Activity · Pre-Mortem · Copilot Tool
It is 18 months from now. The treaty has underperformed. What happened?
This is a pre-mortem. We are not predicting failure — we are using the assumption of failure to surface the risks we are not seeing clearly enough right now.
What This Tool Does
A pre-mortem is one of the most powerful risk tools available to an underwriter — and one of the least used. It forces you to think forward from failure rather than backward from optimism. Use this prompt on any treaty, deal, or structure you are currently working on. Paste it into Copilot. Replace the placeholders with your specific context. The output will surface the failure modes that are hardest to see when you are inside the deal.
How to Use This Prompt
Replace every [BRACKETED PLACEHOLDER] with your specific treaty or deal context before pasting into Copilot. The more specific you are, the more useful the output. Vague inputs produce generic risks — the ones you already know about. Specific inputs produce the uncomfortable ones.
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What the Prompt Will Surface
Eight Dimensions of Treaty Failure
The prompt is structured to push Copilot across eight distinct failure dimensions. These are the areas where L&H treaties most commonly underperform — and where the warning signs are most often visible in hindsight but invisible in the room.
Dimension 1
Underwriting Decisions
The terms we set, the concessions we made, and the assumptions we embedded in the pricing that turned out to be wrong.
Dimension 2
Portfolio Drift
How the mix of business changed after signing — and why the experience that emerged was not the experience we priced for.
Dimension 3
Data & Model Quality
The gaps in the data we relied on, the model assumptions that didn't hold, and the signals we had but didn't weight correctly.
Dimension 4
Client Behaviour
How the client's distribution, underwriting, or claims management changed in ways we didn't anticipate — or didn't contractually protect against.
Dimension 5
Market & Regulatory Conditions
The external environment shifts — mortality trends, morbidity changes, regulatory moves — that we knew were possible but didn't price for adequately.
Dimension 6
Pricing Assumptions
The specific assumptions in the rate — lapse, morbidity, mortality, expense — that proved optimistic, and why we were optimistic about them.
Dimension 7
Escalation Failures
The moments when someone should have raised a concern — internally or with the client — and didn't. The review triggers that weren't pulled.
Dimension 8
Documentation & Wording Gaps
The treaty wording that was ambiguous, the claims definitions that created disputes, and the governance provisions that weren't tight enough.
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The Treaty Pre-Mortem Prompt
Copy · Paste Into Copilot · Replace Placeholders
Paste this prompt into Microsoft Copilot. Replace every bracketed section with your specific deal context. The more detail you provide about the treaty structure, the client, and the key assumptions, the more targeted the output will be.
Why this framing works
Asking "what could go wrong?" activates defensive optimism — you generate the risks that are safe to name. Asking "why did this fail?" activates prospective hindsight — you generate the risks you privately suspect but haven't said out loud. The framing shift is not rhetorical. It produces fundamentally different thinking.
Copy & Paste Into Copilot
Act as a highly experienced L&H reinsurance underwriter with 20 years of treaty experience across mortality, morbidity, and critical illness. Your job is to run a pre-mortem on a treaty I am currently working on.
THE SCENARIO: It is 18 months from now. This treaty has significantly underperformed. Claims experience is materially worse than expected. The client relationship is under strain. The deal has been flagged for internal review.
THE TREATY: [Describe the treaty — product type, client profile, market, key structure, STP rules or underwriting approach, pricing basis, any unusual features or concessions made during negotiation]
THE KEY ASSUMPTIONS: [List the 3–5 most important assumptions embedded in your pricing or structure — e.g. expected lapse rates, morbidity trends, STP approval rates, claims definitions, data quality]
THE COMMERCIAL CONTEXT: [Briefly describe any commercial pressures that shaped the deal — e.g. client relationship importance, competitive pressure, internal volume targets, speed-to-market requirements]
Now generate the most plausible failure narrative. Be specific to this treaty. Do not give me generic reinsurance risks.
Structure your analysis across these eight dimensions:
1. UNDERWRITING DECISIONS: What specific terms, concessions, or structural choices in this treaty created the conditions for underperformance? What did we agree to that we shouldn't have — or fail to insist on that we should have?
2. PORTFOLIO DRIFT: How did the actual mix of business that emerged differ from what we priced for? What changed in the client's distribution, product design, or target market after signing?
3. DATA & MODEL QUALITY: What were the gaps or weaknesses in the data we relied on? Which model assumptions proved wrong — and what signals did we have that we underweighted?
4. CLIENT BEHAVIOUR: How did the client's underwriting, claims management, or distribution practices change in ways that affected experience? What did we not contractually protect against?
5. MARKET & REGULATORY CONDITIONS: What external environment shifts — mortality trends, morbidity changes, regulatory moves, economic conditions — contributed to underperformance? Were these foreseeable?
6. PRICING ASSUMPTIONS: Which specific assumptions in the rate proved optimistic? Why were we optimistic about them — was it the data, the competitive pressure, or the relationship?
7. ESCALATION FAILURES: At what point should someone have raised a concern — internally or with the client — and didn't? What review trigger existed but wasn't pulled? What did we see but not act on?
8. DOCUMENTATION & WORDING GAPS: Where did treaty wording create ambiguity, dispute, or unintended exposure? What claims definitions or governance provisions were not tight enough?
For each dimension: identify the specific failure mechanism, name the earliest warning sign that would have been visible in the first 6 months, and rate the likelihood of this failure mode on this specific treaty (High / Medium / Low) with a one-sentence justification.
Then give me: the single most dangerous failure mode across all eight dimensions — the one that, if it materialises, causes the most damage and is hardest to recover from. Tell me what I should do differently right now, before this treaty is signed, to reduce that risk.
Do not soften the analysis. The goal is not to feel better about the deal. The goal is to make the deal better.
Follow-Up Prompts — Go Deeper
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"Of the failure modes you identified, which one is most likely to be defended internally — not because it's wrong, but because it's tied to a relationship, a past decision, or a commercial commitment that is hard to walk back? What does that mean for how I handle it?"
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"Run a partial failure scenario: the treaty is still running, but experience is 15% worse than expected after 12 months. The client is not threatening to exit — yet. What is the most likely cause of this specific outcome, and what is the earliest point at which I should have seen it coming?"
3
"What is the single assumption in this treaty that, if wrong, would make the entire structure unviable? Frame it as a falsifiable hypothesis: 'We believe [X] is true. We will know we are wrong if [Y] happens within [Z] months.'"
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"Now play the client's side. If the client ran a pre-mortem on this treaty from their perspective — what would they be most worried about? What risk are they carrying that they haven't fully disclosed to us?"
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"Based on the failure modes identified, draft three specific treaty wording changes or governance provisions I should push for before signing. For each one, anticipate the client's likely objection and give me the argument for why it protects both sides."
"The pre-mortem is not a pessimism exercise. It is the most technically rigorous thing an underwriter can do before a deal is signed. It assumes you are experienced enough to see the risks — and professional enough to name them before the contract makes them someone else's problem."
Use this prompt with Microsoft Copilot. Replace all bracketed placeholders with your specific treaty context. The failure modes you surface are not reasons to walk away from the deal — they are the work that makes the deal worth writing.