Research
Field reports from the desks.
Methodology pieces and market observations on specialty underwriting, written for chief underwriting officers, MGA principals, and the brokers placing the most complex risks.
- Methodology7 min read
How to Read a SOC 2 Type II Report Like an Underwriter
A SOC 2 Type II is the most underused document in the cyber submission. Most underwriters skim the auditor opinion and the management assertion, then move on. The control-by-control body is where the actual risk lives.
Noah Kanji·May 5, 2026 - Market6 min read
Why Cyber Loss Ratios Stay Above 70 Percent
Industry cyber loss ratios have hovered above 70 percent for most of the past decade. Pricing has been raised, then lowered, then raised again. The line still loses money for most of the carriers writing it. The fix is selection, not price.
Noah Kanji·May 5, 2026 - Practitioner6 min read
The Five Most Common Misrepresentations in Cyber Submissions
Most misrepresentations in cyber submissions are not lies. They are gaps between what the application claims, what the security artifacts evidence, and what the broker did not know to ask. Here are the five we see most often, and how to surface them at clearance.
Noah Kanji·May 5, 2026 - Market6 min read
The Specialty Underwriting Talent Crisis: A 2026 Field Report
Most chief underwriting officers we speak to describe the same pattern: a queue of submissions they cannot staff, a hiring pipeline that does not exist, and a broker community that is losing patience.
Noah Kanji·May 5, 2026 - Methodology8 min read
Inside a Cyber Submission: A Document-Level Walkthrough
A typical cyber submission contains 8 to 12 distinct documents totaling 200 to 400 pages. Here is what each document tells an underwriter, and where Hugo cross-references them against each other.
Zayan Hussain·May 5, 2026 - Methodology7 min read
How Hugo Underwrites: The Citation-Grounded Memo Pipeline
Every claim in a Hugo memo is traced back to a specific page in a specific document. This is how that pipeline works, end to end, and why we built it that way.
Zayan Hussain·May 5, 2026 - Practitioner5 min read
What Brokers Actually Want from Specialty Carriers in 2026
Speed of quote, predictability of appetite, and clarity of communication. Three things specialty brokers consistently rank above price, in order of frequency mentioned, in our conversations through the first half of 2026.
Noah Kanji·May 5, 2026