Sanctions, PEP and watchlist screening for insurance

A quote-to-bind flow can't wait 4 seconds for a sanctions check.

Screen policyholders, beneficiaries, claimants and distribution partners against 100+ sanctions, PEP and watchlists. All in one API call, inside the bind flow, in under 500 ms.

<500 ms
p95 API response
100+
Sanctions, PEP & watchlists
Hourly
List refresh cadence
Screening result 380 ms
Query
Walter White
DOB 7 Sep 1958 · US · Beneficiary on POL-88214
Walter Hartwell WHITE 100 · Exact
OFAC SDN EU consolidated UK HMT
Bill Whyte
DOB 14 Feb 2000 · US
No match
Payout on POL-88214 held. Decision, evidence and reviewer logged to the audit trail.
REST + webhooksBulk CSVStateful or statelessSOC 2 Type II
Why insurance is different

Four things that break screening in insurance

These are the specific failure modes we see in carriers, insurtechs and MGAs distributing through digital channels.

Bind happens in seconds. Batch screening doesn't.

If the check runs overnight, the policy is already issued and the premium already taken. Remediating a bound policy is a regulatory event; declining a quote is not.

The policyholder isn't the only sanctioned party

Beneficiaries, claimants, payees, lienholders and premium-finance counterparties sit outside most onboarding checks, and that's where payout-stage breaches happen.

Delegated authority spreads the obligation

Every embedded partner, MGA and broker binding on a carrier's paper inherits the screening duty and regulators request evidence for compliance.

Screening only one list might not be sufficient

Your exposure might require to screen or monitor against various watchlists from different jurisdictions. Screening is only as good as the worst list you skip.

Built for the whole distribution chain

Same solution for different use-case requirements

Carriers

Cover the in-force book, not just new business

Millions of live policies re-screened as lists move, with a webhook the moment a policyholder or beneficiary is designated, plus an audit export per market.

Bulk portfolio re-screening or monitoring
Per-entity audit trail
Insurtechs

Compliance that survives the conversion review

A screening call fast enough to live inside checkout. No redirect, no queue, no growth team asking to switch it off before the next funding round.

Sub-500 ms p95, sandbox in minutes
Usage-based pricing, no seat minimums
MGAs & brokers

Evidence your capacity provider will accept

Binding authority comes with a screening obligation you have to demonstrate. Every decision timestamped against the list version used, exportable on request.

CSV and JSON audit exports
Screen without an engineering team
What you plug in

One API call between quote and bind

Real-time screening at bind

Sub-500 ms p95 against 100+ sanctions, PEP and watchlists. Fast enough to sit inside the quote flow, not behind it.

Continuous monitoring of the live book

Lists refresh hourly. The in-force portfolio is re-screened automatically and a webhook fires the moment a policyholder or beneficiary is designated.

Fuzzy matching tuned for transliteration

Arabic, Cyrillic and Chinese name variants scored consistently, with an adjustable threshold so you decide where auto-clear ends and review begins.

Audit trail your regulator accepts

Every hit, clear and override is timestamped with the list snapshot used, exportable to CSV or JSON per market.

POST /v2/search
{
  "name": "Walter White",
  "date_of_birth": "1958-09-07",
  "nationality": "US",
  "entity_type": "individual",
  "data_source": "sanctions-lists",
  "min_score": 0.88
}
REST + webhooksBulk CSVStateful or statelessSOC 2 Type II
From teams in the market

Hear from our customers directly

"We were screening at onboarding and nowhere else. Beneficiary screening at claim caught two designated payees in the first quarter. Both would have gone unchecked."

Head of Financial Crime
Digital life insurer · 900k policies · US/CA

"Our old provider added more than 30 seconds to checkout. Conversion dropped significantly. Moving to sanctions.io improved conversion and our compliance process."

VP Engineering
Embedded travel MGA · 4.1m policies/yr · EU

"Our supervisor requires detailed audit trails of our monitoring activities for all our insurance holders. What used to be a two-week project for every audit is now done within minutes."

Compliance Officer
Motor & gadget insurtech · Series B · US
Where to go next

Talk it through, or read it first

A quick call to discuss your bind flow and requirements, or read our specific guides written for compliance teams.

Next step

Twenty minutes on your screening flow

Bring your current bind flow. We'll map where the API call goes, what it costs at your volume, and what changes for your analysts. No deck.

What happens next
A 20-minute call
Your bind flow, your markets, your volume. No discovery deck.
A sandbox key the same day
Screen or monitor real names against live lists before any contract.
Live in just days
Most teams ship in under a week.
Handbook · 28 pages · PDF

The practical guide to sanctions screening

How screening programmes are built, tuned and defended: list selection across OFAC, EU, UN and HMT/OFSI, thresholds you can defend in an examination, false-positive management, and the evidence examiners ask for.

Buyer's guide · 14 pages · PDF

Screening vendor selection guide

The evaluation criteria that actually separate providers: list coverage and refresh cadence, match-quality benchmarking, latency under load, data residency, and the commercial terms that bite at volume. Includes an RFP question set.

Data sheet · 4 pages · PDF

sanctions.io product data sheet

The one-pager procurement and IT ask for: full list inventory, refresh cadence, endpoint reference, latency and uptime figures, security posture, data residency and deployment options.

Estimates are indicative, not advice.