Guide

How to build a facultative submission pack underwriters will quote

A pack is complete when an underwriter can price without guessing. If a field has no source page, it is not in the pack yet — it is on the chase list.

A facultative submission pack is complete when an underwriter can price without guessing. If a field has no source page, it is not in the pack yet. It is on the chase list. This guide is the document list, the slip-versus-SOV rule, the gaps that stall quotes, and a walk through the fictional inspector. It is not a pitch deck.

The buyer view for brokers assembling these files is the brokers hub. The topic hub for the product is facultative reinsurance. The sample you can click is the pack inspector.

Required documents

Start with the placing document. A slip or MRC has to name the insured, the period, the interest, the territory, the limits, and the deductibles. If any of those are "as attached" or "as SOV," the attachment must actually be in the zip, and the field in the pack must point at the attachment, not at the covering email that restated it.

Then the schedule. An SOV or location schedule must be summable. A PDF of a schedule that cannot be totalled is not an SOV. It is a picture of an SOV. Chase a workbook, or accept that TIV is a gap.

Then loss history. Paid and outstanding, large losses identified, as-at date on the face of the file. A five-year run with no as-at is a four-year-old rumour plus whatever happened since. Put it on the chase list rather than feeding it to price.

Then wording excerpts that govern: hours clause, exclusions, occupancy, construction, any warranty the slip relies on. A broker capability brochure is not a wording excerpt. Neither is a marketing one-pager about the insured's safety programme, unless a warranty points at it and you can cite the page.

Then the gap list itself, on page one of the pack or as the first screen. Underwriters open packs from the back when the front is a narrative. Put the missing items where they cannot be skipped.

A working list, in the order an underwriter will actually use:

1. Slip or MRC, signed if you are claiming it is written, draft if you are still placing.
2. SOV or schedule that sums, with as-at date.
3. Loss history with as-at date and large-loss detail.
4. Wording excerpts and endorsements that the slip incorporates.
5. The chase list: every required field still without a span.

Do not pad the zip with unrelated policies, last year's pack "for colour," or three versions of the SOV without saying which is in force. Extra files create extra conflicts. If you must include a prior version, label it superseded.

SOV versus slip

The slip is the placing instrument. The SOV is the schedule of values. They should agree on TIV and on the location list. They often do not.

The fictional file used on this site is ACME Construction Ltd, acme.example. Slip TIV is USD 42,000,000. The SOV totals USD 47,100,000 because a warehouse was added after the slip was typed. The occurrence limit on slip page 2 is USD 10,000,000 and is not in dispute. The hours clause is absent. The SOV has no as-at date.

That TIV split is a conflict, not a rounding error, and not a missing TIV. The pack must show both spans. Averaging to something in the middle is a third number that neither document contains. Picking the SOV "because it is more detailed" hides the fact that the market is being asked to write a slip that does not include the warehouse. Picking the slip hides a location that will still be there at the loss. The underwriter needs the conflict in order to ask: is the warehouse in or out, and will the slip be amended.

If the slip says TIV "as per SOV" and the SOV sums cleanly, TIV is traced to the SOV total row. That is not a conflict. It is a pointer. If the slip also prints a figure that disagrees with that total, you are back to a conflict even though the slip tried to defer to the schedule.

Location-level mismatches belong next to TIV. A warehouse on the SOV and not on the slip schedule is part of the same problem. A location on the slip with no value on the SOV is a gap on the schedule, which is a different chase: complete the SOV, do not invent a value.

Common gaps

These are the items that stall a quote even when the zip looks thick.

• Hours clause missing from slip and from the attached wording.
• SOV with no as-at date, or a date older than the placing conversation.
• Loss run with no as-at date, or a run that stops before a known event.
• Unsigned slip presented as if lines were written.
• Named insured legal name on the slip versus a trading name on the SOV, unresolved.
• Territory or occupancy stated only in the covering email.
• Deductible present on page 1 and a different deductible in an endorsement, not flagged.
• Currency omitted, or mixed on the SOV without a basis.
• Period that does not match the loss history years the broker wants considered.

Each of those should become a chase item with a name, not a feeling that the file is "a bit light." Underwriters can quote through a short chase list. They cannot quote through a narrative that says the file is substantially complete.

Chase list

A chase list is the ordered set of missing pages, stale schedules, unsigned slips, and unresolved conflicts that block a quote. What is a chase list in reinsurance submissions? is the definition this site uses. On a pack, it is a first-class output of extraction: no span, therefore a gap; two spans that cannot both be true, therefore a conflict that may still generate a chase to amend the slip or the SOV.

Write items so a broker assistant can act.

• Field: hours clause. Missing from Slip.pdf and wording excerpts. Blocks period-of-indemnity view on a construction occupancy.
• Field: SOV as-at date. Missing from SOV.xlsx. Blocks reliance on TIV.
• Conflict: TIV slip USD 42,000,000 versus SOV USD 47,100,000. Resolve whether the warehouse is on cover and amend the placing document.

Regenerate when a new attachment arrives. A chase list frozen in a PDF from Tuesday is wrong on Wednesday. The list is the work remaining, not an appendix nobody opens.

Sample inspector

The pack inspector is the ACME Construction file, not a live client pack. Traced fields include named insured, occurrence limit, and period. TIV is a conflict. Hours clause and SOV as-at are gaps. That is the behaviour this guide is describing.

Do not upload a real placing file to the marketing site. Production ingest, when you have a tenant, is a read-only mailbox grant, not a web form on this page. The inspector exists so you can see conflict versus gap without inventing a customer.

If you are building the real pack, use the document list above, leave slip-versus-SOV fights visible, and send the chase list as the cover note. If you are buying software to emit that pack, the test is whether hours clause stays empty when it is missing, and whether TIV stays two numbers when the slip and the SOV disagree. Anything that completes those fields for you has failed the test.