Blog Post: I've Reviewed Thousands of Submissions. Here's What the Best Ones Do.

By Justin Narduzzo, Director of Underwriting, LEEO Insurance

I've worked in underwriting on both the carrier and MGA sides for the last 12 years. I've personally reviewed thousands of submissions and coordinated tens of thousands more across new business and renewal underwriting teams.

If there's one thing that separates a same-day quote from a week of back-and-forth, it's how well the submission is put together before it reaches an underwriter's desk.

The best brokers I've worked with have already figured this out. They know their insured's operation, anticipate underwriting questions before they're asked, and package the file in a way that makes it easy to understand the risk. A good submission tells the story. A great submission comes with cliff notes.

We Meet You Where You Are

LEEO doesn't have a submissions portal. We use a standard submission email inbox, monitored in real time by our proprietary AI tools to make sure every submission is logged and routed appropriately the same day. There's no portal to learn and no credentials to remember. Just send an email.

I want to write business as badly as you do. But I also have to make sure every risk we quote fits within our program's guardrails and represents a defensible underwriting decision for our carrier partners.

The more complete the picture is up front, the faster we can make that decision.

What We Require

Here's the baseline for every submission:

ACORD applications (125, 127, 137)

Vehicle schedule

Driver schedule

Five (5) years currently valued loss runs

Completed supplemental application

If your agency or brokerage typically pulls MVRs as part of its marketing process, send those along too. If you don't have them, we'll pull them ourselves, although that may add some time to the underwriting process.

I'd prefer our LEEO supplemental application, but more often than not, another carrier's or MGA's supplemental gets us just as far.

I love receiving things in Excel format for the easy copy/paste, but it's certainly not a requirement.

What Separates a Great Submission From a Good One

Most importantly: tell me what the insured actually does.

A NAICS code or a one-sentence description of operations only gets me so far. The context around the operation is what allows our underwriters to picture the risk, understand the exposure, and move quickly.

And if there's a six- or seven-figure loss anywhere in the loss history, please get ahead of it. A few sentences explaining what happened, why it happened, and what's changed since then can turn a red flag into a risk I can actually pursue. Without that context, it's one more thing I have to stop and ask about.

That's really the difference. Don't just send me the data. Help me understand the story the data is telling.

Fewer Rounds, Faster Answers

Our underwriters review each risk with real scrutiny, and we'll often come back with questions to make sure we fully understand the exposure. Our goal is to get you a LEEO quote with as few rounds of back-and-forth as possible. If something's missing, you won't hear from us piecemeal. We'll tell you everything we need in a single shot so we're rallying toward the quote, not volleying forever.

Your time matters, and so does ours.

We Work With Brokers Wherever They Are in the Process

I love working with brokers who control the business and know it inside and out. I also love helping brokers who are going after new business themselves. I understand that you may not know every detail of a prospective insured's operation. That's fine. Our underwriters will tell you what we need to make an informed eligibility and pricing decision. If we can help you identify those questions early in the process, even better.

Ultimately, we're trying to accomplish the same thing: figure out whether there's a deal worth pursuing and decision it quickly.

Bottom Line

A complete submission isn't about creating extra hoops to jump through. It's the fastest way to get a real answer out of LEEO's underwriting operation, whether that answer is yes or no.

Give us the full picture up front, and we'll do our part to understand the risk, communicate clearly, and make sure you're not waiting around for an answer.