Medical knowledge evolves, clinical practice changes, new treatments emerge and the evidence available to underwriters continues to develop. At the same time, technology is changing how underwriting guidance is delivered and used. Keeping pace with those changes is an important part of what we do at SelectX.
Several of our recent articles have been prompted by research undertaken as part of updates to the RiskApps underwriting manual. For those less familiar with RiskApps, it is our SaaS underwriting manual subscription service, used by insurers in a number of markets around the world. The subscription includes ongoing updates to both the underwriting content and the technology used to deliver it.
Keeping the underwriting guidance current
Over the past few months, we have added a substantial new section on underwriting older lives. This includes an overview of the particular considerations associated with underwriting at older ages, together with new guidance on polypharmacy, mild cognitive impairment and frailty.
We have also updated a range of existing topics. Our obesity guidance, for example, now includes commentary on GLP-1 receptor agonists – one of the developments that prompted our recent article on ultra-processed foods. Earlier in 2026, we completed research into alcohol consumption and updated the relevant RiskApps guidance; we will return to some of the findings from that work in a forthcoming article.
Later this year, significant updates are planned for breast cancer, benign breast disease and cystic fibrosis.
There is no single source for our update agenda. It is shaped by several factors.
Changes in medical practice and diagnostic classification are clearly important – recent developments in the classification and understanding of autism are one example. Client feedback also plays an important role. Where clients have particular underwriting requirements, we can research and develop additional guidance; recently this has included conditions of particular relevance to disability income underwriting for a specialist provider.
During 2020 and 2021, for example, COVID-19 required repeated updates as knowledge and clinical experience developed. More recently, emerging areas such as POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and MCAS (mast cell activation syndrome) have been added to RiskApps.
Evidence behind the guidance
There is more to updating an underwriting manual than just adding new medical information. The important question is what the emerging evidence means for risk assessment.
Our updates are therefore supported by research, and where sufficient data are available, by internal justification papers documenting both the evidence reviewed and the rationale behind the underwriting approach and rating levels adopted. That discipline is increasingly important. Not only does this approach reflect best practice, but it is vital if rating challenges are received from applicants or regulators.
We will explore some of the principles behind evidence-based underwriting research in a future article.
Updating the technology too
The content has not been the only part of RiskApps to evolve.
Over the past few years, we have substantially modernised the underlying hosting and deployment architecture. The objective has been straightforward: greater reliability, better performance and resilience, and a much more efficient way of delivering updates.
The practical difference is significant.
Previously, major releases could involve lengthy acceptance-testing periods followed by considerable planning and resource to deploy an update. Today, changes can be tested and released in much smaller batches. Once testing and acceptance is complete, an update can be prepared and deployed to production within hours rather than days.
Smaller releases also reduce deployment risk. Today’s technology enables updates to be scheduled and applied automatically, without interrupting users or taking RiskApps offline.
This means that improvements to the underwriting content no longer need to wait for a major software release. Medical research, underwriting guidance and technology can evolve much more continuously.
AI is an important part of that evolution. Like many across the underwriting market, we have been investing considerable time in developing and testing AI capabilities, and our aim is to introduce some powerful new AI-enabled underwriting features during the coming year.
And that is really the point: RiskApps never stands still.
An underwriting manual is only as useful as the thinking, evidence and technology that sit behind it. Our job is to keep all three moving forward.
If you would like to know more about RiskApps, our approach to underwriting research or how we manage and deliver updates, please contact us using the form on the website, or see our contact info, also on the website.
