Three declines before the first quote
A newer broker has a risk: a small food manufacturer with a history of one fire claim. They approach the insurers they know. The first declines, the second says it is outside appetite, the third takes a week and then declines too. A senior colleague looks over and says: 'You need to go to the two who like food risks, and the fire claim means one of them will want a survey first.' That knowledge was always there. It just was not written down anywhere the new broker could find it.
Insurer appetite also changes. An insurer who wrote a trade last year may have withdrawn; a new market may have opened. The senior brokers pick this up from underwriter meetings and emails, but the rest of the office does not.
Why appetite lives in heads
Every approach, quote and decline is information about appetite, but it is recorded in emails and notes, not in a form anyone can search. Insurer appetite guides exist, but they are PDFs and web pages that date quickly. Underwriter conversations are not written up. So appetite is learned by experience, and it leaves when experienced people do.
- Declines are not recorded in a searchable way.
- Appetite guides are scattered and out of date.
- Underwriter updates are shared by word of mouth.
- Newer brokers learn by trial and error.
What wrong approaches cost
Time: every inappropriate approach is time spent preparing it and waiting for the answer. Relationships: underwriters notice brokers who send them risks they never write. And clients, who get terms later and from fewer markets than they would with a more targeted approach.
An appetite record built from your own history
- Every market approach made from your office is logged with the risk's key features: trade, size, location, claims history and cover sought.
- The outcome is captured from the insurer's response: quoted, declined with reason, or no response, and the terms where quoted.
- Past approaches are loaded from your broking system and email archive where they can be found, so the record does not start empty.
- Insurer appetite guides and underwriter updates are stored and indexed, with the date so stale guidance is obvious.
- Brokers can record appetite news from underwriter meetings in a short form.
- Before approaching the market, the broker describes the risk and sees where similar risks have been quoted and declined recently, with the reasons, plus relevant guides.
- Market managers see approach and decline patterns by insurer and trade.
The record shows history and published appetite. Which insurers to approach, and why, remains the broker's judgement.
What a broker sees before approaching
| Question | Where the answer comes from |
|---|---|
| Who has quoted similar risks recently? | Your own approach history |
| Who has declined, and why? | Recorded declines with reasons |
| What does each insurer say it wants? | Indexed appetite guides, dated |
| Has anything changed lately? | Brokers' notes from underwriter meetings |
Placing with the office's whole memory
A newer broker with an unusual risk starts from what the office has already learned, not from the insurers they happen to know. They can see that two insurers quoted similar food risks last quarter, that a third declined three in a row on fire claims, and that a senior colleague noted after an underwriter lunch that a fourth is back in the market for that trade. Approaches become more targeted, and underwriters see fewer risks that were never going to fit.
Senior brokers benefit as well. Their knowledge is recorded as they work rather than written up in a separate exercise, and the market manager can have a better-informed conversation with each insurer about what the office sends them and what comes back.
Is appetite knowledge stuck with a few people?
- Newer brokers regularly approach insurers who decline.
- Declines are not recorded in a way anyone can search.
- Appetite guides are saved in personal folders.
- Your market knowledge would suffer if a senior broker left.