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Beyond the Phone Interview

Add Underwriting Capacity with Confidence

The economic downturn that started a few years ago caused most home office underwriting departments to cut staff to a minimum. Now that things have somewhat recovered, those same offices are looking for solutions to add underwriting capacity back in without adding overhead. Contract underwriters have traditionally been used to fill this need; however, there is a less expensive and often easier to implement option. Having experienced underwriters summarize APSs is a proven, effective alternative.

Very large APSs can bog down a home office underwriter and be a real productivity killer.

IBU clients “carve out” APSs over a specified page number (such as 40-70 or higher) to be summarized by an experienced IBU underwriter. This strategy frees up internal underwriting capacity while impacting the fewest number of cases.

One challenge of using APS summaries is getting home office underwriters comfortable using them. All IBU underwriters are former home office professionals who write and document as well as review the summary as if they were underwriting the case. They understand that the summary must not only must contain what is in the APS but also any information that is not included that would likely cause lingering questions when read by the home office underwriter.

The quality and readability as well as any inconsistencies in the APS are noted along with MIB codes, and significant page numbers. The goal is to provide the home office underwriter with the confidence of a high comfort level so they don’t feel the urge to go back and spend time looking at the APS.

IBU APS Summaries are a proven solution to keep underwriting overflow at a low variable cost while maintaining time service objectives.