The Underwriter’s New Teammate: How AI Agents Are Reshaping Submissions Intake

Across the insurance industry, underwriters are spending a significant amount of time preparing to underwrite versus actually underwriting.

According to Accenture, underwriters dedicate nearly 40% of their time to administrative work and only about 30% to assessing risk. McKinsey research echoes this, noting that even in large commercial lines, 30–40% of an underwriter’s time is spent on administrative tasks such as rekeying data.

This inefficiency creates a capacity problem. When an underwriter’s day is consumed by sorting emails, downloading attachments, and cleaning up data, there’s less time left for actual risk evaluation. And in a market where brokers expect speed, where margins are under pressure, and where every quoted risk needs to count, this bottleneck is a competitive liability.

Now, AI-powered agents are changing that equation. By automatically ingesting submissions, extracting key details, and structuring them for review, these systems are enabling underwriters to spend less time on data preparation and more time on decisions.

We’ll look at how AI agents are reshaping submissions intake, why structured data drives better underwriting outcomes, and how insurers can implement these capabilities without disrupting existing workflows.

Key Takeaways

• Nearly 30-40% (and in some studies up to 40-60%) of an underwriter’s time is consumed by administrative or data-preparation tasks—not risk assessment. 
• Submissions arrive as unstructured data (emails, PDFs, Excel SOVs), which must be manually processed and organized before quoting begins.
• Clean and structured intake is the bedrock of faster quote-to-bind cycles and better underwriting throughput.
• AI agents close the gap. Solutions like Brisc’s Submissions Agent automate data ingestion and formatting, freeing underwriters to focus on risk selection instead of administration.

The Underwriter’s Hidden Time Drain

Each day, brokers might forward hundreds of submissions — often bundled with multiple attachments, supplemental schedules, and follow-up emails. Before an underwriter can even evaluate the risk, they must locate key details, confirm data completeness, and standardize formats.

These tasks are repetitive, time-consuming, and add no underwriting value – but they’re necessary to reach a decision-ready state.

The impact compounds across teams:

• Slower quote turnaround: responding to brokers takes longer, reducing competitiveness.
• Reduced capacity: fewer submissions reviewed per day means fewer bound policies.
• Higher error risk: manual data entry and copy-paste work increase the chance of inaccuracies.

In today’s market, where the volume of broker submissions continues to rise, these inefficiencies translate directly into missed opportunities. The limiting factor isn’t broker demand — it’s underwriting capacity.

That’s why the next evolution in underwriting isn’t about adding more people. It’s about enabling existing teams to do more by eliminating the manual steps that slow them down. And this is precisely where AI-powered submissions agents are making a measurable difference.

Why the Submissions Problem Persists

Despite years of investment in digital transformation, most underwriting workflows still rely on manual intake. The core challenge isn’t technology adoption — it’s the nature of submissions themselves.

Submissions arrive in every possible format:

• Emails containing broker notes and attachments.
• PDF applications that mix structured fields with free text.
• Excel SOVs (Statements of Values) with inconsistent column headers, merged cells, or missing data.
• Scanned documents or ZIP archives that require further unpacking before review.

Each of these formats introduces friction. Even the most sophisticated policy administration systems or portals can’t automatically interpret the variability of broker submissions. Instead, underwriters and operations staff must intervene — saving files, renaming them, and manually re-entering critical details.

Most legacy systems were designed for structured, uniform data, not for the reality of unstructured email attachments. As a result:

• Integration efforts stall. New portals and tools require teams or even brokers to change behavior, often leading to partial adoption.
• Operational costs rise. Every new submission adds incremental effort rather than scale.
• Speed suffers. Valuable time is spent preparing data instead of evaluating risk.

Meanwhile, broker expectations continue to climb. The firms that quote first have a better chance of winning business, and the ones that lag struggle to maintain competitiveness.

This widening gap between submission volume and underwriting capacity is where AI now plays a decisive role. By learning to interpret the same unstructured files humans do — and doing so in seconds — AI agents eliminate the repetitive steps that legacy systems can’t automate.

Enter the Underwriter’s New Teammate: AI-Powered Submissions Agents

AI agents are changing the way underwriting teams handle submissions by removing the friction that prevents them from doing their best work.

Instead of portals, integrations, or process interruption, Brisc’s Submissions Agent works through the same channel underwriters already use every day: email.

Here’s how it works:

• Forward broker submissions by email: The agent receives the forwarded submission email and automatically extracts all attachments — PDFs, Excel SOVs, and supporting documents.
• Automated data extraction: It reads and interprets key information such as insured name, coverage type, property details, and limits, even when presented in unstructured or varied formats.
• Structured output: Within 60 seconds, the agent returns a clean, standardized data file — ready for triage, risk evaluation, or direct upload into the underwriting workbench.

Brisc’s agent is built to fit within existing workflows rather than replacing them, enabling faster quote turnaround, cleaner data, higher capacity without additional headcount.

By eliminating the manual work, the Submissions Agent gives underwriters back what they value most: time to focus on risk selection and decision-making.

From Unstructured Data to Quote-Readiness

When submission data is structured from the start, everything downstream becomes faster, clearer, and easier to manage. What once required a team of underwriters, assistants, and operations staff can now happen automatically — freeing up human expertise for higher-value work.

Clean intake doesn’t just save time. It enables better underwriting decisions:

• Submissions can be prioritized based on appetite, completeness, and risk profile, ensuring underwriters focus on opportunities that are most likely to convert.
• With data already validated and formatted, quotes can be generated much faster
• Automated extraction eliminates re-keying errors, providing a single, reliable source of truth for every submission.
• Speed and data quality translate directly into higher close rates. Brokers respond to quick, precise quotes, and insurers that move faster win more business.

The link between structured intake and underwriting performance is clear: less manual preparation leads to more productive underwriters, faster broker response, and stronger growth.

As early adopters of AI-powered submissions automation are discovering, the benefits compound quickly. Each submission processed through the Brisc platform feeds back into cleaner data, better prioritization, and faster decision-making across the entire underwriting cycle.

Conclusion

Underwriting teams have no shortage of expertise — what they lack is time. Manual intake, inconsistent submission formats, and repetitive data handling all stand in the way of faster quotes and better risk decisions.

With AI-powered submissions automation, that dynamic changes. Brisc’s Submissions Agent transforms how underwriters work by handling intake in 60 seconds, delivering clean, structured data ready for analysis and quote preparation. The result: faster turnaround, greater capacity, and more focus where it matters most — underwriting.

AI isn’t replacing the underwriter. It’s becoming their most reliable teammate.

See Brisc in Action

Experience how Brisc’s Submissions Agent transforms broker submissions into quote-ready data. Book a demo today.