Life underwriting manual search that answers rating questions with the page that says so
Impairment ratings answered from the manual, with the page that says so.
See one case, screen by screen ↓It answers a rating question — how to rate an impairment — from the reinsurer manual, your own guidelines, the memos in force and past medical director decisions. The answer is a debit and credit ledger with the section and page behind every line, the total, and where it lands on the class ladder.
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A life underwriter rates an impairment by looking it up. The debits sit in the reinsurer's underwriting manual, the departures in the company's own guidelines, the latest change in an underwriting memo, and the hard calls in what the medical director decided last time. Then comes the arithmetic: every impairment adds debits or earns credits, they are summed, and the sum is rounded to a table rating.
So the same answers get looked up many times a day. Juniors refer cases to the medical director only to find the right page, and two underwriters can rate the same diabetic-with-build case at different tables because one read the standard build chart instead of the diabetic one, or missed the memo that capped the credits. In the field, agents quote standard and the offer comes back Table 4.
Estimated split for a case with four to six impairment lookups, by hand and with the solution.
Six agents read the question, the manual, the memos and past decisions and build a cited ledger; the underwriter decides.
Daniel Whitcombe, 52, non-tobacco, applies for Level Term 20 at $1,500,000. He has type 2 diabetes and a heavy build. Here is how Priya Natarajan rates him, screen by screen, in the working solution.
NB-26-118402 opens with the case strip — Male 52, Non-tobacco, Level Term 20, $1,500,000, agent Rosa Lindqvist — and what is in file: the application, the APS from Lakeshore Family Medicine and the Rx history. Below it sit the question bar, the debit and credit ledger, the class ladder and the manual page, side by side.
“Asked 212 times this year — the most read page in the manual.”
She types “52, type 2 diabetes, HbA1c 7.6, metformin only” and presses Ask. Each agent step shows as it runs: the question reader takes four facts, the manual searcher finds Meridale Re §D-12 on page 418 and the memo in force, the debit calculator reads table D-12b, and the requirements writer notes the APS is already in the file.
Combination checker: “build not given · for diabetics it will be read from D-14, not B-2”
Table D-12b, onset 40–49, current age 50–59, HbA1c 7.0–7.9%: +75, with page 418 open beside the ledger and the row highlighted. Build is not guessed. It stays open on the ledger — “height and weight not given yet” — and the class reads Table 3, 175%, marked provisional.
“1 fact still open — the total can still move”
“He is 6 foot, 248 pounds.” BMI 33.6. The manual's combination rule §D-12.6 sends an applicant with diabetes to the diabetic build table D-14: +50. The standard build chart B-2 would have given +25; that line stays on the ledger, struck through, with the reason. Running total +125: Table 5.
“set aside — §D-12.6 sends an applicant with diabetes to table D-14”
The standard chart B-2 and the diabetic table D-14 open side by side as the 2026 manual prints them, rows by height and columns by weight. Daniel's cell is outlined in each: +25 on B-2, not used for a diabetic, and +50 on D-14. The HbA1c rows of table D-12b sit underneath.
“Microalbumin normal, eGFR 88, and he has seen his doctor every three months for years.” The manual allows two credits, −50. Memo UW-26-07 of 12 March 2026, from Graham Oduya, caps all credits for an applicant with diabetes at −25 — so the ledger carries −25 and shows the −50 struck through, with the memo open beside it.
“Our 2025 mortality study showed diabetic cases with two manual credits running at 118% of expected.”
Total +100, rounded under the company's guidelines §1.4: Table 4, 200% mortality — “within your authority — Table 4 and $2,000,000”. The conversation keeps all three turns with their page references, and the requirements writer has drafted what to order: paramedical exam, blood profile with HbA1c, urinalysis with microalbumin, resting ECG and NT-proBNP. The APS, three years, is already in file.
“Drafted from the age and amount grid and §D-12. You order.”
Nine medical director decisions match type 2 diabetes, BMI 32–35 and age 48–58, all by Dr. Ellen Marsh since 2024: six at Table 4, two at Table 3, one at Table 5. The three not at Table 4 each differ on a fact — BMI under 33, or HbA1c above 8 with raised microalbumin. The closest, R-26-0341, is a 98% match.
Precedent informs; the manual rules.
Dr. Marsh's queue shows 7 open referrals, each arriving with its ledger and pages. Tomás Ferreira's question on Ayodele Brandt — which build table for a diabetic — is marked lookup only: the search answered it from §D-12.6 before it reached her. She returns it with the page instead of reviewing it.
“This one is answered by the manual — the ledger below was attached by the search before it reached you. Send it back with the page, no review needed.”
The five-underwriter test runs the same case — type 2 diabetes, BMI 33.6, normal kidney tests — through Priya, Jonah, Tomás, Mei-Lin and Desmond. With search, all five land on +100 from the same 4 pages. Beside it: lookup-only referrals by month against the 9% target, lookups per week with a median answer of 14 seconds, and the most asked impairments.
“1 rating from 5 underwriters”
The same rating question, seen by the five people it touches — what their week looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six agents read the question, the manual, the memos and past decisions and build a cited ledger; the underwriter decides.
Turns the underwriter's plain words into rating facts — age, onset, readings, medication, height and weight — and asks for the fact the manual needs next.
Finds the governing section and page across the reinsurer manual, the company's guidelines and the memos in force, applying the order of precedence set in Rules.
Reads the table row that matches each fact and writes the debit or credit exactly as printed, with its page.
Checks every pair of impairments against the combination rules, names the rule where it changes a number, then sums the ledger and rounds it with the guidelines' bands.
Finds medical director decisions on similar facts — impairment, readings, build, age and amount — with the outcome and the doctor's note.
Lists the requirements to order from the age and amount grid and the impairment section, and marks what is already in the file.
Decides within authority; medical director above it. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Underwriters can ask in plain words about any rating, page or rule on the case. Answers come from the manual, the guidelines and the memos, with the page.
Why is the build +50 and not +25?
Because Daniel Whitcombe has diabetes. §D-12.6 says build for an applicant with diabetes is read from the diabetic table D-14, and the standard chart B-2 is not added. At BMI 33.6, D-14 gives +50; B-2 would have given +25. Page 422 is open beside the ledger.
What if his HbA1c comes back at 8.2?
Table D-12b moves him from the 7.0–7.9% row to 8.0–8.9%: +100 instead of +75. With build +50 and the capped credit −25 the total is +125, Table 5 under §1.4 — above your authority, so Dr. Marsh would decide.
Show me Dr. Marsh's similar decisions
Nine decisions since 2024 match type 2 diabetes, BMI 32–35 and age 48–58: six at Table 4, two at Table 3 and one at Table 5. The three that differ each turn on a fact — BMI under 33, or HbA1c above 8 with raised microalbumin.
Has the diabetic credit rule changed this year?
Yes. Memo UW-26-07 of 12 March 2026 caps all credits for an applicant with diabetes at −25, after the 2025 study found two-credit cases at 118% of expected. It replaced UW-25-19, which allowed −50 and is now marked superseded. Guideline G-4.3 was amended to match.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Which source wins, how debits round to a table, the combination rules and who may decide what are settings, saved as a new version of the guidelines.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| When sources disagree | Our guidelines v14, then memos in force (newest first), then Meridale Re 2026, then Corvane Re 2025 | Reorder the sources |
| Rounding to a table | +86 to +110 = Table 4, 200% mortality | Standard to Table 8; over +210, decline or medical director |
| Diabetes with build | Read build from D-14, never add B-2 · §D-12.6 | On · off |
| Diabetes with treated hypertension | +25 even where hypertension alone rates 0 · §D-12.7 | On · off |
| Credit cap for diabetes | All credits together no lower than −25 · UW-26-07 | On · off |
| Authority | Underwriter II: Table 4 and $2,000,000 | Underwriter I: Table 2, $1,000,000 · Senior underwriter: Table 8, $5,000,000 · Medical director: any |
| Field preview | Ranges only, rounded to two tables | On · off |
| Keep the question log | 7 years | Every question, the pages returned and the decision |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample case data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate, from a time-study design on the sample case · “typical” = published figures (Gen Re, U.S. Individual Life Next Gen Underwriting Survey 2025 — 41% of applications underwritten the traditional way, mean 28 days against 9 for accelerated). People, companies, manuals and cases named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
It answers a rating question — how to rate an impairment — from the reinsurer manual, your own guidelines, the memos in force and past medical director decisions. The answer is a debit and credit ledger with the section and page behind every line, the total, and where it lands on the class ladder.
The combination checker applies the manual's written combination rules and names the rule where it changes a number. In the sample case, §D-12.6 sends an applicant with diabetes to the diabetic build table, so build is +50 rather than the +25 the standard chart gives, and the struck-through line stays on the ledger.
Both. Your Chief Underwriter sets which source wins when they disagree — in the sample, your guidelines first, then memos in force with the newest first, then the primary reinsurer manual, then a secondary guide where the primary is silent. A superseded page stays readable and marked.
No. The underwriter decides within their authority; above it, or on a line marked Refer, the medical director decides. The requirements writer drafts the list from the age and amount grid and the impairment, and the underwriter orders.
That is the aim: fewer referrals that are only a lookup, with a design target of 9% of referrals, down from 31%. Every referral that does go up arrives with its ledger and pages, and the medical director can return a lookup-only referral with the page.
Yes, through a field preview. An agent enters age, sex, height, weight and what the client said, and gets a likely class range rounded to two tables plus what the client should expect to be asked for. It never shows the manual text and is never an offer.
Yes. The agents never set a rating on a case, order a requirement or contact the agent. Every question, the pages returned and the decision are logged with who asked, and the authority grid decides who may sign off at each table and amount.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your reinsurer manuals, guidelines, memos and a sample of past medical director decisions — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own cases first.
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