How an MGA Cut Submission Intake to 15 Minutes

A commercial auto MGA came to us with a familiar problem: too many emailed submissions and not enough hands to key them in. Its brokers send submissions the way they always have, by email, and with Cooper, what used to take a full day now takes about 15 minutes. The brokers didn't change a thing, and the underwriting team got real capacity back.

What was manual intake costing this MGA?

When we started working together, their operations team was dealing with the same three costs most MGAs know:

• Every submission waiting in the inbox was a quote they might not win.

• Every hour spent re-keying a broker's application was an hour not spent evaluating risk.

• Every jump in volume meant hiring more people.

They kept their brokers, underwriting standards, and team in place, and handed the manual work in between to Cooper, an AI coworker for insurance. Here's how it went.

Why don't brokers use MGA submission portals?

Brokers taking an account to market want quotes fast. They get them by emailing markets, so they have little reason to log into a separate portal for every carrier and MGA. In E&S, where insurers have been slow to standardize intake and compete for flow, brokers submit however they prefer. For most, that means email.

For this Commercial Auto MGA, email intake had a real cost. Every submission had to be opened, read, and manually keyed into the fields underwriting needs. That kept six full-time contractors busy on data entry, and the average submission still took about 24 hours to reach an underwriter.

Here's the catch: the MGA had a portal, but brokers wouldn't use it consistently, and pushing them onto it could send their business to other markets. They needed to meet brokers where they were, without slowing underwriting or adding more contractors when volume grew.

For email submissions, we’ve hired like six contractors. They do all of our email submission data entry for new business and for endorsements... We just have so many submissions. If we were starting the program today, we probably wouldn’t have people manually upload vehicle lists. We’d just upload it directly from the email.

– General Manager, Commercial Auto MGA

How did the MGA automate email intake without changing broker workflow?

The goal was never another system to manage. Cooper would take on the manual work behind the scenes instead, starting where submissions enter the business: the inbox.

Brokers keep emailing. Underwriters keep underwriting. The only thing that changes is who does the work in between: Cooper takes it on, gradually handling more of it as it proves it can do the job reliably. The rollout happened in three phases.

Phase 1: Proving accuracy in shadow mode

Cooper started by working alongside the MGA's contractors without taking over any of their work. Both processed the same real submissions, and only the contractors' files went to underwriting. The team then compared the two field by field, so they could measure Cooper's accuracy before trusting it with live files.

Cooper reached 96.8% field accuracy, enough for the MGA to approve it for live submissions, and 96.8% became the accuracy standard for production.

Phase 2: Going live in production

At this stage, Cooper processes the MGA's live email submissions in production. The difference from Phase 1 is that Cooper's files are now the ones that move forward to underwriting, with contractors reviewing them first. Cooper reads each broker email and its attachments, extracts what underwriting needs, and prepares the file.

Contractors continue to review Cooper’s output for accuracy as the MGA gradually increases submission volume. This allows the team to maintain oversight while transitioning more of the intake process to Cooper.

The impact was immediate. Average processing time dropped from 24 hours to about 15 minutes. Submissions that waited a full day now reach an underwriter the morning they arrive.

Cooper has completely automated hours of work we previously relied on outsourced resources to complete and with a higher rate of accuracy. There [are] submissions that are really complicated… Cooper accurately parses all of them and puts them in the right coverage in minutes.

– General Manager, Commercial Auto MGA

Phase 3: Making loss runs usable

Beyond submissions, the MGA put Cooper to work on another high-effort part of its workflow: Commercial Auto loss run extraction.

Loss runs hold the claims history underwriters need to evaluate a risk. Extracting it accurately isn’t as simple as reading numbers off a PDF. Claim IDs, dates of loss, coverage types, and incurred amounts show up in different layouts across carriers. The correct value for each field often depends on how the MGA interprets the policy and claim.

One of the main pitfalls is that a field can look correct on its own and still be wrong in context. When several fields on one claim have to line up, small errors add up fast.

This is the problem Cooper is built to solve, so it worked directly with the MGA’s subject matter experts. Across 119 accounts and nearly 2,000 losses, the team scored every run against the MGA’s own labels. Each round of the experts’ feedback taught Cooper rules it now applies, such as how to classify a claim when a carrier’s coverage codes don’t match the MGA’s conventions.

Before Cooper, the MGA’s extraction process got date of loss, coverage, and net incurred all right on about 83% of losses. With Cooper, it was 92.8%. Here’s how Cooper scored on each field:

The goal was for Cooper to read each loss run the way the MGA's own experts would.

What results did the MGA see with Cooper?

Intake is 96 times faster. Processing time fell from 24 hours to about 15 minutes, so underwriters spend less time waiting and more time on risk selection and pricing.

Thousands of hours back. Intake used to take six full-time contractors. Conservatively assuming Cooper saves each 50% of their time, that is roughly 6,000 hours of manual work freed every year to redirect to higher-value work.

Growth without matching headcount. The same team could handle 2 to 3 times its current submission volume, from about 500 submissions to 1,000-1,500 per month.

Nothing new to learn. Brokers still submit by email. No one had to adopt a new tool or workflow.

What can other MGAs take from this?

For this MGA, the bottleneck wasn't underwriting talent. It was the work between a broker's email and an underwriter's decision, which had always scaled one way: more people.

This MGA's experience shows another path:

• Keep your distribution exactly as it is. Brokers submit the way they already do.

• Prove it before you trust it. “Shadow mode” shows real accuracy on your own submissions before anything goes live.

• Keep humans in control. Your team reviews Cooper's work until it's confident, and decides when to hand Cooper more of the work.

• Grow the book, not the headcount. Capacity scales with volume instead of hiring.

If your team runs into the same bottleneck, we'd be glad to walk you through how this rollout worked.

Frequently asked questions

How long does MGA submission intake take with Cooper?

About 15 minutes per submission, down from roughly 24 hours when contractors keyed each email submission by hand.

Do brokers have to change how they submit?

No. Brokers keep submitting by email, and Cooper reads each email and its attachments and prepares the file for underwriting.

How accurate is Cooper on submissions and loss runs?

Cooper reached 96.8% field accuracy in shadow mode before going live. On loss runs, it got date of loss, coverage and net incurred all correct on 92.8% of losses, compared with about 83% for the MGA's existing process.

Does Cooper replace the people who handle intake?

No. Contractors review Cooper's output while the MGA increases volume, and the team decides when to hand over more of the intake process.

How much more submission volume can the same team handle?

2 to 3 times its current volume, from about 500 submissions to 1,000 to 1,500 per month.

About Cooper

Cooper is the AI coworker for MGAs, brokerages, and TPAs. It handles the manual work behind submissions, proposals, servicing, renewals, and claims, inside the systems teams already use, so insurance professionals can focus on judgment, relationships, and growth. Cooper is backed by Lightspeed, General Catalyst, and Valor.

See what Cooper can take off your team's plate. Book a demo