How an MGA rates, reprices and quotes commercial property by asking
- Written by
- RiskaProduct
- Published
- Length
- 3 min read
Why one quoting screen fits nobody at an MGA
Picture an MGA writing commercial property with a crime add-on across a dozen states. A renewal comes in for a light manufacturer with three buildings in Columbus, Ohio. Three people will touch it before it goes back to the broker.
The underwriter wants it priced on this year's rates and wants to know why it moved. The assistant underwriter wants to see what a $5,000 deductible does to the premium before the broker call at two. The account manager wants funds transfer fraud added to the crime section and the quote letter out tonight.
A quoting screen is built around one of those paths, usually the underwriter's. The other two get a tab nobody finds, a spreadsheet beside the system, or a message asking someone else to do it.
So the work goes to whoever knows the screen, not to whoever owns the question.
Three people, one renewal
What each role asks on the Columbus renewal, and what a person signs off before anything changes.
| Role | What they type | What Ask Riska does | What they approve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Underwriter | Rate this renewal with the 2026 property rate book. | Runs the MGA's workbook on the open record and shows each premium line with the factor behind it | Whether the price stands |
| Assistant underwriter | What's the premium if we raise the deductible to $5,000? | Prices the change without saving it and sets the new premium beside the current one | Whether to make the change on the quote |
| Account manager | Add funds transfer fraud at $100,000 and draft the quote. | Previews the coverage change, re-rates once it is approved, then builds the quote package | The change, then the package before it goes out |
| Underwriter, later | Why is this up on last year? | Compares the quote with the expiring term and names the lines that moved | Nothing. It is a read |
One renewal, from the first ask to the quote package
Following the Columbus manufacturing renewal through one afternoon.
- 01
Ask for the rating on the record you are looking at
The underwriter opens the renewal and types “rate this with the 2026 property rate book”. Ask Riska already knows which record is open, so there is no account to look up. It runs the MGA's own workbook, which reads the base rate by construction and occupancy, the territory factor, the protection class factor and the deductible credit from the rate book, and returns the premium line by line with the factor behind each one.
- 02
Check which edition priced it
The Commercial Property 2026 book carries a mid-year revision that raises base rates 5%, in force for new business on July 1 and for renewals on August 1. A renewal effective July 15 prices on the January edition, and the answer says which one it used.
The first rating pins the quote to that edition. Ask again next week and the premium is the same, until someone deliberately re-prices it on current rates. After bind, nobody can.
- 03
Price the what-if without saving it
The assistant underwriter asks what a $5,000 deductible would do. On the CP Deductible Credits table the credit moves from 0.95 to 0.90, and Ask Riska shows the new premium beside the current one. Nothing on the quote has changed. If the broker says yes, she asks for the change.
- 04
Approve the change, then let it re-rate
A change to the record arrives as a preview: the field, the old value, the new one, and any validation problem flagged before anything is written. The account manager adds funds transfer fraud at a $100,000 limit the same way.
Once approved, the quote is marked out of date and priced again. A crime coverage that rates below its minimum picks up the minimum premium written in the crime rate table, $400 for funds transfer fraud, and the line says so.
- 05
Draft the quote package
“Draft the quote” finds the quote package the MGA built from its own templates, the quote letter and a declarations preview, and starts it on the record. The finished file lands on the quote for a person to read and send. If an optional document is switched off for this record, Ask Riska says so instead of quietly leaving it out.
What Ask Riska will not do on its own
Ask Riska runs as the person asking. Through the assistant, an account manager reaches exactly the records their own login already reaches, and nothing more.
It does not write to a record without an approval, and it does not send a quote. Every change it makes is logged against the assistant and the conversation that asked for it, which is the first place to look when someone asks who moved the deductible.
And it does not price from its own arithmetic. The premium comes from the workbook and rate tables the MGA filed, and the answer names them. When a building has no protection class, the rating stops and says which input is missing. It does not guess one.
A flexible workflow without a bespoke screen
Most systems answer a new way of working with a new screen: a quick-quote page, a deductible comparison tab, a document button for the account team. Each is built, maintained and learned on its own, and each covers only the path somebody predicted.
Riska puts the flexibility in the conversation instead. Ask Riska acts on the same record, the same rate book and the same workbook the underwriting workbench uses, and drafts from the same templates as document generation. Three people can work one renewal three different ways, and the price, the change history and the quote letter still come out of one place.
Questions we get asked
- Is this a real customer?
- No. This is an illustrative use case describing how a commercial property and crime MGA would rate, reprice and quote with Ask Riska. It names no customer and reports no results.
- Does Ask Riska calculate the premium itself?
- No. It runs the MGA's own workbook against the record, reading factors from the rate book's effective-dated tables, and shows which table supplied each factor. The assistant decides what to price; the price comes from the same calculation the underwriting workbench runs.
- Can Ask Riska change a quote without approval?
- No. A change to a record arrives as a preview of the exact fields it will set, and nothing is written until the person approves it. A what-if price is never saved at all.
- Which rate book edition does an Ask Riska quote use?
- The edition in force on the policy's effective date, with separate dates for new business and renewals where the filing sets them. The first rating pins the quote to that edition, so it prices the same way until someone deliberately moves it to current rates, which cannot happen after bind.
- Do assistant underwriters and account managers need extra access to use it?
- No. Ask Riska runs as the person asking, so it reaches only the records and actions their own account already allows.
Keep reading
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How an E&S carrier ranks its submission queue by expected value
An E&S carrier writing property and crime uses Riska to score every submission, renewal and task on expected value: premium size, appetite fit and likelihood to bind, lifted by how close the effective date is. The queue is ordered by that score with the reasons beside each rank, so underwriters start on the accounts most worth winning and decline the rest on the first read. People still make every quote, referral and decline.
See it on your own submissions.
Bring a real ACORD form and a real appetite guide. We will run them through Riska on the call.