So why does everything take so long?
Speed has always determined who gets the business.
Now it will determine who stays in business.
By Ola Kolade
Commercial insurance is obsessed with speed. Brokers block wholesalers to get first crack at markets. Wholesalers block carriers to secure capacity. Everyone knows that whoever gets quotes back first usually wins the business. So why does everything take so long?
The data problem
The first clue comes when you watch how deals actually move through commercial insurance. A submission arrives at the wholesaler, an underwriter manually enters it into their system, then sends it to carriers. Some want the submission processed through online portals, others by email, each with different forms and requirements. Responses trickle back over days. Meanwhile, each underwriter maintains their own tracking system, often just tagged emails in their inbox.
Industry research backs this up. According to a survey by Accenture and The Institutes, underwriters spend about 70% of their time on administrative and support work. The industry processes billions and billions of premium, yet many wholesalers can’t tell you which policies are up for renewal next week or whether they’re current on all premium collection.
Why traditional software failed
Traitional software assumes predictable workflows; commercial underwriting has very few. A carrier that wanted construction risks on Monday doesn’t on Friday. The underwriter who knew their appetite left last month. The forms and inspections they require changed last week.
Email runs the shop. If you try to replace it, no one uses your tool. If you ignore it, nothing changes. If you mirror it, people do the work twice. The system of record always remains incomplete because the real work stays in the inbox.
Traditional software failed because underwriting isn’t a process you can automate. It’s a series of conversations between people who change their minds. You can’t code relationships or systematize judgment calls. Until now.
What actually needs to change
The missing pieces are clear. Every submission, quote, and binding decision should build a searchable knowledge base. Not just for compliance, but to help underwriters learn from collective experience. The coordination between brokers, underwriters and carriers shouldn’t require email management. It should happen automatically, with exceptions handled by humans. Underwriting, accounting, and carrier systems should work together instead of requiring parallel manual processes.
The workforce cliff is here. The loss of seasoned workers in the insurance industry has been a topic of discussion for years; a quarter of the current workforce is 55 or older and heading for retirement. You can’t scale human expertise when there aren’t enough humans.
At the same time, the technology finally works. Modern language models can now process complex insurance documents and handle tasks that used to require years of training. What once needed teams of experienced underwriters can now be automated.
The firms that solve the information management problem first will have access to insights that manual operations can’t generate. They’ll know which carriers are most likely to bind specific risk types. They’ll spot patterns in successful placements. They’ll turn institutional knowledge into competitive advantage.
When you’re losing institutional knowledge faster than you can replace it, and the technology exists to capture that knowledge, automation becomes survival, not strategy. Speed has always determined who gets the business. Now it will determine who stays in business.
The author
Ola Kolade holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from McGill University and started his career as an investment banker in Toronto before moving to San Francisco to lead a $400 million division of Faire. He was first introduced to insurance through his work at Faire, observing the risk mitigation strategies of independent brands and retailers making wholesale purchases. A former athlete, Ola created a concussion prevention device used by the McGill Football team and in the NFL’s HeadHealthTECH network.
