change, cyber threats, and economic volatility, AI underwriting provides the adaptability needed to respond in real time.

Agentic AI represents the next frontier in underwriting transformation, where intelligent systems proactively guide underwriters, surface the most strategic opportunities, and learn from every interaction to drive better outcomes and profitable growth.

Explore how the Federato platform helps insurers transform their underwriting operations for the modern era. Book a demo or take a self-guided tour of the platform today.