accelerated underwriting

Gen Re is pleased to present summary results of our 2021 Individual Life Accelerated Underwriting Survey.
 

It is important here to draw a distinction between what has historically been referred to as “accelerated underwriting” and the pandemic-fueled programs characterized as “alternative underwriting.”
 

A few years ago, it was typical to see $1 million as the high end for an accelerated program. Now some carriers are at $2 million and even $3 million.
 

It seems in 2021 that every couple of months I learn about a software solution, new process, or new service that innovates, enhances, and accelerates life insurance underwriting. 
 

Simply stated, the law of large numbers in probability and statistics states that as a sample size grows, its mean gets closer to the average of the entire population.
 

Life insurers have taken a fresh look at their established traditional underwriting practices as they consider and implement streamlined accelerated underwriting (AU) options, removing the need for paramedical exams and/or fluid collection for qualified applicants.

The pandemic has forced the industry to hasten its embrace of automation. By the start of this year, over 40% of life insurers had either already incorporated some degree of accelerated and automated underwriting into their new business process, or had imminent plans to do so. This was a dramatic increase from 18% the year before – according to research from Celent.

Munich Re Life US conducted an accelerated underwriting survey to capture new and emerging trends in the U.S. individual life accelerated underwriting market.

One of the hardest challenges Life insurers encounter when adopting accelerated underwriting (AU) is figuring out how to compensate for the loss of information previously derived from blood and urine tests.
 

Over the last 5 years, the life insurance industry has experienced an exponential growth in accelerated underwriting (AUW) programs. As the life insurance underwriting process continues to provide less invasive accelerated pathways, insurers increasingly rely on self-disclosed information for key risk factors instead of observed measures under traditional underwriting, such as smoking status and build.