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Underflow uses external regulatory sources at three points: party screening before a quote letter or bind, state-specific surplus lines figures during rating and policy service, and state filing after each eligible surplus-lines booking with a home state.

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Sanctions screening

Underflow queries the federal Consolidated Screening List through the trade.gov API. A clear result adds no sanctions hold. A possible match or service error holds that quote letter or bind for review. When several parties are checked, each one is reported on its own: the names that matched, and the names whose lookup did not complete. A confirmed hit is the overall result, and the reviewer still sees which party was not screened. See Screening and reporting for the review flow.

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Surplus lines data

Each writing state has an operational record for tax, stamping fees, other state charges, notice periods, required wording, document requirements, verification status, and source. Table-based rating can calculate from an active row, but an unverified row holds the quote letter for review. See Surplus lines for the verification boundary and the diligent search.

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InsCipher

InsCipher is the compliance feed for surplus lines. Underflow uses four of its APIs: The feed’s webhooks carry filing status, SLA numbers, tax-paid dates, and stamp wording changes back onto the records.

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Configuration

Underflow provisions the InsCipher account, credentials, and webhook. Each surplus-lines program names its InsCipher line-of-business code; a program without one cannot be priced or filed through the feed. Without the key, quotes price from the state table, forms are not generated, and nothing is filed. Accounting > State rules shows whether each table record is verified and where it came from; the screen is read-only.
An external data source does not replace legal review. An unverified table rule requires review before the quote letter is sent, and a feed refusal is not treated as a completed filing. Sanctions availability has a different boundary: an outage is visible but does not stop the quote or bind on its own.