The hidden cost of messy submissions

It’s 4:45 p.m. An underwriter sits staring at a 50-page submission that just hit their inbox. Half the fields are blank, the loss runs are scanned PDFs with blurry text. But the broker says if the underwriter can quote it, the business is theirs. The underwriter knows the deal might be worth writing—maybe even a great fit—but the hours needed to piece together the information means it probably won’t make it to the top of the stack today. And in a business where time decides what gets attention, this one might never get it at all.

Ask any underwriter about the submissions they receive, and you’ll hear the same complaint: too many PDFs, too much retyping, too much manual review.

But here’s the part that most teams miss: the cost isn’t just time. It’s risk selection.

When underwriting teams spend hours digging through unstructured submissions, the clock runs out before the best risks rise to the top. It’s not just slow. It’s shaping entire books of business in ways MGAs can’t see until it’s too late.

And here’s what stings: the lost opportunities are often the profitable ones—the risks that need just a little more attention, a few more conversations, a deeper review. The quick and easy deals make it through the underwriting funnel, while the complex or nuanced submissions fall to the bottom of the pile simply because time ran out.

When an underwriter takes the time to dig into those tougher, messier risks—the ones everyone else passes on—it changes the relationship with their broker. Win one of those deals, and suddenly the broker sees you differently. It tells brokers you can handle more than the straightforward deals, and that trust opens the door to the rest of their business. 

The reality for many MGAs is that submissions pile up, and some deals are declined by default—not because of the risk itself, but because capacity runs out first. That means growth potential is throttled not by appetite or capital, but by the clock.

Why the foundation matters more than ever

The irony? Most teams try to fix the problem at the wrong end of the process: new rating engines, faster quoting tools, slicker broker portals.

All valuable, sure. But if the inputs are still messy, everything downstream stays broken.

That’s why the real ROI doesn’t start with fancy AI models or more bolt-on tech. It starts with the unglamorous but absolutely essential work of building a clean, consistent, trustworthy foundation:

• Every submission in a usable format.
• Every loss run searchable.
• Every submission ready for analysis the moment it arrives.

It’s the kind of work nobody wants to talk about at conferences but everyone feels in their day-to-day reality. Without it, you can’t move faster, price smarter, or scale effectively—no matter how many new tools you throw at the problem.

The foundation isn’t exciting. But without it, nothing else works the way it should. Upstage fixes that—laying the groundwork for the underwriter by automatically extracting, organizing, and standardizing the submission so there’s a clear, consistent foundation every time.

The before and after picture

Here’s where things change.

Before Upstage: Underwriters spend 80% of their time gathering information and 20% making decisions. Every file, every email attachment, every loss run means another round of hunting, consolidating, and reconciling before anyone can even start evaluating the risk.

After Upstage: The ratios flip. Information flows in ready to use. Underwriters actually underwrite. They spend their time where it matters most—analyzing risk, having meaningful conversations with brokers, and finding the deals worth writing.

That shift doesn’t just save hours. It changes outcomes. Faster turnaround means brokers start to view you as the go-to market, not the backup option. It puts you in a better competitive position when speed and responsiveness often win the deal before price even enters the conversation.

And when underwriters have the time and tools to properly review complex risks instead of defaulting to a polite “thanks, but no thanks” declination email? That’s when underwriting portfolios start to look very different. The book mix improves, loss ratios stabilize, and results stop depending on chance or capacity alone—they become intentional.

That’s not process improvement. That’s growth.

The steps to building a stronger foundation

Here’s how MGA leaders are already approaching it:

• Uncover what’s really slowing you down. Map where submissions come from, what information is missing, and how long it takes before an underwriter can even start reviewing. 
• Standardize what you can. Templates, required fields, submission guidelines—simple changes have a huge impact. 
• Automate the repetitive stuff. Parsing PDFs, organizing attachments, extracting data—machines handle it faster and more accurately. 
• Measure the right things. Track turnaround time from submission to quote. Monitor how many deals go untouched because nobody had time. 
• Iterate for small wins. A 10% improvement in speed here, a 20% reduction in manual work there—it all adds up.

It’s not glamorous, but it works.

A proven track record, now focused on insurance

Upstage isn’t new to transforming the way teams work—or to insurance. In Korea, we power over 60% of the nation’s claims processing by working with the top insurers, alongside automation solutions for banking, manufacturing, and government. We’ve spent years proving what’s possible when complex, unstructured information is turned into clean, actionable insights at scale.

As we enter the U.S. market, we recognize that insurance has always been rooted in relationships, trust, and deep expertise. That foundation won’t change. But in a market moving this quickly, MGAs can no longer afford to sacrifice the tools that free underwriters to focus on those relationships. Efficiency and speed are no longer nice-to-haves—they’re profit levers.

The time to act—and to meet us at ITC

This is the inflection point, and ITC is the place to begin. MGAs that act today will be the ones brokers call first tomorrow. Every day spent wrestling with manual submissions and broken processes is a day competitors use to get faster, quote more deals, and win the relationships that used to be yours.

Momentum matters, and time is expensive. The MGAs leading the next chapter of this industry are the ones combining the relationships insurance has always been built on with the kind of tools that free underwriters to actually underwrite. 

Upstage can help you start small—but you have to start now. Meet us at ITC Vegas at booth #834 to see how we’re helping carriers, brokers, and MGAs finally fix the foundation of insurance processes.