Commercial Lines Service · Agent blueprint · validated with 8 team members

Certificate of Insurance Prep Agent

Reads each emailed COI request, checks the policy's endorsements in Applied Epic, and proposes the holder type, additional insured, waiver and wording. After an account manager approves, it builds the ACORD 25 in Epic, drafts the reply to the holder and client, and closes the Epic activity once the person has sent it.

73readiness · Standardize first

4–12 hback per week, of 28 h now

$9K–27Ka year

3–5 wkto build · size M

Build this after the team follows one procedure (see the training guide). Today too many cases take different paths for an agent to follow reliably.

Trigger

A new certificate request arrives in the shared Outlook inbox (new email, flagged or classified as a COI request).

Done when: The certificate has been sent to both the holder and the client, and the activity is closed in Applied Epic.

Needs: Request email and attachments (contract or lease if included); Sender, holder name, holder address or project address from the email; Client account and policies in Applied Epic; Policy forms schedule and endorsements in Applied Epic (blanket additional insured, blanket waiver, primary and non-cont; Company's written certificate wording rules (not yet documented)

What the agent does

1
Detect new COI request and read the email and attachments · Outlookconnector
2
Extract holder name, address, requested wording and contract requirements · Outlookai
Copy the holder details straight from the email instead of retyping them. Flag anything unclear or unusual.
3
Match the sender to the client account and policies · Applied Epicapi
4
Read forms schedule for blanket additional insured and waiver endorsements · Applied Epicapi
Always done up front, which replaces the manual extra Epic visit seen in 29% of cases.
5
Propose holder type, additional insured, waiver and description of operations · Applied Epicai
Apply the team's rules. Only use wording the policy's endorsements support. Lenders get loss payee.
6
Send the proposed fields, evidence and draft reply to the account manager · Applied Epicperson
The account manager approves or edits the fields. No record is changed before this.
7
Create the Proof of Insurance entry and generate the ACORD 25 · Applied Epicapi
Runs only after approval. Whether the API exposes the certificate function needs confirming.
8
Create a draft reply to holder and client with the certificate attached · Outlookconnector
Saved as a draft only. It is not sent.
9
Review the certificate and draft, then send to holder and client · Outlookperson
10
Log the request as an activity and close it in Epic · Applied Epicapi
Runs after the person has sent the email.

Decisions the agent makes

Decide	Rule	Source
Holder type	Set to whoever is asking (general contractor, landlord, lender, or vendor/customer), based on the request email and the contract where available.	The team
Additional insured	Yes only if the contract requires it and the policy carries the blanket additional insured endorsement. In practice Yes for general contractors and landlords, and for vendors/customers only when their contract says so. Never for lenders, who get loss payee. Data: Yes in 99% of general contractor cases, 96% of landlord cases, and No in 94% of lender cases.	Team, confirmed by data
Waiver of subrogation	Yes only when the contract asks for it and the policy has the blanket waiver endorsement. Check the forms schedule first. Mostly general contractor jobs, sometimes landlords, rarely lenders or vendors, and almost always No when additional insured is No. Data: Yes in 75% of general contractor cases, No in 100% of lender cases.	Team, confirmed by data
Special wording or endorsement requests beyond the standard	Not known yet: the team said 'use judgment' with no consistent rule. Route to a person.	Not known yet
Coverage the client doesn't have	Never show coverage the policy doesn't have. Tell the requester no.	The team
Who receives the certificate	Send to both the holder and the client.	The team
Rush handling and turnaround	Not known yet: ask the team.	Not known yet
When primary and non-contributory needs a carrier check	Not known yet: the team said it needs the endorsement and sometimes a carrier check, with no criteria.	Not known yet

Where a person signs off

Account manager approves the proposed holder type, additional insured, waiver and wording before anything is written to Applied Epic.
Account manager reviews the generated certificate and sends the draft email personally. The agent never sends it.

Exceptions

When	What the agent does
The client asks for coverage the policy doesn't have (described as the most common unusual request)	Do not build the certificate with that coverage. Hand to the account manager with the missing endorsement noted and a draft 'no' to the requester. Coverage advice stays with licensed staff.
Extra endorsement check needed in Epic (about 29% of cases)	The agent reads the forms schedule on every request, so this is no longer a manual detour.
Holder or wording changes after the first certificate, so it is reissued (about 16% of cases)	Re-run the proposal from the new email, show what changed, and require approval again before reissuing.
Primary and non-contributory wording requested (occasional)	If the endorsement is on the policy, propose it for approval. If it is absent or unclear, hand to a person, who may check with the carrier.
Special wording or endorsement requests from a contract or lease (no consistent rule)	Hand to the account manager with the contract text and the matching or missing endorsements.
Rush request such as Friday afternoon for a Monday job (occasional)	Flag as rush and put at the top of the account manager's queue. The handling rule is not defined yet.

Build with

Power Automate: Inbox trigger, Epic API calls, Outlook draft creation, approval routing, activity logging
Microsoft 365 Copilot: Reads the request and contract, extracts holder details, and proposes fields and the draft reply
Applied Epic: Source of policy and endorsement data, and where the certificate and activity are created
Outlook: Request intake via connector, and a draft reply for a person to send

Skills: Power Automate, Copilot Studio prompt design, Applied Epic API, Insurance certificate knowledge (for testing)

Before building

Write down the certificate rules (holder type, additional insured, waiver, standard description-of-operations wording). The readiness check says to standardize first, and no one named where the rules live.
Service account for the agent with Applied Epic API access to accounts, policies, forms schedules, certificates and activities
Confirmation that Epic's API can create the Proof of Insurance and generate the ACORD 25. If it can't, redesign this step.
Outlook connector access to the shared inbox, with permission to create drafts
Power Automate and Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses for the builder and the approvers
A consistent way to identify the client account from the request email

Risks

A wrong endorsement check could put coverage on a certificate that the policy doesn't provide (errors and omissions exposure). Keep the approval step and show the endorsement evidence next to each field.
Approvers may rubber-stamp proposals during Monday peaks. Sample approved certificates for quality.
The team gave no standard wording, so AI-drafted descriptions of operations could drift. Use approved templates.
Contracts attached in unusual formats may be misread. Send low-confidence extractions to a person.
Paths vary widely today (60% follow the main path), so the agent's rules may miss local habits until they are documented.

How we'll know it worked

Median work time per certificate (baseline 6.4 minutes; 27.9 team hours per week across 224 cases)
Share of certificates re-edited or reissued (baseline 15.6%)
Share of cases needing a manual extra Epic lookup (baseline 28.6%)
Certificate turnaround from request to send, especially on Mondays

Still to answer before building

How does the agent check whether a policy can meet special wording or endorsements, and what happens when it can't?
How are rush requests handled, and what turnaround is expected?
When does primary and non-contributory wording require contacting the carrier?
Where are the certificate rules written down, and who owns them?
What rule applies in the roughly 25% of general contractor cases where waiver of subrogation is not Yes?
Is holder type alone enough to grant additional insured, or must the contract also be checked? Answers differed. When do vendors/customers get it?
What is the standard reply text and description-of-operations wording?
Why is the holder name and address retyped in about a third of cases instead of copied?

Where the team disagrees

Settle these first: an agent needs one rule, and new hires get mixed answers today.

Wording on additional insured differs a little: some say it follows holder type (GCs and landlords), others say it follows only the contract and endorsement. These are consistent with each other, but the answers disagree on whether the holder type alone is enough.
Some answers say vendors get additional insured only when their contract says so; others do not mention vendors at all.

Evidence

too many different paths for an agent to follow reliably; the training guide comes first
60% of cases follow the same steps
28 team hours a week
data is moved by hand from Microsoft Outlook to Applied Epic (33% retyped)
16% of cases redo steps
29% of cases need an extra lookup (an exception the agent must handle)

Observed main path (60% of cases): Microsoft Outlook → Account · Proof of Insurance (Applied Epic) → Edit Holder type → Edit Additional insured → Edit Waiver of subrogation → Edit Description of operations → Microsoft Outlook → Edit Message body

Handover spec for the builder (text) →

Designed by AI from how the team did this work (2026-10-19 to 2026-10-23), the company's tools and its rules. A starting point for the builder: confirm system access and approvals before building.