John Hancock transforms underwriting with Munich Re’s alitheia

John Hancock, the U.S. side of powerhouse insurer Manulife, has revealed the secret sauce behind a new strategy to boost its underwriting process — a customized, integrated version of Munich Re’s rapid risk assessment platform, alitheia.

According to Hector Martinez, Head of John Hancock Insurance, this partnership between two leaders in AI in the insurance industry has now created a tailored, unique assessment solution that will deliver better, faster service to clients and make the job easier for advisors.

“Through this collaboration, we’re able to enhance the buying experience for consumers and make it easier for advisors to do business with us. We’ve also now expanded ExpressTrack eligibility to face amounts up to $5 million, providing even more John Hancock customers the opportunity to receive a streamlined experience,” Martinez told InsuranceNewsNet.

Futuristic underwriting with alitheia

Alitheia was first launched in 2023 with a goal of modernizing the insurance underwriting process. Since then, it’s undergone major development and advancements to create the highly customizable, flexible, and fast solution that exists today.

“Alitheia is driven by a team of underwriters, data scientists and engineers. This collaborative model supports rapid iteration, continuous improvement and ensures we can address current and future needs,” Adnan Haque, VP, integrated analytics, Munich Re, said.

Just this month, the platform received U.S. patents for technology-optimized underwriting and use of natural language processing of free-form text responses, allowing it to be used as a standalone platform — and opening the door for more partnerships with companies like John Hancock.

“Our team works closely with each carrier to design a process that meets their goals. With John Hancock, alitheia is being leveraged to improve the application process, decrease time to underwriting decision, and make insurance easier to purchase for their customers,” Haque said.

A match made in AI heaven

The partnership between Munich Re and John Hancock lines up, considering both have made it clear that they not only embrace technology but also set out to be innovators in the field.

Munich Re already has several AI-related partnerships under its belt, while John Hancock’s parent company, Manulife, is such a technology leader that it recently ranked among the top five global insurers with the best AI rollout in Evident’s AI Insurance Index.

“We value alitheia’s reputation for achieving some of the highest instant offer rates in the industry, and it was great to work with Munich Re to customize the use of alitheia in a way that maintains our trusted underwriting philosophy,” Martinez commented.

An enhanced platform

According to Haque, Munich Re developed the enhanced version of alitheia being used by John Hancock after clients said they liked the platform’s sophisticated risk assessment models and machine learning but wanted “more flexibility and control over their programs.”

“The enhanced offering embodies this by offering a flexible solution that adapts to the dynamic nature of the insurance industry and individual carrier needs,” Haque said.

For instance, the platform includes:

• Customizable rules designer: Allows carriers to implement their own underwriting rules, with the option to incorporate updates from Munich Re
• Underwriting workbench: Streamlines the underwriting process with an intuitive interface that enhances efficiency and decision-making accuracy
• Risk assessment models: Leverage AI, machine learning, and NLP, backed by “rigorous AI governance”
• Integration: Offers seamless integration with systems carriers are already using and a variety of third-party data sources, such as clinic labs and electronic health records

The way John Hancock leverages it is by integrating alitheia with their own proprietary ExpressTrack individual life underwriting system.

“We’ve incorporated alitheia’s models, including automated electronic health record assessments and robust risk assessment capabilities, into ExpressTrack to help produce timely, accurate, non-invasive underwriting decisions,” Martinez said.

Digesting medical data

Part of alitheia’s uniqueness is the way it handles complex medical data and assesses it alongside other factors to determine a meaningful risk score. While other underwriting platforms also focus on quick, accurate assessment and even automated decision-making in some cases, none interact with medical data in quite the same way.

alitheia’s newly-patented NLP models “interpret freeform text responses in an application and map them to a medical lexicon, enabling more cases to be processed instantly,” according to Haque. Meanwhile, its integration with EHRs enables it to make quick, reliable assessments.

“Our patented technology intelligently determines when to retrieve and how to sequence digital third-party data such as electronic health records and clinical data in real-time, enabling potential reduced costs and turnaround times without compromising risk assessment,” Haque said.

Munich Re has long held that EHRs are “underutilized” in the insurance industry, leading them to partner with health data network Clareto in May 2024 to launch an Automated EHR Summarizer. At that time, the company promised that more developments were on the way — and it seems alitheia has made good on that promise.

Haque explained that the platform uses LLMs to look at the attributes of unstructured data in EHRs such as clinical notes. This data is then fed into rule-based assessments, which Munich Re says helps to preserve underwriter expertise and regulatory trust.

“The system includes safeguards to flag missing or low-confidence data, ensuring that such cases are referred for manual review, which helps to maintain decision integrity,” Haque said.

John Hancock is a unit of Manulife, one of Canada’s oldest and most established insurance and financial services providers. Founded in 1887, Manulife operates in more than 19 countries and territories around the world.

Munich Re is a property and casualty reinsurance company based in Delaware. Founded in 1957, Munich Re provides reinsurance, primary insurance, and insurance-related risk solutions around the world.

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Rayne Morgan is a journalist, copywriter, and editor with over 10 years' combined experience in digital content and print media. You can reach her at [email protected].