Hiscox Case Study

Crum & Forster Partners with Convr to Digitally Transform Submission Intake and Unleash Human Potential

You don’t get to be 200 years old without doing something right. Crum & Forster is a commercial P&C carrier with a long history of offering innovative solutions to overcome challenges. The company’s Surplus and Specialty Lines (S&S) Division provides bespoke solutions for hard-to-place risks.

As one of the country’s largest Excess and Surplus (E&S) carriers, Crum & Forster works with select wholesale brokers to provide the customized service the company is known for.

"I had a vision to streamline the submission intake process."

In 2021, the S&S Division kicked off a five-year plan to double its top-line underwriting performance. Lauren Dieterich, Senior Vice President, Head of Operations and Digital, Surplus & Specialty, recognized that to achieve that goal, her team needed to streamline a manual, labor-intensive submission intake process.

Specifically, Dieterich envisioned using intelligent document processing (IDP) to automatically pull data elements out of submission materials.

The Challenge

The S&S submission process requires more flexibility than most vendors can offer.

For example, the division deals mostly with wholesale brokers, which are typically not listed in an ACORD 125 form. Their contact information is more often buried in a long email thread featuring multiple parties.

In addition, submissions often include other documents, such as supplemental applications, driver lists or location schedules.

"I was looking for a vendor who could do more than just ACORDs."

"And I wanted a vendor who could grow with us as we could consume and leverage more and more data."

Convr Brings Crum & Forster's Vision to Life

Dieterich found exactly what she was looking for in Convr’s AI-infused commercial underwriting platform. The S&S Division selected Convr’s d3 Intake™ to enable a more efficient process for new business submission intake.

With d3 Intake, Crum & Forster’s S&S Division can:

• Quote faster
• Streamline its submission intake process
• Leverage data for future insights

d3 Intake eliminates most of the data entry required to clear and prepare an underwriting file, which transforms both the underwriting and customer experience.

By using d3 Intake’s IDP capabilities, the S&S Division can automatically ingest and organize information from nearly any structured or unstructured document.

d3 Intake enables the team to collect, analyze and retain the information from the application process. These insights can inform future pricing models, underwriting decisions or claims handling.

The flexibility of Convr’s solutions is essential for Crum & Forster. Convr took time to truly understand what Crum & Forster needed, whether being able to pull specific data points from long email threads, working with a variety of structured and unstructured documents or determining source priority when presented with multiple documents.

"We achieved our vision of a more efficient submission intake process with Convr’s d3 Intake on the front end."

We Saw Results Within Weeks of Turning It On

"We saw results within weeks of turning it on."

Streamline Submission Intake Process

Before d3 Intake, a team of contractors was responsible for clearing submissions, a process that required manual data entry into multiple legacy systems.

First, a submission would have to pass a clearance call, which meant combing through emails and attachments to manually enter data into a legacy system.

Next, if the submission passed clearance, then it was assigned to an underwriter. That meant navigating business rules spread across multiple tabs in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Finally, the account was triaged in a separate Excel sheet with additional required inputs.

After d3 Intake, the S&S Division could automatically ingest submission data from structured and unstructured sources. In turn, that allowed team members to automate business rules.

Finally, those two critical capabilities made it possible for Crum & Forster to develop a new submission intake platform that virtually eliminates manual data entry.

Cut Submission Processing Time by 50%

Before d3 Intake, the inefficient and labor-intensive submission intake process resulted in a one- to two-day backlog for submissions.

After d3 Intake, the S&S Division has cut its submission processing time in half. Typically, it sees same-day turnaround on submissions.

With automatic data ingestion and a new submission intake platform, the clearance team can clear, triage and prepare underwriting files faster than before.

Redeploy Team Members to Higher-Value Roles

Before d3 Intake, Crum & Forster’s S&S Division kept extra capacity on the clearance team to manage the backlog of submissions.

After a file had cleared submission, members of the Operations team would assemble the underwriting file.

After d3 Intake, there was no submissions backlog even at peak activity, and no need for overtime or excess capacity.

Within a month of implementing d3 Intake, Crum & Forster’s S&S Division was able to more strategically allocate its most important resources: its people.

Approximately 40% of the clearance team members moved into file preparation roles. In turn, 20% of the Operations team was redeployed into revenue-generating production and underwriting positions.

"The bulk of the savings came from being able to redeploy part of my Operations team into underwriting roles. Now our human resources are aligned with what’s really going to drive growth, and I could achieve those additional goals with no extra spend."

Digital Technology That Enables True Change

Crum & Forster’s S&S Division knew what it needed: a more efficient submission intake process.

It also knew how to make it happen: by leveraging IDP to automate and streamline how it was ingesting and capturing data.

"Convr provided exactly what I was looking for."

Convr’s IDP capabilities made it possible for the S&S team to automate business rules and, in turn, to develop a proprietary submission intake platform.

That platform has enabled a more streamlined intake process that reduces submission intake time by half.

Building the Foundation for Future Growth

But true digital transformation comes from using technology not just to reduce costs, but to do things differently.

Crum & Forster did just that, by offering advancement opportunities to contractors and redeploying Operations employees into critical and revenue-generating underwriting roles.

"Now we have other questions to answer."

"How do we extend the Convr relationship to use more of the data that d3 Intake can pull out of documents?"

By leveraging Convr’s d3 Intake and its IDP capabilities, Crum & Forster’s S&S Division has the foundation it needs to achieve its goal of doubling its top line within five years.

It has also planted the seeds for the next phase of its growth strategy.

"Convr has been instrumental in enabling our five-year growth plan."

Transform Your Organization Today

• Grow premiums
• Avoid losses
• Improve underwriting efficiency
• Quote faster
• Drive accurate pricing
• Enhance customer experience
• Augment underwriting productivity

Convr Product Suite

d3 Intake™

Eliminates manual submission paperwork by ingesting, preparing and analyzing submissions for a more effective, digital process.

d3 Risk 360™

Provides underwriters a unified view of a submission’s digital footprint to correctly classify and respond to underwriting questions.

d3 Answers™

Applies decision science to correctly answer complex underwriting questions.

d3 Score™

Applies decision science to risk selection, relativity and lead scoring.

Encova Insurance Partners with Convr to Accelerate Underwriting Excellence

Encova Insurance strives for excellence—not just as an insurer, but also as an organization that offers peace of mind for its agents, policyholders and the communities it serves.

After affiliating in 2017, Motorists Insurance Group and Brickstreet Insurance became Encova in 2019 while simultaneously investing in digital transformation and integration. Its dedication to continuous innovation and collaboration enables it to turn its challenges into opportunities.

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Encova is represented by more than 2,000 independent agencies in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

One carrier’s challenge is another’s opportunity.

Faced with the challenges of digital transformation and post-affiliation integration, Encova’s leadership team knew it would be critical to invest in its underwriting acumen.

As part of its broader digital transformation goals, Encova had already used robotic process automation (RPA) to scale automation and augment its underwriting workload. Its leadership team sought to build on this momentum.

"AI was a missing piece for us."

Why AI? Because AI doesn’t just boost underwriter productivity; it also provides additional insights for more informed risk selection, pricing and underwriting.

It can also lay the foundation to connect disparate underwriting processes or connect underwriting capabilities with other core systems.

Encova’s leadership team recognized that to fully achieve their goal of developing underwriting acumen, they would need an end-to-end underwriting management system. However, they knew they didn’t have to go all in.

By working one step at a time, they could invest in underwriting excellence in a sustainable way, demonstrate gains to underwriters and agents, and gain valuable experience with AI.

Convr Provides the Missing Piece

Convr provided the missing piece that Encova was looking for.

Convr’s end-to-end underwriting management system augments Encova’s current underwriting capabilities and enables the carrier to support a culture of underwriting excellence.

The flexibility of Convr’s solutions was especially important for Encova, given the complexities of its post-affiliation IT environment, allowing it to progress to underwriting excellence one piece at a time.

Three Ways Convr Enables Underwriting Excellence

• Flexible AI solutions that enable better decision making, delivered via an intuitive underwriting interface or via Convr Connect APIs
• Scalable products that enable carriers to add use cases, new products and scale adoption as their needs grow and change
• Easy-to-use tools that were designed with commercial insurance in mind, with proactive training from a dedicated team

"It’s easy; it works well. Underwriters get multiple data points through d3 360 Risk™ and d3 Answers™, and that allows our team to be more timely and efficient, more productive."

Convr Helps Encova Avoid Unwanted Exposure

The value of Convr became evident early in Encova’s adoption journey.

Amy Gilmore, Vice President of Commercial Underwriting, shared an example where d3 Risk 360 uncovered a hidden trucking exposure that traditional research methods failed to identify.

The policy being reviewed covered vehicles owned by a holding company. During the underwriting process, Convr revealed that the holding company had additional entities with for-hire trucking exposures.

The agent later confirmed that these entities did not have insurance coverage.

Without this visibility, Encova would have discovered the exposure only after issuing the policy and requesting a federal motor carrier filing.

"Our typical avenues for research didn’t uncover this information, but Convr did."

The discovery allowed Encova to avoid a risk it otherwise would not have priced for or contemplated.

Solutions for New Business Submissions

Encova selected two Convr solutions for new business submissions in its commercial P&C lines.

d3 Risk 360

Manual research is time-consuming and error-prone.

With d3 Risk 360, Encova’s underwriters get instant access to the full digital footprint of a business based on a single search of name and business address.

Convr’s solution enables Encova to:

• Drive underwriting excellence
• Enrich its book of business
• Enable dynamic underwriting

d3 Risk 360 eliminates the need for time-consuming manual searches and enables underwriters to select and quote desired risks faster and more efficiently.

Encova can also tap into enriched data to enhance book rolls, develop new products and analyze its portfolio.

Underwriters can stay informed with alerts that help reassess a customer’s risk profile before renewal.

"Using d3 Risk 360, Encova’s underwriters save time. In just 10 months, they have cut in half the time they spend researching submissions."

d3 Answers

Submission applications include many underwriting questions, many of them complex.

With d3 Answers, Encova’s underwriting team gets automatic answers to chosen underwriting questions, reducing friction in the submission process while improving accuracy.

Convr’s solution enables Encova to:

• Unlock the power of pre-fill
• Automatically classify submission applications

With d3 Answers, submission applications are pre-filled in sub-seconds, boosting agent productivity, positioning Encova as a carrier of choice and enabling straight-through processing.

d3 Answers also helps underwriters select and rate risks more efficiently by classifying submissions based on business activity and risk exposure.

Innovating to Realize Underwriting Excellence

Using d3 Risk 360 and d3 Answers, Encova has continued to demonstrate its commitment to innovation.

By implementing a portion of Convr’s end-to-end underwriting management system, Encova has advanced its goal of realizing underwriting excellence.

In particular, Encova can now:

• Increase underwriting acumen and efficiency
• Support a culture of underwriting excellence that retains talent
• Work more effectively with agents
• Drive profitable growth

Underwriters can quickly identify underwriting risk characteristics and generate quotes using minimal input.

Agents benefit from a streamlined submission experience that allows them to focus on value-added activities.

The carrier also benefits from improved underwriting efficiency, faster speed-to-quote and stronger agent relationships.

Addressing Workers’ Compensation Priorities

Convr is helping Encova address its priorities for workers’ compensation.

The company is using pre-fill to streamline and speed up the submission process, leveraging third-party data sources to augment risk understanding and achieving transformation at scale across its 28-state geography.

"We’re constantly looking for enhanced intelligence to support better pricing in workers’ compensation. d3 Risk 360 and d3 Answers will help us achieve that."

Talent Can No Longer Be an Afterthought for Insurers

When it comes to underwriting, manual processes and repetitive work aren’t just frustrating.

They get in the way of underwriters doing what matters: writing and pricing risks appropriately, improving outcomes for agents and policyholders and driving profitability for the business.

Carriers that invest in a modern underwriting experience are demonstrating their workforce matters.

An intuitive interface that allows underwriters to get the entire digital footprint of a business from just name and address is more than a productivity tool.

It sends a message that underwriters matter, their time matters and their success matters.

This partnership enables Encova to remove friction from its underwriting experience, improve agent relationships and retain and nurture underwriting talent.

Importantly, the relationship lays the foundation for Encova to expand its applications into other lines of business and grow the gains made in commercial lines.

"Talent can no longer be an afterthought for insurers."

Underwriting Excellence Drives Business Excellence

Underwriting is a core competency of insurance, and investments in underwriting excellence are investments in business excellence.

Leveraging AI as part of a core underwriting management system can help carriers take critical steps on their journey of innovation and digital transformation.

In particular, AI can unlock new and more expansive ways of understanding risk.

In the short term, it can improve efficiency, operational excellence and risk selection capabilities while enhancing the underwriter, agent and policyholder experience.

In the medium term, carriers can bring expanded data insights downstream to augment policy rating, renewal and other lines of business.

In the long term, it enables carriers to gain competency with technology that is fundamentally changing the way the world works, lives and plays.

"In particular, AI can unlock new and more expansive ways of understanding risk."

For Encova, a partnership with Convr was a natural fit—a fruitful relationship that is expanding, continuing to offer value and supporting Encova in its pursuit of underwriting excellence.

Start Your Digital Transformation Today

Convr: End-to-End Underwriting Excellence for Commercial P&C

Convr empowers carriers to meet four core needs:

• d3 Intake™ uses Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) such as ACORD applications to reduce manual data entry
• d3 Risk 360™ provides additional insights on risks from thousands of third-party data sources
• d3 Answers™ uses artificial intelligence (AI) to classify a business and respond to underwriting questions
• d3 Risk Score™ enables risk selection and prioritization to better focus downstream underwriting resources

Convr empowers P&C carriers with digital end-to-end underwriting management powered with a patented-AI decisioning engine that transforms the underwriting experience.

Carriers of all sizes trust Convr to help them transform their underwriting experience with straight-through processing and more complete data to make better decisions.

Penn National Insurance Partners with Convr to Accelerate Digital Transformation in Underwriting

For more than a century, Penn National Insurance has successfully navigated change.

Founded in 1919, it now operates in 11 states through more than 1,200 independent agency operations. Though the world has changed substantially, Penn National has continued to advance in ways that fulfill its policyholders’ evolving needs.

Its keys to longevity and success are a willingness to be curious, challenge assumptions and embrace change as an opportunity for improvement.

Underwriters have always been searching for needles in haystacks—and today’s haystack is bigger than ever.

Critical information is scattered across company websites, government portals, social media platforms and many other sources.

Manual research is not only bad for underwriting productivity. It delays time to quote, introduces unnecessary friction in the agent and insured experience and increases carrier risk when important insights are missed.

"It’s always about what you don’t know."

Randy Mancini, VP of Commercial Lines at Penn National, recalls one example where assumptions about a building's age, construction type and size turned out to be incorrect after a major loss event.

Like many carriers, Penn National faced increasing pressure to drive profitable growth through more accurate pricing and risk selection.

At the same time, a growing number of competitors were leveraging predictive analytics in commercial lines, increasing the risk of adverse selection.

Penn National recognized that investing in AI for underwriting could help enable digital underwriting processes and take advantage of big data and advanced analytics.

The company simply needed the right partner.

A Strategic Partnership Is Born

Convr proved to be the ideal match for Penn National’s needs.

From a tactical perspective, Convr’s underwriting AI solutions could help modernize underwriting capabilities, provide real-time access to critical insights and help Penn National remain competitive.

From a strategic perspective, partnering with Convr enabled Penn National to invest in AI and advance its transformation goals while delivering a superior customer experience.

Penn National activated the following Convr solutions:

d3 Risk 360™

d3 Risk 360 enables underwriters to analyze the digital footprint of a business in real time.

With only a business name and address, underwriters gain instant access to critical business information such as violations, permits, licenses, social media presence and much more.

With enriched customer data available in one place, underwriters can be more productive, effective and consistent while improving overall risk selection.

d3 Answers™

d3 Answers provides automatic answers to complex underwriting questions.

This reduces the number of underwriting questions that must be asked manually, speeding time to quote and reducing friction in the agent and insured experience.

The speed and accuracy of d3 Answers also create opportunities for future pricing adjustments that better support target loss ratios.

Convr’s patented AI technology leverages machine learning models specifically trained for commercial insurance.

These models navigate structured and unstructured data from thousands of data sources and more than 4 billion data points to verify, cross-reference and deliver critical underwriting insights in real time.

Digital Underwriting Results

Using d3 Risk 360 and d3 Answers, Penn National can use minimal information to quickly identify underwriting risk characteristics and make more informed decisions.

Results Achieved

• 83% of underwriters believe Convr’s Underwriting Command Center saves them time
• More than 4,500 submissions leveraged insights from d3 Risk 360 and d3 Answers during the first seven months
• 88% of underwriters report that having all public source information in one place is valuable

These results demonstrate how AI-powered underwriting tools can improve productivity while helping underwriters make more consistent and informed decisions.

Accelerating Data-Driven Underwriting Excellence

By partnering with Convr, Penn National can now orchestrate a better underwriting experience.

With real-time access to critical insights, underwriters can be more productive and effective, enabling Penn National to drive profitable growth.

The company’s investment in AI has accelerated its digital transformation journey and laid the foundation for its vision of a data-driven insurance continuum.

"Penn National Insurance is dedicated to continued innovation and incorporating data-driven decision-making at all possible points within the insurance continuum."

"Convr has been a big part of helping us to continually innovate while remaining competitive in the market."

Four Tips to Apply AI in a Practical Way

Penn National shared several lessons learned from its digital underwriting journey:

• Avoid shiny object syndrome and focus on practical use cases that solve real problems
• Find opportunities to create quick wins and build momentum
• Invest in flexible and scalable solutions that can evolve over time
• Manage change effectively by aligning people around a shared vision

These principles helped Penn National successfully integrate AI into its underwriting operations while maintaining focus on business outcomes.

Digital Transformation Is a Moving Target

The world is changing faster than ever.

The combination of technological, customer and societal shifts makes business agility increasingly important.

However, it is difficult to remain agile while relying on manual processes and outdated technology.

To remain competitive and profitable, insurers must make consistent, well-informed underwriting decisions at scale.

Data alone is not enough.

AI makes it practical to collect, analyze and extract insights from broader data sets. It augments human capabilities and unlocks the full potential of underwriting teams.

AI also lays the foundation for future advancements, including improved agent experiences, prefill capabilities, straight-through processing and additional digital transformation initiatives.

"To be competitive and profitable, you must be able to make consistent, well-informed underwriting decisions at scale."

Transformation is not a finite process, and neither is digital transformation.

To compete today and tomorrow, insurers must cultivate a mindset of continual innovation.

Start Your Digital Transformation Today

Convr’s d3 Underwriting™ Platform

Convr’s patented AI enables insurers to remove friction from submission to quote through an Underwriting Command Center that provides underwriting teams with a single place to assess risk, price appropriately and avoid losses.

The platform includes:

d3 Intake™

Ingests, digitally transforms and analyzes structured and unstructured insurance submissions, virtually eliminating manual data entry.

d3 Risk 360™

Provides a holistic view of risk in one place, enabling underwriters to make more informed decisions.

d3 Answers™

Applies decision science to answer complex underwriting questions, improving the agent experience and enabling straight-through processing.

d3 Risk Score™

Automatically optimizes and prioritizes risks for evaluation based on each carrier’s unique risk appetite.

Convr’s products work individually and as an interoperable suite, providing an intuitive Underwriting Command Center supported by a rich set of documented API capabilities.

The vision is frictionless underwriting through data discovery and decision science, empowering commercial P&C insurers to make better risk decisions, attract and develop talent and grow premiums profitably.