Commercial P&C Underwriting Should Work More Like an Instant Pot

In commercial P&C, missing underwriting information slows quotes, raises service costs, and creates avoidable sales risk. ServiceIQ offers a better model: set the task, let the system chase the information, and get notified when the file is ready again.

Why do people love the Instant Pot?

Not because it magically cooks food.

They love it because you set it and forget it. You put in what’s needed, tell it what outcome you want, walk away, and trust that it will let you know when it’s done.

That is exactly how underwriting assistance in commercial P&C should work.

A broker, underwriting assistant, CSR, or underwriter should be able to say: “I need this missing information to move this submission forward.” Then the system should take over, chase the right party, collect the information, and notify the underwriting team when the file is ready again.

That is the promise of ServiceIQ.

The commercial lines problem: underwriting gets stuck waiting

In commercial P&C, quotes rarely stall because nobody wants the business. They stall because the submission is missing something small but essential.

Maybe it is payroll split by class code. Maybe it is updated driver information. Maybe it is prior loss clarification, COPE details, square footage, protective safeguards, prior carrier information, or a simple operational question the underwriter needs answered before releasing terms.

And once that gap appears, the whole workflow slows down.

Someone has to follow up. Someone has to call. Someone has to email. Someone has to leave a voicemail, create a task, set a reminder, and try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, the underwriter waits, the producer waits, the insured gets impatient, and a competitor gets a wider window to win the account.

That matters because speed is now a major competitive factor in insurance. According to J.D. Power, 57% of insurance customers actively shopped for a new policy in the past year, the highest rate ever recorded in that study. Separately, J.D. Power found that 47% of policy buyers now purchase through digital channels, and that quote-related tasks show some of the largest satisfaction gaps between top and bottom performers. [Source 1, Source 2]

In commercial lines, the stakes are even higher because the process is more complex. Vertafore notes that commercial quoting is often expensive and time-intensive, that carrier appetite is highly dynamic, and that commercial clients appreciate faster turnaround times because they are managing multiple business priorities. [Source]

Manual follow-up is the hidden tax on underwriting

The frustrating part is that this delay is usually caused by work that is necessary, but not high value.

A human is chasing information.

Not underwriting. Not analyzing risk. Not building the best submission strategy. Just chasing one missing answer.

And that chase gets expensive fast.

The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows a median hourly wage of $20.59 for customer service representatives. BLS also reports that employer benefit costs for private-industry workers average $13.58 per hour. Together, that creates a practical loaded labor cost of roughly $34.17 per hour for the kind of support role that often has to do this follow-up work. [Source 1, Source 2]

Insurance calls are not quick, either. Nextiva says insurance calls average 7–10 minutes or longer, and Zendesk defines average handle time as including talk time, hold time, and follow-up work after the interaction. That means a simple three-attempt cycle to gather one missing underwriting detail can consume 21–30 minutes, or about $11.96 to $17.09 in direct labor. At five attempts, that grows to $19.93 to $28.48. [Source 1, Source 2]

And labor is only part of the cost.

The bigger risk is delay.

In the MIT / InsideSales lead response study, the odds of contacting a lead dropped 100x when the first response moved from 5 minutes to 30 minutes, and the odds of qualifying a lead dropped 21x over that same interval. The odds of contacting a lead also fell by more than 10x in the first hour. While that study is broader than insurance, the lesson is directly relevant to quoting: when a submission sits idle because someone is waiting on missing information, the chances of converting the opportunity start falling immediately. [Source]

Speed-to-response deterioration based on the MIT / InsideSales Lead Response Management Study.

ServiceIQ is the “set it and forget it” layer for underwriting assistance

ServiceIQ is a 24/7 AI voice and chat agent for insurance teams that helps automate service workflows, collect missing details, validate information, and connect with existing systems used by carriers, brokers, and agents. It is built for insurance workflows and designed to reduce service workload, improve handle time, and support faster completion of key interactions. [Source]

In commercial underwriting assistance terms, that means a team member can effectively say: “I need this information to finish the quote.” Then ServiceIQ takes it from there.

It can chase the prospect, agent, insured, or customer for the missing information, keep the outreach moving, and make it easy for that person to respond in the channel that works best for them — whether that is web, email, or phone.

Instead of requiring a CSR or underwriting assistant to keep trying manually, the process becomes automated, persistent, and always on.

That is the Instant Pot idea.

You set the task. You define what is missing. You let the system handle the follow-up. And you get notified when it is done.

What that looks like in a real commercial-lines scenario

Imagine a small commercial BOP submission comes in for a contractor.

The account looks viable, but underwriting cannot release terms yet because payroll is incomplete and there is a question about subcontractor exposure.

In the traditional workflow, the underwriter kicks it back. A CSR or assistant starts chasing the producer or insured. One call becomes two. Two becomes a voicemail plus email plus “I’ll try again tomorrow.” The quote gets delayed, the producer gets frustrated, and the insured starts wondering why this is taking so long.

With ServiceIQ, the workflow is different.

The underwriter or assistant flags what is missing and tells ServiceIQ what needs to be collected. ServiceIQ then reaches out, follows up, and gathers the needed information. The recipient can respond through the most convenient path. Once the missing details are in, the underwriting team or connected system is prompted that the information has been collected and the file is ready to move forward.

No sticky notes. No callback roulette. No submission sitting untouched because one detail is missing.

Why this matters more in commercial P&C than almost anywhere else

Commercial lines has more moving parts than personal lines, more back-and-forth than digital direct models, and more opportunity cost when a quote gets stuck.

Appian notes that traditional underwriting often involves tracking down data across disparate systems, contacting customers for additional information, and handling time-consuming manual tasks. The same source says that speed to quote represents a key competitive advantage and that clients expect quick quotes and seamless experiences. [Source]

That is exactly why “set it and forget it” matters.

Commercial underwriting teams do not need more reminders to chase people. They need fewer interruptions. They need fewer stalled submissions. They need a faster path from “we’re missing something” to “the file is complete.”

The bottom line

In commercial P&C, missing information is not a minor administrative inconvenience. It is one of the biggest hidden causes of slower quote turnaround, higher service cost, and lost opportunities.

The old way says: Assign a person to chase it.

The better way says: Tell ServiceIQ what is missing, let it chase the information, and let the team know when it is done.

That is why the Instant Pot analogy fits.

Not because ServiceIQ is magic. Because it lets underwriting teams set it and forget it — and then get back to the work that actually wins business.