By David Bull

June 2 - (The Insurer) - The intake of submissions needs to get to the point where there’s no human in the loop, with the use of AI to augment risk information and take the process to the “20-yard line” before an underwriter is involved, according to Skyward Specialty CEO Andrew Robinson.

Participating in a fireside chat with CRC Group CEO Dave Obenauer at the E&S Insurer Conference 2025 on Wednesday, Robinson was asked about how carriers can navigate the huge surge of submissions into the E&S market by applying technology and talent resources.

The executive has overseen the “hyper-scaling” of Skyward Specialty as it has tripled in size from around $600 million of premium after the business was “rightsized” five years ago to $1.8 billion last year.

Robinson said the insurer had grown in wholesale non-admitted and admitted business by around 20% a year on average during that period, which had driven the need to keep up with an arms race in technology, and to ensure it fosters “technical talent”.

He used the carrier’s large book of miscellaneous professional liability business as an example of where it has been able to meet the needs of its distribution partners to match submissions to risk appetite by getting indications out “really quickly” in a line that still requires technical underwriting.

“It’s an arms race, so the intake of submissions needs to get to the point where there’s no human in the loop. You need to be able to augment submission data with third-party data, and I would say today probably synthetic AI data,” Robinson suggested.

This would involve bringing together data sources to augment the information about the risk in the submission and then the ability to deliver a “pithy” narrative to underwriters.

“It’s almost like getting your process down to the 20-yard line before the underwriter attaches to it. That’s the problem we’re working on and I think that for the companies that do that well in the part of the market where we operate – which is the complex end with really tough risks – that’s a winning formula.

“If you want to solve the problems that the brokers are having, it’s looking for those things that don’t fit in the box easily, and for which you don’t really have an efficient process – and if we can do those things efficiently and effectively for our trading partners, we’re going to win every day,” he continued.

Skyward Specialty has built its so-called SkyVue underwriting workbench to streamline the submissions process for its underwriters.

FASTER AND SMARTER AI-DRIVEN SYSTEMS

CRC Group’s Obenauer said that his firm sees the challenges of surging submissions and matching risks to carrier appetite from the perspective of its underwriting platform and wholesale transactional placement business.

“In the underwriting business it’s critical to have systems that help the underwriters be more effective in changing times. Our view on this whole topic is about getting faster and smarter systems, especially with AI, that will really advance that ball significantly.

“On the underwriting end it allows them to triage submissions that fit what they expect, and it has all the data presented in the way they expect to see it every time, so it’s consistent and therefore more efficient for them. The underwriter needs to have their talents applied to an efficient data process,” he commented.

Meanwhile, on the wholesale transactional side, Obenauer said CRC Group tends to rely less on what it hears from carriers about appetite, with the potential for significant change in a fluid environment.

“We rely much more on what our own data tells us, what carriers are binding, which accounts and in what way and for what pricing and what limits,” said the executive.

He added that the use of technology – including AI – means that the data can be served up in a way that the firm’s production talent can access it on their desktop and understand carrier behaviour and appetite better.

“They’re able to pursue opportunities that end up in a better placement. It’s back to being smarter, using the data for both the underwriting side and the transactional side,” said Obenauer.

Skyward Specialty’s Robinson described the carrier’s SkyVue workbench as its “underwriting experience” and the “envelope” all its underwriters work in.

“Everything is in an envelope where if we want to deliver a new risk signal to one of our underwriters, if we want to deliver a new signal around the potential for a claim to develop to one of our claims people, we do that through an environment where all they know is that environment.

“If you want to hyperscale you have to separate people from the stuff that gets in the way. Now, with the advancement of AI, the speed with which we’re delivering new services to our underwriters and claims technicians is extraordinary,” he said.