Should an MGA build its own AI document tools?

Build when your wordings and precedents are specific to your programs and a shared product cannot hold them; buy when most of what you issue is on standard forms. Building has two routes: hire engineers and run the system yourself, or have a small firm build a system you own and run it for you.

What an MGA's documents look like

An MGA writes on someone else's paper. The binding authority agreement with each fronting carrier or capacity provider sets what can be bound, on which forms and up to which limits. Inside that, each program has its own policy forms and endorsements, and larger accounts get manuscript wordings negotiated with the broker. After a few years the precedent file can hold hundreds of executed deals, each one a policy read together with the endorsements that amend it.

A document tool for that library has two jobs. The first is answering questions across everything you have issued, reading each policy with its endorsements so the answer reflects the wording in force. The second is drafting the next deal from the right precedent, on the right carrier's forms, following decisions your wordings team has already made. How well a tool does either depends on how much it knows about your documents in particular. That is where the three paths differ.

Buying a shared product

A shared product is built once and sold to many insurers. Each customer configures it, and the vendor writes one version of the software for all of them. That makes it cheaper to start and quick to switch on. The vendor carries the engineering, and many vendors already hold the security certifications a carrier's vendor review asks for.

The same design sets its limit. A shared product has to behave the same way for every customer, so your house wording rules, the order in which each carrier's forms apply, and the way your team handles a manuscript change go into whatever settings the product offers. Before signing, read what happens to your configuration and history if you leave, and whether your documents are used to improve the product for other customers.

Building fully in-house

For an MGA with a small operations team, following that advice means hiring engineers who can work with both language models and insurance documents, and keeping them after the first release. The work they take on includes:

• connecting to your document system and respecting its permissions and file history
• working out which endorsement amends which policy, and which deal each document belongs to
• handling scanned pages that have no readable text
• checking that every quoted passage exists in the source before anyone sees it
• keeping up as model providers change their models and their prices
• being on call when something breaks in the middle of a renewal season

In-house fits an MGA that already employs engineers and expects to keep maintaining the system for years. Everything that team builds is yours from the first day.

Having a small firm build a system you own

The third route sits between the other two. A small engineering firm builds a system around your documents and runs it for you, and the agreement settles what you own. This is what WYEA does. The two principal engineers who build each system are the ones who run it.

The engine reads your documents where they already live, and your document system stays the system of record. Dropbox is the first connector; SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, iManage and NetDocuments are what the connecting work was written for. It answers questions across forms, wordings, endorsements, slips and executed deals, and each line opens the document it came from. It drafts from your precedents on the forms of each carrier entity or market you write through. Drafts stay drafts until a reviewer approves them, and the engine does not issue, bind or send anything.

When a reviewer approves or corrects a clause, the next draft follows that choice. Those decisions are kept as rules and records in your own system, and none of them trains a model. What the system learns from your documents belongs to you, and the terms for taking it with you are written into the agreement before the build starts.

Draft the Calloway Holdings D&O renewal on the fronting carrier's forms 4 precedents read · 2 drafted · 1 for you

Drafted

Calloway Holdings, D&O Renewal, Condition 11 the period of notice in Condition 11 is amended to forty-five (45) days Carried from Endorsement 3 on the expiring policy · effective 14 Jun 2025

Drafted

Calloway Holdings, D&O Renewal, Exclusion 4(b) brought by or on behalf of the Company in its own right Follows your reviewer's correction on the Pemberton Supply renewal · 2 Sep 2026

For you

Broker's requested change, insured versus insured

No approved precedent covers the broker's wording. It is marked as suggested language until your reviewer adopts it.

Your reviewer made the Pemberton correction once. It is kept in your system, and every later draft follows it.

The insureds, clauses and dates in this example are invented. No client material appears anywhere on this site.

What we do not offer today

We run each client's system on our own infrastructure, with its own database, network and sign-in. Running it inside your own cloud account or on your hardware is designed for and not built. There is no SOC 2 report, ISO certificate or third-party penetration test yet. Leaving is a manual process today: we return or destroy your documents on your instruction and confirm it in writing. If a fronting carrier's vendor review requires any of these, a shared product that already has them is the better choice today. Our security page keeps that list current.

When a shared product is the better fit

If your documents are mostly standard forms, a shared product will usually serve you better, and we say so on the first call. The same holds if your program runs on one carrier's standard paper with few manuscript changes, or if nobody on your team has time to review drafts while the system learns your rules.

See it on your own documents

Book thirty minutes as a consultation on whether building is worth it for your programs, or as a demo on your own documents. After an NDA, a fixed-price prototype runs on your own wordings within the first week, and the build is quoted only after your team has used it. Book a consultation or demo.