The first workflow to automate should be one your service team can explain, measure and safely change. It might be re-entering information in carrier portals. It might be preparing renewal reminders or assembling a certificate request. The right choice depends on the effort involved, the exceptions and what your current systems can already do.
Start with a narrow question: Which repeated step consumes enough time to matter, has clear inputs and rules, and can be improved without moving professional judgment into an uncontrolled process?
This guide shows how to answer that question, using carrier-portal re-keying as a worked example. All example figures below are invented to demonstrate the method. They are not agency benchmarks or HourBack customer results.
Start with the work, then choose the tool
An agency might already have useful capabilities in its agency management system, comparative rater, document tools or Microsoft environment. Before adding software, check what those systems support, what is licensed and why the team does not already use the relevant features.
There are several possible improvements:
- Remove an unnecessary step or duplicate request.
- Standardize intake so information arrives complete.
- Configure an existing template, reminder or workflow.
- Use an approved integration or rules-based automation to move structured information.
- Use AI to help interpret an unstructured request or prepare a draft for review.
These are implementation choices, not a ladder where AI is always the final destination. A reliable field mapping may be a better answer than asking a model to infer the same values repeatedly.
Compare a small set of candidate workflows
Ask CSRs and account managers for examples of work that repeats and examples that regularly go wrong. Start with three or four candidates, not the entire agency.
| Candidate | A measurable question | Important boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Carrier-portal re-keying | How much active effort goes into transferring already-approved information? | Verify mappings and permitted access; preserve review before submission |
| Certificates | Which steps are routine assembly and which require a decision? | Keep coverage representations and exceptions under qualified review |
| Renewal follow-up | How many touches are spent requesting missing information? | Check consent, timing and communication rules |
| Endorsement intake | How often must staff clarify or re-enter a request? | Distinguish extracting requested changes from deciding what is appropriate |
Treat sensitive information, professional obligations and portal permissions as entry conditions. A large time estimate does not override them. Industry resources can inform your governance and training approach, including the Big “I” AI resource library.
Worked example: carrier-portal re-keying
Consider a hypothetical eight-person commercial-lines service team. It wants to understand the work between approved agency records and prepared carrier submissions.
Define the unit carefully. Here, one portal preparation means preparing information in one carrier portal for one quote. A quote prepared in three portals produces three portal preparations. Do not multiply the same work by both quote count and portal count a second time.
The team samples its routine and exception cases, reviews the steps with staff and extrapolates to a normal week:
| Input | Illustrative value |
|---|---|
| Portal preparations per week | 120 |
| Current active effort per preparation | 6 minutes |
| Preparations eligible for the first change | 75% |
| Expected active effort after the change, including review | 2 minutes |
| Weekly maintenance and exception-handling allowance beyond that per-case effort | 45 minutes |
Current effort across all preparations is 120 × 6 ÷ 60 = 12 hours a week.
The first change covers 90 eligible preparations. Its estimated gross reduction is 90 × (6 − 2) ÷ 60 = 6 hours a week. Subtract the additional 45-minute operating allowance: 5.25 hours of potential weekly capacity.
The 30 ineligible preparations remain unchanged. Their effort is already outside the estimated reduction. Do not subtract it again. Similarly, do not add another review allowance if it is already included in the two-minute after figure.
That is a planning estimate, not a savings claim. Test the eligibility rate, after-effort and operating allowance before presenting a forecast as an outcome. If only 50% are eligible and after-effort is three minutes, the estimate falls to 120 × 50% × 3 ÷ 60 − 0.75 = 2.25 hours a week.
This sensitivity matters more than a confident-looking annual number.
Investigate the exceptions before building
Ask why the other 25% are ineligible. Missing source fields, unusual exposures, inconsistent formats, carrier-specific questions and permission limits lead to different solutions.
Map the proposed path:
Approved source information → eligibility check → permitted transfer or prefill → required-field and format checks → staff review → authorized submission.
Document where the workflow stops. Missing information should create a clarification task, not a guessed value. Unsupported portal changes should return work to a person. Credentials and verification controls should remain within approved access arrangements.
An AMS feature, comparative rater or approved integration may address the problem. A separate automation may be appropriate where permitted. AI may help with unstructured intake, but it need not handle a structured transfer simply because it is available. Confirm product-specific behavior with the relevant provider rather than assuming a named tool can do it.
Reusable asset: the agency automation decision sheet
Complete one sheet per candidate. The purpose is to make an implementable decision, not award the highest score to the largest number.
| Field | Record this |
|---|---|
| Workflow boundary | Exact starting event and finished output |
| Weekly volume | Unit, counting rule, source and observation dates |
| Active effort | Typical effort plus spread; separate waiting |
| Eligible share | Cases covered by the proposed change and excluded cases |
| After-effort | Staff review, corrections and retained manual steps |
| Operating effort | Monitoring, maintenance and extra exception work |
| Quality baseline | Errors or corrections, with a clear denominator |
| Permission and review gates | Portal access, data handling and required human decisions |
| Existing-tool options | Features, templates or integrations already available |
| Owner and fallback | Who maintains the change and how staff resume manual work |
| Decision | Simplify, configure, automate, assist with AI, investigate or defer |
Use eligible volume × effort reduction − additional operating effort to estimate capacity. Check that quality and customer outcomes do not deteriorate.
Prove the result on comparable work
Run a small trial with an accountable owner and staff who perform the workflow. Compare similar carrier preparations over enough normal working days to include meaningful exceptions. Record the case mix, sample size, review time and corrections. A quiet week of easy cases is not a fair comparison with a busy renewal week.
Measure actual adoption: how many eligible preparations used the new path, and why others did not. Ask whether the improvement removed work or merely moved it to a reviewer.
Recovered capacity can support faster responses, renewal preparation or handling more business. It is not automatically payroll savings or additional revenue. State how the agency used the time before making either claim.
Where HourBack fits
HourBack helps an agency understand its work, prioritize changes with the team and measure what happens afterward. Recommendations can use the systems you already own. Your team can implement the plan, use its existing partner, ask HourBack to consult, or agree an implementation engagement with HourBack.
See the agency assessment approach or explore the sample reports. For the broader rollout, use the practical AI adoption plan for a 5–20 person team.