The importance of prioritizing personal lines policy checking

When it comes to keeping clients happy, there are two things that matter most in personal lines insurance: efficiency and accuracy. Yet, during the renewal process, policy checking — a crucial step — is often skipped. Instead, many agents go straight to requoting due to time constraints, manual processes and the repetitive nature of the task.

But here’s the thing about skipping policy checks: it can lead to costly mistakes, slower renewals and missed opportunities to strengthen client relationships. Worst of all, without proactive policy checking, agents can’t prioritize high-risk/high-reward clients and instead focus on renewals for the loudest voices in the room (i.e. those who call in demanding a policy check).

With the industry poised for growth in 2025 — McKinsey reports that personal lines premiums in the United States will grow by 11% annually through 2025 — it’s more important now than ever to capitalize on new ways to streamline operations, enhance accuracy, and ultimately, deliver better experiences to folks so they do in fact decide to renew. Prioritizing proactive policy checking is an integral first step. 

Why? Keep reading…

‍

1. Enable the right conversations with the right clients (at the right time)

One of the hidden benefits of proactive policy checking is being able to leverage valuable insights early on into the renewal process. Quite simply, giving agents a holistic view of accurate policy data empowers them to have more meaningful conversations with clients, and at the right stage in their renewal journey. 

As we head into 2025 and move into an era of increased reliance on artificial intelligence and data-driven decision making, isn’t it time that insurance agents had the ability to unlock insights automatically? Imagine if your team could be made aware of things like coverage gaps, insufficient limits and deductibles and missing discounts immediately upon policy download. Now, instead of waiting for upset clients to call you about their policy, your agents could engage in proactive conversations well ahead of the renewal due date.

Proactive and automated policy checking is the future of the renewal process. It arms agents with the information they need to provide informed, data-backed guidance as trusted advisors at the time of renewal. This leads to more timely and engaging conversations with clients, both of which are important contributing factors to increasing retention rates. 

2. Reduce your risk of errors and omissions (E&Os)

Policy discrepancies can lead to big headaches for your agency — think policy rejections, client dissatisfaction and even errors and omissions (E&O) claims. 

What’s worse, these discrepancies are becoming more frequent due to accelerating shifts in the landscape, like inflation turbulence and an increase in severe weather events. This makes proactive policy checking (emphasis on the word proactive) even more important.

For agents, however, keeping pace with policy renewals is challenging enough. A rise in client expectations is having a significant impact on productivity and PIF retention rates, and the expectation that agents can proactively review policy data against underwriting guidelines, carrier standards and regulatory requirements on a routine basis is often unrealistic. 

What’s more realistic is leaning on technology to review this information for you. Automating the review of policy data helps streamline policy checking workflows and lengthens an agent’s time-to-renewal ratio. Imagine being able to automatically and systematically review a policy renewal using your agency’s minimum standards, and then provide clients with a concise and standardized synopsis of any changes, gaps in coverage or missing discounts, or new claims and other key data points, as early on into the renewal process as possible. 

The result? Increased renewal accuracy and understanding for your agents (and, ultimately, their clients). This can help clients become more informed, as well as reduce errors and omissions claims, both of which result in more peace of mind for your agency.

‍

3. Offer a more personalized renewal experience to clients

Renewals are one of the most important touchpoints for insurance agents (if not the most important), but if you’re jumping straight to a policy requote without performing a thorough policy check, you could be causing yourself some undue frustration.

When it comes to the renewal process, policy checking gives agents the power to provide tailored solutions that solve for specific client demands. And personalization is becoming increasingly more important as client expectations continue to grow. 

Why? Personalized policy checks ensure any and all discrepancies are identified and addressed early on into the renewal process, empowering agents to approach renewals with more confidence and, more importantly, work proactively to meet individual client needs. 

Not only will this help you reduce cancellation rates, it’ll also enhance your value to clients and demonstrate that you’re a thorough, reliable, and trusted partner looking to protect your clients’ best interests.

‍

Why proactive policy checking matters now more than ever

Today’s insurance agents are juggling a lot — handling client inquiries, navigating complex policies, and meeting growing demand. Add policy checking into that mix and it can quickly feel like too much work for one agent to do. 

Instead of solving this challenge by hiring more people, there is a simpler answer: technology. 

Automating the policy checking process gives agents the ability to get ahead of rising client inquiries while simultaneously reducing errors and improving efficiency. Most importantly, it frees up time so agents can work proactively on retaining clients, rather than waiting for them to call and complain about a premium increase, or worse, cancel because they’ve found a better policy somewhere else. 

"Quandri makes life easier for our agents. We’re calling clients with a solution, rather than more problems, by using the information in front of us to drive a personalized conversation"

• Miguel A. Reynaga, Personal Lines Account Manager at Kelley, Jiggins & Associates Insurance Brokers

By proactively calling clients, your agents can instead provide personalized advice around specific client policies, increasing their value and, consequently, boosting their chances of retention. 

‍To learn more about how Quandri can help your agency deliver better results with less effort, explore our policy checking solution here.

‍

________________________

Why aren't agencies proactively checking personal lines policies?

Agencies often skip proactive policy checks because they’re time-consuming and require experienced staff — something many short-staffed agencies and teams with newer frontline employees struggle to provide. 

With an average of 20 minutes per policy check, plus additional time for requoting and client communication, the process quickly becomes unsustainable. Faced with these constraints, policy checking is often the first step to be sacrificed.

Why is it so time consuming?

Policy checking is so time-consuming because carrier data is downloaded into agency management systems (AMS) in inconsistent formats. For example, PDFs that require manual review or policy codes that vary between carriers and appear in different parts of the AMS. 

For agents without decades of experience, it’s a painfully tedious and error-prone process that makes it easy to miss critical information.

‍

‍

‍