Manulife Canada achieves 58% automatic approval rate for life insurance applications in under 2 minutes with AI underwriting engine

Life insurance applicants in Canada faced slow, complex underwriting processes requiring lengthy medical questionnaires. The manual review burden created delays in getting families covered, and the application experience was cumbersome for both advisors and clients.

Manulife redesigned its electronic application and enhanced MAUDE (Manulife Automated Underwriting Decision Engine), its proprietary AI underwriting engine first launched in 2018. The new system uses adaptive, reflexive questions tailored by age, coverage amount, and prior responses — reducing medical questions by up to 40% — while MAUDE automatically approves qualified cases and seamlessly escalates complex ones to human underwriters.

By December 2025, 58% of eligible cases were approved automatically through MAUDE — a 56% increase from pre-launch levels. Qualified applicants now receive coverage decisions in as little as two minutes. Manulife projects AI will generate substantial enterprise value by 2027.

• Redesigning the data-collection experience (fewer, smarter questions) can dramatically improve both applicant satisfaction and AI decision accuracy.
• A hybrid model — AI for straightforward cases, human underwriters for complex ones — enables scale without sacrificing quality.
• Long-term investment in AI (since 2016) compounds: Manulife's early start gave it data and model maturity that competitors cannot quickly replicate.