XX MIN READNew Convr Survey Uncovers the Real Bottleneck: It's the Data, Not the People
Commercial P&C carriers cite manual data entry, legacy technology, and fragmented submissions as the top forces slowing underwriting — pointing to a tooling problem, not a talent problem.
CHICAGO (July 21, 2026) — Convr®, the leading AI-native underwriting workbench purpose-built for commercial P&C insurance, today released new findings from its 2026 Convr Insurance Talent and Tech Trends Survey that challenge a long-standing industry narrative.
While carriers continue to cite talent shortages as a primary obstacle to faster, more consistent underwriting, the survey of 211 commercial insurance professionals reveals that the real bottleneck is the data and technology environment underwriters are forced to work within.
Underwriters aren't slow. Their tools are.
When asked what slows down underwriting most at their companies today, respondents pointed overwhelmingly to data and tooling problems rather than people problems:
- 35.1% cited manual data entry as a top barrier
- 27.5% pointed to dated, legacy technology
- 24.6% identified too many submission data sources
- 23.2% named old processes
- 21.3% reported lack of reliability and consistency in their current systems
Compounding the issue, 63% of carriers report operating in hybrid technology environments — a legacy core with cloud-based tools layered on top — and another 22.7% remain predominantly legacy on-premise. Only 14.2% describe their core underwriting platform as mostly modern SaaS or cloud-native.
The talent narrative deserves a closer look.
When asked about the hardest underwriting talent attributes to acquire, the top response was "high productivity" (50.2%), a quality that depends as much on the systems underwriters use as on the underwriters themselves. Other top-cited attributes included insurance expertise (43.1%), technology competence (38.9%), and the ability to source appropriate data (37%).
"For years, the industry has framed underwriting capacity as a talent problem and there's no question the talent pipeline matters," said John Stammen, Chief Executive Officer at Convr. "But our data tells a more honest story. Underwriters aren't slow. They're being asked to do extraordinary work on top of fragmented data, manual entry, and legacy systems that were never designed for the volume or complexity of today's P&C market. The carriers winning the productivity battle aren't the ones hiring more underwriters, they're the ones giving their underwriters the data, tools, and the workflow to actually do their jobs."
Underwriters know exactly what they need.
When asked what their underwriting teams would benefit most from, respondents pointed to capabilities that directly address the data and tooling gap:
- 47.4% cited AI tool training
- 46.9% cited pre-screened and enriched submissions
- 45.5% cited simplified access to data
- 42.2% cited better historical account and loss data
- 36.5% cited improved data source visibility
These are not aspirational asks. They are foundational requirements and they map directly to the capabilities Convr delivers through its modular AI-powered underwriting workbench.
"Every carrier we work with has talented underwriters," Stammen added. "What they don't have yet is an environment that lets those underwriters operate to the best of their abilities. That's the gap Convr was built to close. When you take manual data entry off an underwriter's plate, you don't just save time. You unlock judgment, speed, and consistency at scale."
About the 2026 Convr Insurance Survey
The 2026 Convr Insurance Talent and Tech Trends Survey was conducted in April and reflects responses from 211 commercial insurance professionals working in property and casualty, with strong representation from leadership (35.1%), VP/Executive (37%), and management (42.2%) roles across carriers, MGAs, brokerages, and specialty markets.
For more information, visit convr.com.
Media Contact:
Alex Williams
alex.williams@convr.com
217-737-2782
