The reliable way is to see appetite at the point of choosing markets, rather than discovering it through declinations. Current appetite across the lines you write narrows the list before anything goes out.

For genuinely difficult risks, it also helps to keep the submission intact, so the fifth carrier sees the same file the first one did.

Enter it once and let one submission reach every market you have selected, instead of retyping the risk into each carrier portal. Responses then come back against that submission rather than into separate inboxes.

Speed comes from not rekeying the risk into a fifth portal, rather than from typing faster.

Yes. Email remains how a great deal of mid-market and large commercial business actually moves, and a submission that leaves by email should still be tracked like any other.

What changes is that the emailed submission has a status and a home. Carrier replies to the thread rather than living in one person's mailbox.

Reduce the number of portals your team opens and increase the number of markets answered. Insurance submission software is worth having when appetite, the submission itself and every carrier response sit in one place.

It should also cover personal lines. Placement that only works for commercial leaves half the book outside the system.