Sixfold, a provider of artificial intelligence solutions for the insurance industry, has announced the launch of its AI Underwriter, a new technology platform designed to assist insurers with underwriting analysis, risk assessment and decision support throughout the submission process.
The launch follows Sixfold’s $30 million Series B funding round announced earlier this year, which the company said would help accelerate development of the AI Underwriter.
Sixfold describes the platform as an underwriting agent capable of retaining knowledge from previous submissions, broker interactions and underwriting decisions while continuously learning from each insurer’s unique approach to risk selection.
According to Sixfold, the AI Underwriter has been developed through three years of collaboration with major insurers and combines a broad foundation of underwriting expertise with carrier-specific intelligence. The company says the platform is designed to understand an insurer’s underwriting appetite, portfolio strategy and internal guidelines, becoming increasingly tailored to that organisation over time.
Sixfold explains that when a submission is received, the AI Underwriter gathers and standardises relevant information, identifies missing data, evaluates appetite alignment and portfolio suitability, and applies insights gained from previous underwriting activity.
The platform then produces a recommendation, provides an explanation for its assessment and proposes the next action for the underwriter. Sixfold states that the technology is intended to provide context beyond the individual risk by considering factors such as broker relationships, portfolio composition and current business objectives.
Alex Schmelkin, Founder and CEO, Sixfold, commented: “What does a great underwriter actually need the moment they receive a submission? They don’t need a digitized version of the application, broker documents moved from their inbox to another system, or a dashboard with data that was current last week. Instead, our users told us that what they need is to understand the risk in the full context of their current book, the broker, and the guidelines, and to be presented with a clear next step. Right there, at the moment a decision is being made. That is what the AI Underwriter does.”
Sixfold provides technology to insurers operating across both Property & Casualty and Life & Health markets. The company reports that since its establishment in 2023, its systems have processed more than 1.5 million submissions across over 50 lines of business spanning North America, South America, the UK, Europe and Australia. Sixfold states that its customer base collectively represents approximately $270 billion in gross written premium and includes organisations such as Skyward Specialty, Zurich, Generali GC&C, Guardian, AXIS and New York Life.
The company says customers using its technology have recorded substantial operational improvements, including processing times reduced by between 50% and 97%, increases in hit ratios of at least 15% and growth in gross written premium per underwriter of up to 30%. Sixfold believes these efficiencies can contribute to stronger underwriting performance while allowing teams to manage a greater volume of business.
According to Sixfold, earlier versions of its technology focused primarily on collecting, enriching and analysing submission data to identify information relevant to underwriting decisions. The AI Underwriter expands on that capability by taking a more active role in the workflow, incorporating wider business considerations and supporting decision-making throughout the underwriting process.
Sixfold emphasises that human underwriters continue to provide oversight, exercise professional judgement and remain accountable for governance and final outcomes. The company adds that, where insurers choose to implement straight-through processing, the platform can generate quote-ready and bind-ready documentation.
At the centre of the AI Underwriter is what Sixfold refers to as its Underwriting Brain. The company describes this as a core intelligence layer built using underwriting standards, recognised professional frameworks, underwriting reasoning methodologies and a curated knowledge base covering multiple industries and classes of business. Sixfold says this foundation allows insurers to gain immediate value from the platform while ensuring that future learning remains specific to each individual carrier.
Sixfold states that every insurer’s implementation of the AI Underwriter operates independently. The platform learns from that carrier’s underwriting appetite, portfolio characteristics, guidelines and decisions, with feedback remaining within the insurer’s own environment. According to the company, information from one carrier is not used to train another, enabling each insurer to develop its own institutional knowledge over time.
Before the official launch, Sixfold worked with a selected group of insurers that used the AI Underwriter on live submissions. The company reports that early experience at Skyward Specialty indicated the platform completed much of the underwriting analysis required for submission reviews, enabling underwriters to focus on higher-value decision-making activities while maintaining consistency across the portfolio.
Melissa Butt, Vice President E&S Brokerage, Property, Skyward Specialty, said: “The AI Underwriter does not just summarize what you are looking at, it gives you a point of view and a clear path forward. For more junior underwriters it’s a powerful companion that gives them the perspectives of a more experienced underwriter and accelerates their development. Even veteran underwriters who are a little more skeptical of new technology, see the tool as an added layer of intelligence. Plus, the ability to fully examine a submission and make better, more confident decisions without even leaving the tool is a huge benefit. The entire team is excited to work with it.”
John Burkhart, President US Property & Casualty, Skyward Specialty, added: “For us, being agile and responsive is critical and we need partners who can scale alongside our business while providing efficiencies that allow our underwriters to focus on what they do best. With Sixfold we are building what we believe the future of underwriting looks like. By incorporating Sixfold’s AI Underwriter into our bionic underwriting approach we are equipping our underwriters with richer context that enhances their decision-making while keeping human expertise firmly at the center of the process.”
Sixfold reports that adoption among underwriting teams has exceeded 90% of expected users. The company attributes this to the platform’s integration with existing underwriting systems and the flexibility it offers insurers in determining the level of autonomy assigned to the technology.
Matthew Richardson, Global Head of Operations & IT, Generali GC&C, noted: “Sixfold helps us quote risks in minutes instead of days or in some cases weeks. The work gets better for our underwriters. What sets Sixfold apart is how they build their product, alongside underwriters, shaped by how the job really works. That is why we believe they are building the future of underwriting.”
Jane Tran, Co-founder and COO, Sixfold, added: “We recently asked more than 500 underwriters and executives what they wished underwriters had more time for. The answer was the same across the board: the complex risks, the unusual ones, the cases that need real expertise and creativity. The best underwriting teams five years from now will be the ones where underwriters spend that expertise on the work only they can do. The AI Underwriter works every case as a colleague, so an underwriter walks into a hard to place risk already knowing the broker, the book, and the guidelines, and can negotiate from there.”
Sixfold also highlighted the role of governance, compliance and regulatory engagement in supporting the deployment of artificial intelligence within insurance operations.
The company says its responsible AI framework includes governance controls, regulatory collaboration and risk management measures designed to support implementation across multiple regions and regulatory environments. The AI Underwriter is now available to Property & Casualty insurers.
