Gather loss runs and applications and submit to multiple carriers for quotes
This solution transforms how independent insurance agencies handle quotes by automatically extracting data from loss runs and submitting it directly to multiple carriers. It gives MSPs a highly sticky service to pitch that directly rescues account managers from data entry hell and speeds up the agency's sales cycle.
The problem today
30 hours
wasted per week per account manager on manual entry
$3,500
lost per month in wasted labor costs per agent
Marcus Delgado is the owner of a 12-person independent P&C agency in Columbus, Ohio, writing mostly small commercial accounts. He hired a second account manager six months ago to handle growth — but she spends half her day chasing loss runs and re-keying forms, and he's starting to wonder if he just hired an expensive data entry clerk.
01The Problem
Account manager capacity consumed by document chasing produces zero revenue and zero client relationships.
A single transposed field triggers a declination or underwriter callback, stalling the entire account.
A missing document gives competitors the window they need to close the prospect first.
Submission process stored in one CSR's memory freezes completely when that person is out.
Keying identical client info into each carrier portal separately multiplies error risk on every pass.
Loss run requests discovered three days before expiration force a scramble that sometimes hands off a long-held account.
02The Solution
Solution Brief
Fictional portrayal · illustrative
- Marcus runs a 12-person P&C agency, mostly small commercial
- Second account manager hired for growth — half her day is data entry
- Same client data re-keyed into carrier portal after carrier portal
- 20–30 hrs/week consumed by work that closes nothing
- 5–7 day quote windows hand prospects to competitors
- Renewals tracked in memory, not a system — accounts lost at expiration
- Full-time salaries funding part-time output; growth ceiling is manual friction
- Agent requests, retrieves, and extracts loss runs on intake — no human keystrokes
- ACORD forms and carrier supplementals pre-filled from extracted data
- Pre-filled submission package routed to all carriers in hours, not days
- 30-hr weekly grind collapses to a 2-hr approval checkpoint
- $2,000–$5,000/agency/mo at 50–70% margin; touches every account and renewal — high retention
“I used to think slow turnaround was just part of the business. Then I actually counted how many hours my team was spending just getting a submission ready — not selling, not servicing, just filling out forms and chasing paper. It was embarrassing. Now a submission goes out the same day the documents come in, and I've got my people back.”
— Marcus Delgado is the owner of a 12-person independent P&C agency in Columbus, Ohio, writing mostly small commercial accounts
03What the AI Actually Does
Loss Run Retrieval Agent
Automatically sends loss run requests to prior carriers via email, tracks outstanding requests, and follows up on non-responses — without anyone on the agency staff lifting a finger. Documents are captured and filed the moment they arrive.
Document Intelligence Extractor
Reads incoming loss runs, applications, and supplemental documents — regardless of format — and pulls out the structured data needed to populate submission forms. Handles messy PDFs, scanned documents, and inconsistent carrier formats without manual cleanup.
ACORD Form Auto-Population Engine
Takes extracted client and coverage data and automatically fills out ACORD forms and carrier-specific supplemental applications. Eliminates the copy-paste marathon that happens every time an account manager submits to multiple carriers.
Multi-Carrier Submission Orchestrator
Routes completed, human-approved submission packages to multiple carriers simultaneously through integrated quoting platforms. Tracks submission status across carriers and surfaces responses back to the account manager in one place.
04Technology Stack
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
$22/user/month (MSP cost) / $33/user/month suggested resale; typical agency 10–30 users = $220–$660/month MSP cost
Core productivity and identity platform. Provides Exchange Online for email ingestion of loss run PDFs, SharePoint Online for document storage and hot…
Azure OpenAI Service (GPT-4.1 / GPT-4.1-mini)
GPT-4.1-mini: $0.40/1M input + $1.60/1M output tokens; GPT-4.1: $2.00/1M input + $8.00/1M output tokens. Typical agency processing 200 submissions/month: ~$50–$200/month in API costs; resell bundled into managed service
Primary LLM engine for document understanding, data extraction from loss run PDFs and ACORD applications, intelligent field mapping, carrier-specific …
Azure AI Document Intelligence
Read model: $1.25/100 pages; Prebuilt models: $10/1,000 pages. Typical agency: $25–$100/month; resell bundled into managed service
OCR and document structure extraction engine. Processes scanned PDFs and images of loss runs, ACORD forms, and carrier correspondence into structured …
Tarmika Bridge
Contact vendor for agency-specific pricing; estimated $200–$500/month based on agency size and carrier count. 26% market share — leading commercial quoting platform
Primary commercial lines quoting and carrier submission platform. Provides single-entry rating for small business commercial insurance with streamline…
Semsee
Contact vendor; free tier available for basic access; premium plans for API access and market access program. Estimated $100–$400/month
Secondary/alternative commercial quoting platform. Provides rapid multi-carrier quoting (quotes back within minutes from 4+ carriers). Particularly va…
Applied Epic / Vertafore AMS360 / HawkSoft (existing AMS)
Already licensed by agency; Applied Epic ~$150/user/mo; AMS360 ~$150/user/mo; HawkSoft ~$94/user/mo + base fee. MSP assists with API access enablement — no additional license cost
The agency's existing system of record. The AI agent reads client data, policy details, and contact information from the AMS via API to pre-populate a…
LangGraph (Agent Orchestration Framework)
$0 for the library; hosting costs covered under Azure VM
Core multi-agent orchestration framework. Implements the stateful submission workflow as a directed graph with nodes for document intake, data extract…
LangSmith (Observability Platform)
Developer tier: free (1 seat, 5,000 traces/month); Plus tier: $39/seat/month for production monitoring. MSP needs 1–2 Plus seats = $39–$78/month; bundled into managed service fee
Production monitoring, tracing, and debugging platform for the LangGraph agent. Captures every LLM call, tool invocation, and decision point with full…
n8n (Workflow Automation Platform)
Self-hosted: free software + ~$100–$200/month Azure VM hosting; Cloud: $50/month (Pro plan). Resell as part of managed service at $500–$800/month bundled
Low-code workflow automation platform connecting all integration points: email monitoring triggers, document preprocessing dispatch, AMS API calls, La…
Azure Virtual Machine (Agent Runtime)
Standard_D2s_v5 (2 vCPU, 8GB RAM): ~$70/month; Standard_D4s_v5 (4 vCPU, 16GB RAM): ~$140/month for higher workloads. Add $20–$40/month for managed disks and networking
Hosts the self-managed n8n instance, LangGraph agent runtime (Python), Redis for task queuing, and PostgreSQL for agent state persistence. Deployed in…
Azure Blob Storage
~$0.018/GB/month (Hot tier); typical agency needs 100–500GB = $2–$9/month
Archival storage for all processed documents, extracted data JSON files, populated ACORD form PDFs, carrier responses, and audit logs. Provides immuta…
Indio (Application Management Platform)
Starting at $50/user/month; typical agency 5–10 users = $250–$500/month
Optional but recommended turnkey application management platform. Provides smart form technology for insurance application data gathering, client-faci…
PostgreSQL (Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server)
Burstable B1ms (1 vCore, 2GB): ~$25/month; General Purpose D2s (2 vCores, 8GB): ~$100/month
Persistent storage for LangGraph agent state, submission tracking records, extracted data cache, carrier response history, and operational metadata. U…
05Alternative Approaches
Turnkey Platform Approach (Indio + Tarmika)
$15,000–$40,000/year in SaaS subscriptions (Indio ~$50/user/month + Tarmika ~$200–$500/month)
Instead of building a custom AI agent, deploy Applied Systems' Indio platform for application management and data gathering combined with Tarmika Bridge for multi-carrier quoting. Indio provides smart form technology that auto-populates ACORD fields from prior submissions and offers a client-facing portal for digital application intake. Tarmika handles the carrier submission and quoting. Both are established, carrier-approved platforms with existing integrations to Applied Epic and other AMS platforms.
Strengths
- 4–8 week deployment vs. 16–24 weeks for custom build
- Established, carrier-approved platforms with existing AMS integrations
- Lower upfront cost: $15,000–$40,000/year in SaaS subscriptions vs. $75,000–$200,000 build cost
- Recommended as Phase 1 before building custom AI capabilities
Tradeoffs
- Limited to platforms' built-in features — no custom AI extraction from unstructured documents
- No LLM-powered intelligence
- Limited to carriers that Tarmika/Indio support
- Cannot customize submission logic or add carrier-specific automation
Best for: Agencies with <$1M revenue, fewer than 10 carriers, predominantly small commercial lines, and no appetite for technology risk. Also recommended as Phase 1 before building custom AI capabilities.
Hybrid Approach: Quoting Platform + Custom AI Extraction Layer
$30,000–$80,000 build + quoting platform subscriptions ($200–$500/month) + $2,000–$4,000/month managed service
Use Tarmika or Semsee as the carrier submission platform but build a custom AI extraction layer using Azure OpenAI + Document Intelligence that automates the data entry into these platforms. The AI handles document ingestion, OCR, and data extraction, then populates the quoting platform via its API or UI automation. This gives the agency AI-powered efficiency without building the carrier submission infrastructure.
Strengths
- AI-powered extraction eliminates manual data entry
- Proven carrier platforms handle complex submission routing
- Best of both worlds for most agencies
- Delivers 80% of the value at 40% of the cost of a full custom build
- 12–18 weeks to build — less complex than full custom
Tradeoffs
- Still dependent on quoting platform's carrier panel and API capabilities
- Middle-ground investment still requires build effort
- Ongoing quoting platform subscription costs
Best for: Most mid-size agencies (10–50 employees). Recommended starting architecture for most MSP engagements.
Syntora Purpose-Built Insurance Automation
Fixed project pricing — estimated $50,000–$100,000 for initial build depending on complexity. Ongoing subscription/maintenance TBD.
Engage Syntora, a purpose-built insurance submission automation vendor, to build the automation. Syntora specializes in connecting to carrier portals and AMS systems with pre-built integrations for Applied Epic and Vertafore. They offer fixed-price project engagements (not hourly) with typical 6-week deployment timelines for 10 carriers.
Strengths
- 4–6 weeks deployment — fastest option due to pre-built carrier integrations
- Purpose-built for insurance renewal/submission automation with deep domain expertise
- Already handles carrier portal changes as part of their service
- Fixed-price project engagements
Tradeoffs
- MSP does not own the IP — vendor dependency
- Less customizable than a self-built solution
- MSP's role becomes vendor management rather than technical implementation
- Reduces MSP's recurring service revenue opportunity
Best for: When the agency needs rapid deployment, has many carrier portal submissions (not just API-accessible carriers), and when the MSP lacks insurance domain expertise to build custom. Good option if the MSP wants to partner rather than build.
Patra AI + BPO Hybrid Service
Per-transaction or monthly service fee — estimated $500–$2,000/month for a small agency, scaling with volume. No build cost.
Outsource the entire submission process to Patra, which combines AI-powered document processing with human business process outsourcing (BPO). Patra's team handles loss run ordering, data extraction, application population, and carrier submission using their proprietary AI platform augmented by trained insurance processing staff.
Strengths
- Minimal complexity — 2–4 week onboarding
- 880+ insurance organizations use Patra
- Handles full spectrum including edge cases, unusual documents, and carrier portal issues
- Human staff covers what AI cannot
- No build cost
Tradeoffs
- Agency loses control of the process
- Data leaves the agency's systems for third-party processing (compliance considerations)
- MSP has minimal ongoing revenue opportunity — Patra replaces the MSP for this function
- Variable cost model can become expensive at scale
Best for: Very small agencies (1–5 staff) that cannot justify technology investment, agencies with immediate capacity crises needing help now, or as a temporary bridge while a technology solution is being built.
Microsoft Power Automate + Copilot Studio Approach
Power Automate Premium: $15/user/month; Copilot Studio: $200/month per 25K messages; Azure AI Document Intelligence: consumption-based. Build cost: $20,000–$50,000.
For agencies already deep in the Microsoft ecosystem, build the automation using Microsoft Power Automate (workflow automation), Copilot Studio (AI agent builder), and Azure AI Document Intelligence. This approach uses Microsoft's low-code/no-code tools instead of LangGraph and n8n, potentially enabling the agency's own IT staff to maintain the solution.
Strengths
- Deep native integration with Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Teams, and Outlook
- Familiar Microsoft interface for agency staff
- Microsoft enterprise support and compliance certifications
- Lower build cost: $20,000–$50,000
- Power Automate Premium included with Microsoft E5 licensing
Tradeoffs
- Copilot Studio's AI agent capabilities are less mature than LangGraph for complex multi-step reasoning
- Power Automate can be slow for high-volume processing
- Limited control over LLM behavior compared to direct API access
- Vendor lock-in to Microsoft ecosystem
- Potentially higher per-message costs at scale
Best for: Agencies with Microsoft E5 licensing (where Power Automate Premium is included), agencies with internal IT staff familiar with Power Platform, and MSPs that are primarily Microsoft-focused without Python/LangChain expertise.
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