00:06I'm Allison LaForgia, and I'm in Austin, Texas with Kayla Ames, the product manager at Tavant,
00:12and Susan Schaefer, the vice president of underwriting at Primary Residential Mortgage.
00:18Susan, Kayla, thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having us. Well done. So let's
00:26start with you, Susan. From a product standpoint, what problem in underwriting were you focused
00:34on solving, and why was that a priority? After the rapid rise in volume and then the
00:42following decline in volume, it became very obvious that scaling to that volume through
00:48hiring and then having to downsize was not a sound business model. And so we really looked
00:57at the underwriting process because that's an expensive role to fulfill in operations. It's
01:04also a role that touches the loan many, many times. So there's additional goals of reducing touches and
01:12building efficiencies and things like that. But our long-term goal was to build capacity inside
01:20the fulfillment team so that we could manage changes in volumes without having to have a
01:26knee-jerk reaction and trying to staff to them. And there can be all sorts of complications when
01:31you have to staff up and staff down that you can just avoid when you have good technology in place.
01:37So Kayla, digging into the Tavant piece of this, when Tavant was designing technology to help solve
01:45this problem, what friction points were you trying to solve for people like Susan?
01:51So it was really trying to figure out the best ways that technology could do stare and compare
01:58an administrative-type task to save the underwriters valuable time on tasks that don't necessarily need
02:04their highest and best use, which is being able to make the decision. So making sure that we could
02:10program the AI, the technology to be able to do those things and empower them with having conditions
02:18that would look like the conditions that they would have generated themselves manually. And also,
02:24it just seems like sometimes underwriters are, while they're reviewing files, they get phone calls from
02:29loan officers and team members asking them statuses on other files. So they're distracted,
02:33and they may come back to the original file and miss something. So we wanted the technology to be able
02:38to capture those things so the underwriters could rely on it to help mitigate risk.
02:44So we have the problem, we have the proposed solution, now we got to talk impact. Susan,
02:50what are you seeing as some of the tangible shifts since implementing Touchless?
02:57I would say the most noticeable difference is a significant decrease in the amount of time it takes
03:03an underwriter to do the initial file review, and then subsequent touches as well. But the biggest
03:10time commitment was in the initial file review, where you're reviewing all of the documentation,
03:15you're reading all of the documentation, you're doing critical thinking in your head, you're physically
03:20writing notes down, you know, somewhere and then compiling all of that information and turning
03:26it into actionable items. So we've seen a significant decrease in the time it takes for an underwriter to
03:32complete that process. What has the business impact been? The business impact has been, we again,
03:42have the ability to scale to volume. So if I get information that our production line is showing
03:51indications of increasing, I can plan for that. When people are leading the organization in operational
03:58roles, we have an opportunity to sit down and have a discussion about whether we need to replace that
04:04role, or whether we can move forward and have the technology kind of pick up the slack so that we
04:10don't
04:10have to add an additional full-time expense. Now, this sounds fantastic. We have to dig into some of
04:19the concerns that can come up around quality when we're implementing new technology like this, or whenever
04:26we use the word automation or AI in the mortgage sphere. How has this technology impacted underwriting
04:34quality, consistency, and confidence for underwriters? Well, I'm going to start with
04:40consistency. Consistency in underwriting is challenging. No matter how many procedures you have, how many
04:46trainings you do, you're still dealing with individual minds, individual methodologies, comfort levels, differing
04:54comfort levels amongst underwriters. And so I think one of the benefits of this program, though it wasn't a benefit
05:03that we necessarily identified as a value add, but it's definitely there, is creating consistency.
05:10Because the technology is posting the majority of the conditions on the file under the rules that we've
05:18set. And then an underwriter still has the ability to go in and add conditions if there's something unique
05:24or something that's not being analyzed by the technology. But the result is that we're getting more consistent
05:31decisions and more consistent behavior across a large group of people, which is ultimately going
05:37to give us a better experience for our processors, our originators, and our borrowers. As far as quality
05:43is concerned, we are not far enough into our implementation to really have a lot of quality data, but underwriters
05:54are the harshest critics. So they are a built-in quality mechanism, right? Like gaining their trust was
06:01really, really critical. And one of my favorite things that I have witnessed over and over again is
06:07that kind of aha moment that they have with the automation where the automation cited something that
06:15they didn't have in their notes, right? So saved them, so to speak. And I have lots of stories where
06:22the
06:22automation has seen something and made a note of something that maybe they missed in their file
06:29review. And that really turns them into a full adopter and a promoter of the technology. So
06:35I look at that as kind of my QA testing up front, but formal QA data against the system is
06:43forthcoming.
06:45Kayla, how do you address that question when people come to you and have questions about
06:50how implementing the technology is going to impact their quality?
06:55So to Susan's point, it's actually really beneficial for me hearing that feedback and
07:00some of our underwriters will reach out directly and just say, oh my goodness, this was great. I
07:04missed this, but touchless caught it. And so that makes a huge impact. And one of the things I like
07:09to
07:10do is randomly go in and review a file myself, compare what I would have done manually to what touchless
07:17does. And sometimes I admit, I get embarrassed that touchless caught something I missed. So,
07:22you know, it's a really great exercise just to make sure that we're staying abreast, not only of,
07:28you know, policy changes, guideline changes, but also in making sure that the AI still consistently
07:34does what it's designed to do. And then the second part is, as there could be any changes and stuff
07:41for
07:41PRMI, Susan's a great partner and lets us know, hey, let's take a look at this. We may need to
07:46tweak this.
07:47So it's, you know, maintaining that partnership really helps us all to make sure that touchless
07:52is doing the things it needs to do. Susan mentioned something in her last answer that I
07:57want to spend a moment talking about, because you talked about a couple aha moments. Adoption really is
08:04where transformation efforts succeed or fail. What kinds of resistance did you encounter before
08:13those aha moments and what actually worked to shift from apprehension and this is how we've always done
08:21things to implementation for your team? We really talked about the product a lot in a lot of different,
08:30a lot of different platforms within our organization. We talked about it in our sales platforms and our
08:35operations platforms. We had Tavant was a great partner and creating like short videos to get
08:44people excited about things so that we could show them some of the features and technology before it
08:49was really here. Because we deployed it first in underwriting, the underwriters were very, very excited
08:56about it. And there was definitely a learning curve, but I think that they all understand what it is that
09:03we're trying to accomplish and that it's not, it's not replacement, it's enhancement. And so that piece of
09:12it I think was very well received. Where we were a little challenged in adoption was roles outside of
09:19underwriting. And, you know, in hindsight, we probably didn't promote it as much to the the roles that were impacted
09:30less,
09:30but still felt impact from it. And we just could have done a better job with that. So we've been
09:37kind of circling
09:37back and doing some marketing and explanations and, you know, showcasing and telling wind stories and things like that to
09:49keep the non underwriting roles in the know. Kayla, how do you help facilitate adoption efforts?
09:57One of the things I like to do is that Susan and our team have been very kind to invite
10:01me on site and allow me to
10:03partner with them. And Susan and I just had wonderful conversations up front and thought that the best thing for
10:10them is to
10:11let them do it, let them get the hands on up front. So for our training, we actually coach them
10:18and let them do the
10:19work. And then it's really cool, because the first couple falls, you see that they want to do it the
10:24old school
10:25way, they're still a little nervous about embracing the technology. And by that third file, and maybe even a few
10:30people, the fourth file, they suddenly are like, Wait, this is pretty cool. It is catching the things that I
10:36would have conditioned for. And just seeing that on site and being able to answer their questions. And one of
10:43our team
10:43members said, Wow, you know, you speak our language, you understand what we're going through. And I think that
10:48helps to just knowing that someone who sat in their seat is a part of this process, and we'll, you
10:53know,
10:53be there to help support them as they're learning in the role. I think that's really important.
10:57It makes the intentionality of the technology very, very clear. And that's what seems to be the magic
11:04between this partnership. So I want to end on a forward looking note. Looking ahead, how do you see the
11:11role of the underwriter evolving as technology evolves? Susan, let's start with you.
11:15I see underwriting getting back to I'm going to say getting back to basics. And that's probably not
11:22the best explanation. But I think in our industry, underwriting has become a catchall or a funnel for
11:30everything that breaks throughout the manufacturing process. It gets put back on the underwriter's
11:35plate. It's like as an industry, we're like, well, we don't trust anybody else. So you become the
11:40double check for everybody else's work. And I would like to see that peeled away and stripped away
11:46through automation and technology, so that the underwriter can really exercise their super skill,
11:54which is critical thinking. And they can really be focused on the on, you know, identifying ability
12:00to repay and credit worthiness and, and policy compliance and all of those things without becoming
12:06a like checklist driven type of reviewer. And so I see them being able to flex their underwriting muscle
12:15more, right. And, and I'm very excited about that. And then the flip side of that is that obviously
12:20builds capacity as well. Kayla, what should lenders be doing now?
12:25I think it's important that lenders are looking at their processes and looking to see how they're
12:31utilizing technology today to support their team members, and what they can be doing, where are the
12:38opportunities for technology to help them going forward. If you're not using technology today to
12:43help accelerate decision making, reduce risk, and maximize efficiencies, I think you're already behind
12:50the curve. And it's really important to embrace that and get to know the technology, see it test it,
12:58you know, do what Susan and our team have done, you know, manually underwrite a file, and then let
13:03it go through the technology and see the differences. It's a huge impact and where we can help underwriters
13:08and other team members gain efficiencies makes them more valuable to themselves in the organization.
13:15For example, you know, I've met so many underwriters who wanted to get their lap and sore, but didn't have
13:20time to go through test cases and or bond loans programs that they had never done. And so it had
13:26to go to a
13:26corporate underwriting team. Now this can provide them that extra flexibility and a time to do those
13:32things. So they can actually increase their volume and become a more valuable asset to the organization
13:38and just broaden their knowledge. Well, Kayla, Susan, thank you so much for talking to me about not just
13:46automation underwriting, but a real use case and real implementation and adoption. I appreciate your
13:52time. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Comments