Understanding Underwriting

What is underwriting? Is it some other dimensional place where personal documents are sent to have spells cast over them using bones, shiny things and marbles? From these cipherings comes a single word like “approved.” For this privilege, they add rates, fees, phrases and clauses using an intergalactic calculator and language where points and premiums are not in your favor.

What are they really doing that takes several days of seclusion? Calling our employers, creditors and former neighbors or chanting incantations to the loan document wizard like “Show me the mortgage! How much can we charge? How many ways? and Create another form containing the same information!” The term underwriting just sounds shady doesn’t it. There’s no way humans can double-check the results from their elaborate ceremonies of wheel spinning, button pushing and lever pulling. Underwriters make odds makers look like newbies on the block.

The real question is whether underwriters really exist. Maybe they’re the mutant offspring of the financial and insurance industry weaned on calculating postage, shipping & handling, gas prices and author royalties before graduating to mortgages and insurance policies.

If anyone has actually seen an underwriter, let me know. I’d like to tag it electronically to monitor its behavior in its natural habitat. I’ve met more ghostwriters than I’ve met underwriters. I’ve seen more comets than I've seen underwriters. I’ve met nearly everyone who’s ever flown over the cuckoo’s nest but never once in my travels or networking have I met an underwriter.

My quest for understanding the elusive underwriter continues. Next time I need to convince some corporation to take my money, I’ll walk in demanding, “Take me to your underwriter” or that at least they make subterfuge a quicker process. Until I get better explanations than, “They’re writers from Australia” or “Ancient Chinese secret,” you’ll find me trying to catch a glimpse of an underwriter in action by following anyone carrying all of their personal information.

Technorati Tags:
mortgage, personal information, satire, underwriting, writers