Future of underwriting forum: The view from the digital frontier

Future of underwriting forum

The view from the digital frontier

4 minutes read

Published 07/01/2025

Business people working on a glass wall looking over their notes for the challenges in the life insurance industry

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In this Q&A series, Tim Morant, Chief Risk Assessment Officer at Munich Re Life US, explores the rapidly evolving risk assessment landscape with industry experts.

Adnan Haque (AH) is the founder and team leader of alitheia, Munich Re’s rapid risk assessment and decisioning platform. Adnan and his team of data scientists, machine learning engineers, and underwriting risk specialists are creating best-in-class risk assessment tools to maximize instant decisioning as well as human review. Their work is changing what it means to “underwrite”.

Can you provide an overview of your career path?

AH: I started my career in an actuarial student program. My company at the time was establishing a data science group, and ‘data scientist’ was first formally becoming a job title. I was fortunate to join the group. Without the opportunity, I may have never become involved in some of the exciting trends that are shaping the future of underwriting. I joined Munich Re because of their extensive capabilities and collaborations with carriers across the insurance industry. Enhancements in technology and access to data have led to significant innovation in risk assessment in the last few years. I’ve been passionate about combining data science, underwriting, and technology to enable best-in-class risk assessment to expand insurability and improve the customer experience.

What are some of the key market trends that excite you about where things might be headed?

AH: One of the trends I'm most optimistic about is the adoption of electronic health records, or EHRs. I believe EHRs accelerate two significant improvements in how we assess risk:

Rely on data first, disclosures second. By prioritizing data over self-reported information, we minimize the risk of omissions and inaccuracies that can occur with disclosures.
Increase automation rates without impacting mortality cost. EHRs will underpin the next significant increase in automation rates by providing readily accessible and standardized health information. This streamlines operations, reduces application-to-issue times, and enhances customer experience ̶ all without compromising our mortality assumptions.

Another trend I'm excited about is the rapid development happening in AI. It will impact every part of the insurance value chain, from how we engage with customers to how we manage claims.

What can we do as an industry to react to or stay ahead of these trends?

AH: Ensure you actively engage in evaluating new tools and data sources to understand their impact. Some of these pilots/proof of concepts can be done with very limited resources. I'd also recommend being thoughtful about where we choose to build versus partner. We should build where we can have a strategic competitive advantage and it directly contributes to our core competency, or if we have very niche requirements. In most other scenarios, we should buy or partner.

What are some of the major challenges you see that the industry is facing or will face in the near term?

AH: Cybersecurity risk is a major challenge I see the industry facing over the near term. According to Security Magazine, a cyber-attack occurred every 39 seconds in 2023.¹ As life insurers, we have a duty to protect the sensitive personal data that individuals entrust to us. At the same time, insurers’ core systems can be dated, sometimes as old as 50 years, and less able to adequately protect that data.

EHRs will underpin the next significant increase in automation rates by providing readily accessible and standardized health information. This streamlines operations, reduces application-to-issue times, and enhances customer experience ̶ all without compromising our mortality assumptions.

Adnan Haque

Munich Re North America Life

Are there any blind spots that worry you in underwriting today or in the life insurance market in general?

AH: While we have many controls around misrepresentation, I've always worried the industry was a few blog posts away from a significant increase in misrepresentation rates. For example, a post with tips about gaming insurance applications could go viral, and third-party data would likely not catch every instance.

If so, what can we do to fix those blind spots?

AH: As data sources and our ability to leverage them improve, this risk will naturally be mitigated. In the interim, we should closely monitor our misrepresentation rates through post-issue audits and other tools.

What does it mean to you to “get the basics right,” and why would that be important in underwriting and risk assessment?

AH: To me, getting the basics right means getting the right team together to address the problem at hand. Everything stems from people and how they come together to achieve a goal. As underwriting and risk assessment become increasingly multidisciplinary, it means having underwriters, actuaries, data scientists, and engineers all working in tandem. We’ve written about this topic in more detail here.

Don’t miss our next article, where I’ll be joined by Lisa Seeman, 2nd VP & Actuary, to discuss how accelerated underwriting is reshaping the industry.