What this automation does
Renewals are a calendar problem stacked on a document problem. This program automates the calendar, chasing and drafting, and turns the renewal-versus-expiring comparison from hours of reading into a focused review.
- Build the renewal list. Every morning, the workflow pulls policies expiring in the next 120 days from the agency management system with carrier, line, premium, account manager and open claims.
- Tier each renewal. Rules sort renewals into full review (commercial accounts above a premium threshold, accounts with claims during the term), standard and light-touch personal lines.
- Request exposure updates. Commercial clients get a short questionnaire pre-filled from last year: payroll by class, revenues, vehicle and driver schedules, property values, new locations and subcontracted costs. They confirm or change values. The AI reads replies, including messy emails and spreadsheets, and maps changes to fields.
- Chase loss runs. Loss run requests go to each carrier on schedule, with reminders. Received loss runs are extracted into a summary of claims, paid and reserved amounts and open status.
- Prepare remarketing. When an account is being marketed, the workflow pre-fills ACORD applications from the AMS and the confirmed questionnaire for the account manager to review.
- Compare renewal to expiring. When the renewal arrives, by carrier download or PDF, the model compares it with the expiring policy as endorsed and lists every difference with page references.
- Draft the client summary. The account manager reviews the comparison and approves a plain-language renewal summary, and large personal lines increases trigger an outreach task.
- Close out. Signatures go through e-sign, activities and notes are logged in the AMS, and the renewal is marked complete.
When it is worth building
Build this when renewal season means late nights for account managers, when renewal comparisons get skipped because there is no time, when loss runs arrive too late to remarket, or when retention slips because clients hear about rate increases from their invoice.
Skip it for a small agency where each account manager knows every client and renewals are manageable. Also check what your AMS already does. Applied Epic and other systems have activity and workflow features that may cover reminders and task assignment on their own. The custom program earns its place on the document-heavy steps: reading questionnaire replies, extracting loss runs and comparing policies.
Architecture
| Layer | What we use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Agency management system | Applied Epic through the partner API, or scheduled report exports | The renewal list and client records live here |
| Carrier documents | A renewals mailbox in Outlook or Gmail, plus carrier downloads into the AMS | Many commercial renewals and loss runs still arrive as PDFs |
| Extraction and comparison | Claude with long-context document reading | Policies with endorsements can run to a hundred pages or more |
| Client questionnaire | A pre-filled web form | Clients confirm values instead of retyping last year’s schedule |
| E-signature | DocuSign | Signed applications and acknowledgments return to the file automatically |
| Orchestration | n8n, as a set of five to eight connected workflows | Each stage runs on its own schedule and can be fixed without touching the others |
| Team alerts | Microsoft Teams and a renewal tracker in Excel | Account managers see what is due, late or flagged in one place |
How to build it
- Map your renewal timeline. When each step should happen by line and tier, who owns it, and what “done” means. This becomes the schedule the workflows follow.
- Get the renewal list flowing. Start with a daily export or API pull, and post the list to the tracker before automating anything else.
- Build exposure requests. Pre-fill from last year, keep it short, and send reminders on a cadence until the client confirms.
- Add loss run requests and extraction, with a carrier contact table the team can update.
- Build the comparison. Extract both policies into a common structure (declarations, limits, deductibles, forms schedule with form numbers and edition dates, schedules of locations and vehicles), compare in code, then let the model explain each difference with its page reference.
- Add review and client summary drafting. Nothing describing coverage leaves the agency without an account manager’s approval.
- Log back to the AMS through the API where you have access, or produce activity notes staff can paste.
- Pilot one book of business, for example one account manager’s commercial renewals for a month.
The comparison step works much like our AI contract review guide, and the same AMS connection supports AI claims intake for the agency’s claims desk.
What breaks in production
- Form edition changes. The renewal uses a newer edition of the same form number, and the wording changed. Compare form number and edition date, and flag every edition change for review.
- “As endorsed” versus original. Mid-term endorsements change the expiring policy. Compare against the policy as endorsed, not the original issue.
- “No changes” that are wrong. The client says nothing changed but sold two trucks. Show last year’s schedule line by line so they confirm each item.
- Late renewals. A carrier issues the renewal days before expiration. Route it to a fast path with the account manager alerted immediately.
- Scanned dec pages. Some carrier documents are image-only. Use vision extraction, and flag low-confidence pages instead of comparing them silently.
- Package versus monoline. An account moves from a package to separate policies. Match coverages across documents, not policy to policy.
Timeline and cost
A renewal program typically takes five to ten weeks, depending on AMS access and how many lines you include. Lumeor builds this in the range of $15,000 to $40,000. The low end covers the renewal list, exposure requests, loss run chasing and a tracker. The high end adds renewal-versus-expiring comparison, ACORD pre-fill, client summary drafting and AMS write-back. Model usage scales with the number and length of policies compared, and is usually modest next to account manager time. See what an n8n automation program costs and the Applied Epic tool page for integration details.
How to measure success
- Share of renewals with a completed comparison before a set number of days to expiration
- Account manager hours per renewal, by tier
- Loss runs received in time to remarket
- Client retention rate, by line
- Coverage changes caught in review that would previously have been missed
- Clients contacted before a large rate increase hits their invoice