Annotations Arrive: A New Way to Document Underwriter Insights
Underwriting is a discipline built on judgment, evidence, and accountability. Whether evaluating a suburban home or a commercial warehouse, underwriters must assess risk with precision and be able to defend those assessments with clarity. Increasingly, this means working with geospatial imagery and associated data to support decisions around risk selection, coverage adjustments, or mitigation recommendations and validating information provided by insureds, agents, or brokers.
Until now, the process of documenting those visual insights and what they mean to you as an underwriting team has been inefficient at best. Screenshots, snipping tools, and scattered systems have served as makeshift solutions, introducing friction into workflows and leaving gaps in the audit trail.
We’re pleased to announce the launch of our newest solution to address this problem: Annotations, a new feature available in both the CAPE personal lines (PL) and commercial lines (CL) applications. This capability allows underwriters to create, manage, and export image-based annotations and insights directly within the CAPE platform, no external tools required.
Seamless Documentation and Sharing of Visual Insights
Underwriters are increasingly expected to provide not just decisions, but defensible reasoning. Whether selecting risks, recommending mitigation, or adjusting coverage after a natural disaster, the ability to document and confidently communicate visual evidence is no longer optional, it is essential.
The Annotations feature was developed in direct response to persistent challenges described to us by underwriters across the industry:
- Workflow inefficiency: Underwriters were forced to leave the platform to annotate imagery, often using consumer-grade tools that lacked precision and context.
- Inconsistent documentation: Visual notes were stored in disparate formats, making it difficult to maintain a reliable policy record.
- Limited shareability and collaboration: Internal teams and external stakeholders, including agents, brokers, or customer service reps, often lacked access to annotated imagery, leading to confusion or delays.
With Annotations, these problems are addressed at the source.
Integrated in your workflow: Annotations are created directly within the PL and CL Apps, eliminating the need for screenshots or third-party tools.
Precision tools for documentation: Underwriters can draw shapes, add text, and apply map layers (e.g., pools, trampolines, yard debris) to highlight specific risks.
Export and share in a few clicks: Annotated images can be exported as PDFs and shared with agents, brokers, or customer support teams—ensuring alignment across the policy lifecycle.
Audit-ready records: Annotations are tied to specific image vintages and stored within the property record, supporting compliance and internal review.
In personal lines underwriting, annotations are particularly useful when underwriters need to highlight specific property conditions, such as roof deterioration or overgrown vegetation, that may warrant mitigation. These visual notes can support decisions to adjust coverage or flag a property for further review, while also serving as a clear communication tool for agents and homeowners. By embedding these annotations directly into the property record, underwriters can provide visual context that helps explain risk factors in a straightforward, accessible format.
In commercial lines, the feature plays a critical role in documenting structural risks, code violations, or other conditions that may affect insurability. It is especially valuable when reviewing large or complex properties, where clarity in complex risk assessments and historical image context is essential. Annotations also support collaboration across underwriting, loss control, and claims teams, ensuring that all stakeholders are working from the same visual evidence when evaluating risk or determining next steps.
Rising Expectations Demand Better Tools and Processes
This launch comes at a time when the expectations placed on underwriters are rising. Regulatory scrutiny around adverse actions has increased, and carriers are under pressure to demonstrate fairness, consistency, and transparency in their decision-making. Underwriters should also maintain a strong paper trail for positive actions, including the offering of credits or discounts for risk mitigation actions.
At the same time, the industry is moving toward more proactive risk management. Annotated imagery can help identify issues before they lead to losses, empowering underwriters to better assess risk.
Annotations is a tool that supports better, more rigorously documented underwriting. It supports faster decisions, clearer communication, and a stronger paper trail—all within the systems underwriters already use.
Annotations is available now in both the CAPE PL and CL applications.
Want to learn more? Reach out to our team today.