Taking stock of 2020: Underwriting in an Ever-Changing World

As the sun sets on 2020, we can reflect on a challenging year for the US and the global community. This year reminded us, on a seemingly daily basis, of underlying risks in our every-day lives. A global pandemic. Devastating wildfires in Australia and California. Social unrest across the United States. Monsoon flooding in Asia. The most active Atlantic Hurricane season on record.

These far-reaching and tragic events have reaffirmed the important role that the insurance industry plays in the lives of individuals and the functioning of businesses. They have also emphasized the growing difficulty in evaluating, pricing and underwriting risk in an ever-changing world.

At Kalepa, we are energized by this challenge. We know that powering the future of commercial insurance requires true Underwriting Intelligence: combining the best of human and machine underwriting.

We kept busy during 2020, delivering on this mission:

• We learned: Copilot’s unique technology continued learning to identify costly and difficult-to-assess perils such as sex trafficking, crime incidents within a property, and Covid-19 violations. Copilot also learned to prioritize the insights most likely to drive a superior underwriting decision.
• We wrote: Our most popular article this year summarized the challenges faced by incumbent carriers in developing software solutions in-house, as exemplified by Blackboard’s wind down.
• We collaborated: Underwriters and their partners can now seamlessly and securely communicate and share information, decisions, and a single version of the truth in Copilot. We continued to strengthen and expand Copilot’s collaboration functionality to support the “new normal” of underwriters working from home.
• We invested further in the Middle Market: Middle Market underwriting was an area of high demand for Copilot in 2019 and enhancing Copilot’s support for this segment was an important product priority in 2020. We deployed many advanced features to support Mid-Market underwriters with lightning-fast ingestion, analysis and summarization of hundreds of businesses or locations across SOVs and application forms. Mid-market underwriters can now deliver top-quality, nuanced, and profitable underwriting decisions to their customers and broker partners within hours, not weeks.
• We were recognized: We were honored to have been selected by Gartner as a Cool Vendor in Insurance for Copilot’s unique ability to combine and codify the practices and knowledge of top underwriters and to augment them with AI, helping to achieve consistent, superior underwriting results.

Our roadmap for 2021 is already underway with a brand new “Hub” for triaging and prioritizing submissions, expanded insights, and support for additional lines of business. On behalf of the entire Kalepa team, I thank our customers and partners for their continued support and trust.

We wish you all a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!

Paul Monasterio
CEO and Co-Founder, Kalepa