Research

Working papers and open datasets

We publish research on commercial insurance distribution mechanics – how carriers communicate appetite, how submissions get routed, and how observation-based measurement at scale changes what independent agents can know about the carrier set. All datasets are released openly with DOIs.

Working paper · Open dataset · May 2026

Observed Appetite: A Computational Framework for Measuring Commercial Insurance Carrier Underwriting Behavior at Distribution Scale

Ankur Shrestha

Coins the term 'observed appetite' as a fourth category alongside stated, API-revealed, and verified appetite. Evaluates the stated-appetite baseline across 509 U.S. commercial P&C carriers. Released as an open dataset with DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20280436.

Headline: Only 2.2% of carriers publicly disclose any industry × state × size interaction; the same carrier's PDF asserts 2.14× more sector breadth than its own appetite web page (Cohen's κ = +0.25).

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20280436

View paper

What's next

Follow-on empirical work with production-scale observed-appetite data is in progress. New papers and dataset versions will appear on this page as they ship.

Working papers and open datasets

Observed Appetite: A Computational Framework for Measuring Commercial Insurance Carrier Underwriting Behavior at Distribution Scale

What's next

Stop wasting hours on quoting. Start closing more business.

Stop wasting hours on quoting.
Start closing more business.