John Fotheringham: What happens when underwriters are given autonomy?

Underwriting teams in large insurers drive impressively consistent results. But with this need for consistency comes a need for seemingly endless audits to ensure everyone is adhering to the letter of the law; namely, the organisation's underwriting philosophy. I know all this because I've been there. The trouble is what you gain in consistency, you lose in autonomy; the ability of the underwriter to make common sense decisions. And it's this lack of autonomy that leads to broker frustrations (not to mention underwriter frustrations). Only recently I read a comment from a broker in...