Health Insurance Underwriting

The process of risk selection for health insurance: reviewing the many characteristics that make up an applicant's risk profile to determine whether the applicant is insurable — and if so, at standard or substandard rates. Each insurer sets its own standards for what constitutes an insurable vs. uninsurable risk, and the underwriter's primary responsibility is to protect the insurer against adverse selection.

The insurer's quality-control gate: figure out who gets coverage and at what price, so the people most likely to file claims don't quietly stack the risk pool.