Underwriting authority overview

Underwriting authority components

Underwriting authority contains the following major components:

  • Underwriting Rule – Includes the name of the rule and describes how the policy transaction is affected by underwriting, and how issues can be approved. The rules includes the condition under which it will raise an underwriting issue. PolicyCenter provides a user interface in Administration > Business Settings > Business Rules for defining underwriting rules. Alternatively, you can implement the underwriting rule in Gosu code instead rather than through the business rules interface.
  • Underwriting Issue – A specific occurrence on a policy transaction where an underwriting condition was true.
  • Authority – The ability to approve underwriting issues created by a rule, and to what degree.
  • Authority Profile – A group of authorities that can be given to a user, allowing the user to approve underwriting issues that were created by a particular rule.

Choosing between validation and underwriting authority

Both validation and underwriting authority provide mechanisms to stop the progress of a policy transaction. In the base configuration, validation is checked before underwriting authority.

Use validation to prevent the progress of policy transactions that nobody can sign off on. Validation checks for:

  • Missing or inconsistent data – Including things like a vehicle on a personal auto policy without a VIN at bind time, as well as conflicting coverages or terms.
  • Structurally inappropriate policies – For example, some insurers do not ever permit a personal auto policy with no vehicles.

Use underwriting authority to restrict who can progress a policy transaction that at least somebody in the organization could sign off on. If only certain people within the insurer organization can approve writing a policy in California, then use an underwriting rule.

However, if the insurer will never write a policy in the state of California under any circumstances, then use a validation rule.

Underwriting issue flow

Underwriting rules determine how and when to create underwriting issues. The underwriting rule specifies when to check the policy for particular conditions; this is the checking set of the rule. The underwriting rule specifies whether and where to block progress of the policy transaction; this is the blocking point.

In the following example, you are Alice Applegate, an underwriter. In PolicyCenter, you start a policy transaction for a personal auto policy for Ray Newton. You populate the policy by entering drivers and vehicles, and selecting coverages. The new vehicle cost is $110,000.

At specific points during the submission PolicyCenter checks the rules to evaluate whether to raise underwriting issues. These specific points, such as before quote or bind, are defined in the checking set. If rule criteria is met, then PolicyCenter raises an underwriting issue of that type. PolicyCenter has a High Value Vehicle underwriting rule that creates an underwriting issue if new vehicle cost is greater than $100,000. The rule checks for the issue before quote and blocks bind if the issue is not approved.

When you click Quote, PolicyCenter evaluates the policy data, and raises a High Value Vehicle underwriting issue. PolicyCenter also displays a message the underwriting approval is required before binding the policy. You can view this issue on the Risk Analysis screen. If you click Bind, PolicyCenter displays this issue on the Issues that block Binding screen.

To approve an issue, your authority profile must contain sufficient authority. If you approve this issue, the policy can be bound.

At each checking set, PolicyCenter checks for orphaned issues and removes them. Orphaned issues are underwriting issues that were generated by this checking set but are no longer an issue. For example, if you change the new vehicle cost to $90,000, the High Value Vehicle issue becomes an orphan and is removed at that checking set.

At each blocking point, PolicyCenter checks for issues blocking at the current blocking point and any earlier blocking points.

See also

Implement underwriting authority

About this task

Implementing underwriting authority requires changing various areas of PolicyCenter. This topic provides steps to help guide you through the process.

Important: Once an underwriting rule has been deployed to production, do not change it without fully understanding how those changes will impact your system. PolicyCenter prohibits certain types of changes, such as changing the value comparator. Changing the rule condition may make it impossible to compare system metrics for the rule before and after the change is deployed. Similarly, changing the issue key may cause more or fewer underwriting issues from this rule on individual transactions. Consider only making change to rules that have been deployed to production when the rule is incorrect. In most cases, Guidewire recommends that you create new underwriting rules when changing the condition or other values that affect rule behavior.

To implement underwriting authority:

Procedure

  1. Define the underwriting rules for your implementation.
    1. Review the existing underwriting rules in the base configuration to determine if they need to be modified or removed.
    2. Determine whether you need to add new underwriting rules.
      For more information, see Guidelines for designing underwriting rules.
  2. In PolicyCenter, create authority profiles in the Administration > Users & Security > Authority Profiles screen. Each authority profile grants authority for specific issues. For more information, see Authority profiles.
  3. In PolicyCenter, add the authority profiles to individual users in the UW Authority tab in the User screen. For more information, see Assign an authority profile to a user.
  4. In PolicyCenter, grant users permissions as appropriate for their role.
    The permissions that apply to underwriting issues are:
    • View risk analysis evaluation issues – The code for this value is viewriskevalissues.
    • View risk analysis referral reasons – The code for this value is viewriskrefreasons.
    • Edit Lock Override – The code for this value is editlockoverride.
    • Quote Hide Override – The code for this value is quotehideoverride.
    • Reject UW Issues – The code for this value is uwreject.
    • Reopen UW Issues – The code for this value is uwreopen.
    • Approve all UW Issues – This permission grants the ability to approve any issue to any level. It is intended only for resolving missing authority issues in a time-critical situation. The code for this value is uwapproveall.

    For more information about permissions, see Security: roles, permissions, and the community model.

  5. Specify the PolicyCenter user that will process automated renewals.
    Note: Automated processes, such as automated renewals, treat all underwriting issues as auto-approvable. For more information, see Approvals of underwriting issues.
    1. In your implementation of the Renewal plugin, implement the getAutomatedRenewalUser method to return this user. In the default configuration, this method returns the user renewal_daemon. (Be sure to assign appropriate authority profiles to the renewal_daemon user. Guidewire suggests that the authority profiles be similar to other users.)
      For details about the renewal plugin, see Renewal plugin.
    2. Add that user in PolicyCenter if necessary. Assign authority profiles to that user. See Assign an authority profile to a user.
  6. If you will be automatically processing policy changes, specify the user for PolicyCenter to use. You can automatically start policy changes by using the startAutomaticPolicyChange method in the PolicyChangeAPI. In the default configuration, this method uses the policychange_daemon user. For details about this API, see Policy change web services.
  7. You can also make the following modifications.