Insurance Renewal Pipeline

A renewal is the easiest piece of business a brokerage will ever write and the easiest to lose. The client is known, the risk is understood, the cover is in place. All that is required is to notice the date in time, go back to market, present the options and get a decision. Brokerages lose renewals anyway, and they lose them in a pattern: the renewal date was in a spreadsheet, the insurer's invitation landed in a shared inbox, nobody picked it up until the second reminder, the re-quote went out eight days before expiry, the client did not reply, and the policy either lapsed or auto-renewed on terms nobody looked at.

The operational failure is that renewals arrive on the insurer's clock, not the broker's. Invitations come at different intervals from different carriers, through different channels, into a mailbox that is also handling claims and new business. There is no single place that answers the question "what renews in the next 60 days and where is each one up to." So the work is triaged by whoever opens the email, and the ones that get attention are the ones that happen to be opened early or happen to be large. Everything else gets a late scramble.

The money leaks in four places, and they compound. Commission walks out the door on every renewal that lapses or quietly moves elsewhere, and the replacement cost of that client is a multiple of the renewal itself. Clients who are re-quoted late accept the invitation terms by default, which is worse for them and attracts no re-broking income. The annual conversation that surfaces changed circumstances - a van added, a room converted, turnover doubled, a new director - never happens, so cover drifts away from the risk and the brokerage carries the exposure when a claim exposes the gap. And a client whose policy lapsed while in the brokerage's care is a complaint, not just a lost renewal.

Pipeline and stages

One pipeline, Renewals. One opportunity per policy per renewal year, created on a fixed number of days before expiry rather than when the insurer's invitation happens to arrive. A client with three policies has three opportunities, because three policies renew on three dates and each needs its own trail.

• Renewal Horizon - opened automatically on the clock; nothing started.
• Pre-Renewal Review Sent - the client has been asked to confirm whether anything about the risk has changed.
• Changes Declared - the client has reported a change that affects what goes to market.
• Out To Market - the broker is obtaining terms.
• Terms Received - carrier responses are in and loaded.
• Presented To Client - options sent, awaiting decision.
• Decision Chase - presented and silent; the escalating chase is running.
• Accepted - Awaiting Payment - client has instructed; premium or first installment outstanding.
• Bound - cover in force, documents issued.
• Lapsed - expiry passed with no decision. A real stage, not a deletion, because a lapse needs a documented reason.
• Lost To Competitor - closed with a reason code captured.

Calendars

• Renewal Review Call - 30 minutes, per-handler availability, used for standard commercial and household renewals.
• Complex Renewal Consultation - 60 minutes, restricted to senior handlers, triggered by a declared material change or by policy class.
• Final Decision Call - 15 minutes, offered inside the last 10 days before expiry when a client has gone quiet. Short, same-day or next-day slots only.

Custom fields

On the policy record where the platform supports one, otherwise on the contact with the policy reference in the field names.

• Policy Reference - text.
• Policy Class - text. Commercial Combined, Fleet, Professional Indemnity, Household, Landlord, and so on.
• Renewal Date - date. The single field the whole build runs off.
• Inception Date - date.
• Current Insurer - text.
• Renewal Horizon Days - number. How far ahead this class opens: typically 60 for commercial, 45 for household, 90 for anything that needs a survey.
• Invitation Received - yes or no, plus Invitation Received Date.
• Changes Declared - yes or no, plus Changes Declared Detail as free text in the client's own words.
• Material Change Flag - yes or no. Set by the declared-changes rules, not by judgment.
• Markets Approached Count - number, and Terms Received Count - number. Together these evidence that the brokerage went to market.
• Terms Presented Date - date. Used to measure how much decision time the client actually got.
• Client Decision - text. Accepted, Declined, Moved, No Response.
• Decision Reason Code - text. Price, cover, service, no longer required, moved to direct, moved to other broker, no contact.
• Payment Method - text. Annual, installments, premium finance.
• Payment Status - text. Outstanding, Part Paid, Settled.
• Documents Issued Date - date.
• Demands And Needs Record Link - text. URL of the stored statement of what the client said they needed and what was placed.
• Renewal Attempt Count - number.
• Consent Service SMS, Consent Marketing Email - yes or no, held separately.
• Handler Owner - the named person responsible.

Tags

• renewal-open, renewal-bound - state, mutually exclusive.
• renewal-t60, renewal-t30, renewal-t14, renewal-t7, renewal-t2 - applied as each threshold passes. These drive both the chase and the daily hot list.
• material-change-declared - routes to a senior handler and a longer call.
• mid-term-adjustment-pending - a change is being processed; the renewal must not be presented until it clears.
• premium-finance - triggers the installment path rather than the single-payment path.
• lapse-risk - inside 7 days with no decision. Handler-only contact from here.
• vulnerability-declared - no automated chasing; human contact only.
• do-not-sms, do-not-email - hard suppressions respected everywhere.

Forms

• Pre-Renewal Declaration - the workhorse. Confirms the insured name and address, then asks, per class, the questions that actually move terms: turnover and wage roll, employee numbers, vehicles added or removed, drivers added, sums insured and whether they have been reviewed, business activities added, any new claims or circumstances that might become a claim, any convictions or prosecutions, and any change of director, partner or trustee. Each answer is recorded as stated. The form never characterizes an answer as good or bad.
• Claims And Circumstances Declaration - a separate short form, deliberately not buried inside the main one, because a non-disclosed circumstance is the single most expensive thing a renewal can get wrong.
• Renewal Decision Form - the client records their instruction in writing: which option, from which date, and an acknowledgement of what they are accepting. This is the record of instruction, which matters far more than an email saying "yes go ahead."
• Demands And Needs Confirmation - captures what the client said they required and confirms what was placed against it, generated at binding and stored.
• Payment Details Capture - a hosted form on the payment provider, never a field in the platform. Card and bank details are never collected into the automation.

BO's role and guardrails

BO runs the chase, the scheduling and the document collection. BO does not advise on cover and does not recommend a product. That is not a style choice - presenting or recommending an insurance contract is regulated activity, and the automation is on the wrong side of the line the moment it does it.

• BO may confirm dates, chase a declaration, send a presentation pack prepared by a handler, offer booking slots, confirm what the client submitted, and tell the client when their cover expires.
• BO must never compare options, say which is better value, explain whether a cover is adequate, interpret a policy wording, comment on an exclusion, answer whether something would be covered, or suggest a level of sum insured.
• "Would this cover me if" and "which one should I take" are absolute handoffs. BO replies: "That one needs [handler first name] - I have passed it straight over with your exact question and they will come back to you." Then it routes, with the verbatim text, and stops.
• BO never issues, amends or confirms cover. Only a handler binds.
• Every BO message carries the brokerage's approved footer: who the brokerage is, its regulatory status as the compliance function words it, that BO is an assistant rather than an adviser, and that the message is not advice.
• BO does not send to vulnerability-declared or lapse-risk contacts. Inside the last week, a human calls.
• Every BO conversation is retained in full against the policy record.

Numbers and channels

• One dedicated number for renewal service messaging, registered for application-to-person traffic under the brokerage's legal entity, separate from any marketing number.
• Email from the brokerage's authenticated domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Renewal notices that land in spam are the most expensive deliverability failure a brokerage can have.
• Inbound calls to the number ring the handler team in a round robin during business hours; out of hours, a recorded message and a callback task logged against the open renewal.
• Quiet hours in the client's own time zone. The one documented exception the brokerage may want to consider with its compliance function is a final expiry-day notice; treat that as a policy decision, not a default.
• Document delivery by secure link rather than attachment, so schedules and certificates are not sitting in mail archives.

One policy, one renewal. A commercial combined policy with a 60-day horizon, expiring on 1 June.

1. Day minus 60 (2 April), 02:00. The nightly scheduler reads Renewal Date minus Renewal Horizon Days and opens an opportunity in Renewals at Renewal Horizon, named "[Insured name] - [Policy class] - 01 Jun", assigned to the Handler Owner. renewal-open and renewal-t60 applied, Renewal Attempt Count set to 0.
2. Day minus 58, 09:00 local. The pre-renewal email goes out from the handler's address with a link to the Pre-Renewal Declaration for this policy class: "Hi Priya, your [policy class] cover renews on 1 June. Before we go back to market, we need you to confirm whether anything about the business has changed - it takes about five minutes and it is what lets us get you accurate terms. [Confirm your details]." Stage moves to Pre-Renewal Review Sent.
3. Day minus 51. No response. Reminder email, attempt count to 2. Day minus 46, still nothing: service SMS at 10:00 local, because Consent Service SMS is yes - "Hi Priya, [brokerage] here. We need your renewal details before we can get terms for 1 June: [link]. Reply STOP to opt out."
4. Day minus 44. Priya submits the declaration. Turnover has increased substantially and two vans have been added to the fleet section. Changes Declared is set to yes, the detail is stored verbatim, and the declared-changes rules set Material Change Flag to yes and apply material-change-declared. Stage moves to Changes Declared.
5. Day minus 44, within the minute. The senior handler is notified with the client's exact words. The client gets an acknowledgement that states only what happens next: "Thanks Priya - that is received. Because the business has changed since last year, [senior handler first name] will handle this one personally and will go to market on that basis. You will hear from them within two working days." The acknowledgement makes no comment on what the changes mean for cover or premium.
6. Day minus 42. The handler moves the opportunity to Out To Market and records Markets Approached Count as they go. The platform does not contact carriers; this is the handler's regulated work. What the platform does is hold a task with a due date and chase the handler, not the client.
7. Day minus 30. renewal-t30 applied. The opportunity is still Out To Market, so the escalation fires internally: the handler is reminded and the renewal appears on the team's daily hot list. No client message goes out - there is nothing yet to tell them.
8. Day minus 27. Four sets of terms are received. The handler loads them, sets Terms Received Count to 4, and moves the opportunity to Terms Received.
9. Day minus 25. The handler prepares the presentation - the comparison, the recommendation and the reasons for it, all of it written by the handler - and triggers the send. The platform delivers it by secure link, writes Terms Presented Date, moves the stage to Presented To Client, and attaches the Renewal Decision Form. The covering message is procedural: "Hi Priya, your renewal options are ready: [secure link]. [Senior handler first name]'s notes are in the pack. When you have had a look, record your instruction here: [Renewal Decision Form], or book 30 minutes to talk it through: [booking link]."
10. Day minus 18. Silence. Stage moves to Decision Chase. First chase email, then at day minus 14 (renewal-t14 applied) a chase that names the deadline plainly: "Your cover expires on 1 June. To get everything in place in time we need your instruction by 25 May."
11. Day minus 10. Still silent. The Final Decision Call calendar is offered with next-day slots, and the handler gets a task to call rather than email.
12. Day minus 7. renewal-t7 and lapse-risk applied. All automated client messaging on this renewal stops. The handler's manager is notified and the renewal goes on a twice-daily review list. From here a person calls - a client seven days from being uninsured is not a candidate for another email.
13. Day minus 5. The handler reaches Priya, who confirms her choice. She completes the Renewal Decision Form, which records the option, the inception date and her acknowledgement. Client Decision is set to Accepted. Stage moves to Accepted - Awaiting Payment, lapse-risk is removed.
14. Day minus 5, immediately. The payment request goes out through the connected payment provider on a hosted page. premium-finance is absent, so this is the single-payment path. The payment status is watched, not assumed - cover is not treated as placed because an invoice was sent.
15. Day minus 3. Payment clears. Payment Status set to Settled. The handler binds with the carrier and moves the opportunity to Bound. The Demands And Needs Confirmation is generated and stored, the link written to Demands And Needs Record Link, and documents are issued by secure link with Documents Issued Date recorded.
16. Day plus 1 (2 June). A plain confirmation: cover in force, dates, policy reference, where the documents are, who to call, and the next renewal date already in the calendar. Renewal Date is rolled forward twelve months, renewal-open and all the countdown tags are cleared, renewal-bound is applied, and next year's cycle will open on its own.

Seven workflows. Each checks do-not-sms, do-not-email, vulnerability-declared and lapse-risk before sending to a client, exits the instant the opportunity leaves its stage, and carries the brokerage's approved disclosure footer on every client-facing template. Nothing in any template compares, evaluates or recommends cover.

1. Renewal Horizon Opener

Trigger: scheduled, nightly at 02:00 brokerage time, across all policy records.

Conditions: Renewal Date minus Renewal Horizon Days equals today, AND no open opportunity already exists for this Policy Reference and renewal year, AND Handler Owner is set and active.

Actions, in order:

1. Create an opportunity in Renewals at Renewal Horizon, named "[Insured name] - [Policy class] - [renewal date]", assigned to Handler Owner.
2. Apply renewal-open and renewal-t60. Set Renewal Attempt Count to 0. Clear last year's Client Decision and Decision Reason Code.
3. Branch - mid-term-adjustment-pending is present: create a handler task "Clear the pending adjustment before renewal goes out" and hold the opportunity at Renewal Horizon. Do not send the pre-renewal email. Re-check daily; release when the tag is removed.
4. Branch - Handler Owner is inactive or unset: assign to the team queue and notify the operations manager. An unowned renewal is the most reliable way to lose one.
5. Add the renewal to the handler's daily digest rather than firing a separate notification per policy.

Exit: one run per policy per renewal year; the duplicate check makes a re-run harmless.

2. Pre-Renewal Declaration Chase

Trigger: opportunity enters Renewal Horizon with no hold tag.

Actions, in order:

1. Wait until the next weekday 09:00 client-local.
2. Email from the handler's address, subject "[Policy class] renewal - 1 [month]: confirm your details": "Hi [First name], your [policy class] cover renews on [renewal date]. Before we go back to market we need you to confirm whether anything has changed since last year - it takes about five minutes and it is what lets us get accurate terms rather than approximate ones. [Confirm your details]. If you would rather go through it on the phone, book a time here: [Renewal Review Call]." Move to Pre-Renewal Review Sent, increment attempt count.
3. Wait 7 days. Branch - not submitted: reminder email, subject "Still need your renewal details". "Hi [First name], we have not had your renewal details yet and we would rather not be chasing this close to the date. [Confirm your details]." Increment attempt count.
4. Wait 5 days. Branch - not submitted AND Consent Service SMS is yes: SMS at 10:00 client-local - "Hi [First name], [brokerage] here. We need your renewal details before we can get terms for [renewal date]: [link]. Reply STOP to opt out." Increment attempt count.
5. Wait 4 days. Branch - not submitted: email offering the call instead, plus a handler task "Call [client] - no renewal declaration, [n] attempts" due same day.
6. Wait 4 days. Branch - still not submitted: escalate to the handler's manager and stop automated client chasing on the declaration. The renewal continues on last year's information with a flag on the opportunity recording that the client did not respond to [n] documented requests - which is the fact that matters if a non-disclosure dispute follows.

Exit: declaration submitted, a handler takes over, the client replies, a suppression tag lands, or the opportunity leaves Pre-Renewal Review Sent.

3. Declaration Intake and Routing

Trigger: Pre-Renewal Declaration submitted.

Actions, in order:

1. Write every answer to its field. Store the free text verbatim in Changes Declared Detail - never summarized, never paraphrased.
2. Render the submission to PDF and store it against the opportunity.
3. Apply the brokerage's declared-changes rules. Typical triggers for Material Change Flag, to be confirmed by the brokerage: turnover or wage roll moved beyond an agreed band; new business activity added; employee count crossed a band boundary; vehicles or drivers added; sums insured unchanged for three consecutive years; any new claim or circumstance declared; any conviction or prosecution declared; any change of director, partner or trustee; any change of premises or occupancy.
4. Branch A - any claim or circumstance declared: highest priority. Notify the handler immediately, apply material-change-declared, move to Changes Declared, and route the client only to the Complex Renewal Consultation calendar. Never let a declared circumstance proceed on the standard path.
5. Branch B - material change, no claims: apply material-change-declared, move to Changes Declared, reassign to a senior handler per the brokerage's routing rules, notify with the verbatim detail, and acknowledge to the client: "Thanks [First name] - that is received. Because things have changed since last year, [senior handler first name] is handling this one and will go to market on that basis. You will hear from them within two working days."
6. Branch C - no material change: move to Out To Market, create the handler task, and acknowledge: "Thanks [First name] - all received. We are going to market now and will come back to you with your options."
7. Branch D - the declaration contradicts itself or the record (declared vehicle count does not match the schedule, premises changed but address unchanged): do not proceed. Handler task to clarify by phone, client told only "Thanks [First name] - [handler first name] will call to check a couple of answers before we go to market." No automation resolves a contradiction.

Exit: one run per submission; a resubmission re-runs the whole thing.

4. Market and Presentation Chase - Internal Only

Trigger: opportunity enters Out To Market or Changes Declared.

Conditions: internal only. Not a single message in this workflow goes to a client, because until terms exist there is nothing to say.

Actions, in order:

1. Create a handler task "Obtain terms - [insured] - expires [date]", due at day minus 35.
2. Wait until day minus 30. Apply renewal-t30. Branch - still before Terms Received: remind the handler and add the renewal to the team's daily hot list.
3. Wait until day minus 25. Branch - still before Presented To Client: notify the handler's manager. Named, in a list, visible to the team.
4. Wait until day minus 20. Branch - still not presented: escalate to the operations or compliance owner as an exception. Presenting terms with under three weeks left is the condition that produces lapses, and it should be impossible for it to happen quietly.
5. On the handler triggering the send: deliver the handler-prepared pack by secure link, write Terms Presented Date, record Markets Approached Count and Terms Received Count as the handler entered them, attach the Renewal Decision Form, move to Presented To Client, and send the covering message: "Hi [First name], your renewal options are ready: [secure link]. [Handler first name]'s notes are inside. Record your instruction here when you are ready: [Renewal Decision Form], or book a call to talk it through: [booking link]."

Exit: terms presented, or the opportunity is closed by a human with a reason.

5. Decision Chase and Lapse Prevention

Trigger: opportunity enters Presented To Client.

Actions, in order:

1. Wait 5 days. Branch - no decision: move to Decision Chase. Email: "Hi [First name], just checking you have had a chance to look at your renewal options. Anything you want to discuss, [handler first name] can talk it through: [booking link]."
2. Wait until day minus 14. Apply renewal-t14. Branch - no decision: email naming the deadline in plain terms: "Your cover expires on [renewal date]. To have everything in place in time we need your instruction by [date minus 5]. [Record your instruction] or [book a call]."
3. Wait until day minus 10. Branch - no decision AND Consent Service SMS is yes: SMS at 10:00 client-local - "Hi [First name], [brokerage]. Your cover expires [renewal date] and we still need your instruction: [link]. Reply STOP to opt out." Offer the Final Decision Call calendar with next-day slots. Create a handler task to telephone.
4. Wait until day minus 7. Apply renewal-t7 and lapse-risk. Stop all automated client messaging on this renewal immediately. Notify the handler and their manager. Put the renewal on a twice-daily review list. From this point contact is by a person, by telephone. A client a week from being uninsured is a phone call, and sending them a fifth templated email is the worst available option.
5. Wait until day minus 2. Apply renewal-t2. Branch - still no decision: escalate to the compliance or operations owner, and create a task to attempt contact on every number held and to record each attempt.
6. On the renewal date passing with no decision: move to Lapsed, set Client Decision to No Response, and create a mandatory task requiring a human to enter a Decision Reason Code and a short note. The opportunity cannot be closed without it.
7. Day plus 1 after a lapse: a single factual notice, sent by the handler, not by BO: "[First name], your [policy class] cover expired on [date] and is not currently in force. Please call [handler first name] on [number] as a priority." Nothing in that message is a sales message.

Exit: a decision is recorded, the client books a call, or expiry passes and the lapse path closes it.

6. Acceptance, Payment and Binding

Trigger: Renewal Decision Form submitted with Accepted, or a handler sets Client Decision to Accepted.

Actions, in order:

1. Store the instruction record. Move to Accepted - Awaiting Payment. Remove lapse-risk.
2. Branch - premium-finance tag present: route to the finance provider handoff task and set Payment Method to premium finance. Do not issue a payment request from the platform. Chase the handler, not the client.
3. Branch - single payment: raise the request through the connected payment provider on a hosted page, with the policy reference as the reference. Set Payment Status to Outstanding.
4. Wait 2 days. Branch - unpaid: reminder email with the same hosted link. Wait 2 days. Branch - unpaid and inside 7 days of expiry: stop automated reminders and create an urgent handler task. An unpaid renewal close to expiry is a telephone call.
5. On payment confirmed by the provider webhook: set Payment Status to Settled and create the handler task "Bind cover - [insured]". The platform never records cover as bound on its own; a handler does that, because binding is the regulated act.
6. On the handler moving the opportunity to Bound: generate the Demands And Needs Confirmation from the stored declaration and the placed cover, store it, write Demands And Needs Record Link, issue documents by secure link, and write Documents Issued Date.
7. Wait 1 day. Confirmation email: cover in force, inception and expiry dates, policy reference, document link, who to contact, and the next renewal date. Roll Renewal Date forward, clear renewal-open and every countdown tag, apply renewal-bound.
8. Wait 14 days. A single short service check: "Hi [First name], your cover has been in place a couple of weeks now. If you have not been able to open your documents or anything looks wrong on the schedule, reply and we will sort it." Document errors found at day 14 are an administrative fix; the same error found at claim is not.

Exit: bound and confirmed, or the acceptance is withdrawn and a human reopens the opportunity.

7. Lost Renewal Capture and Weekly Reporting

Trigger A: opportunity moved to Lost To Competitor or Lapsed.

1. Require Decision Reason Code and a free-text note before the opportunity can be closed. No reason, no close.
2. Notify the handler's manager with the reason.
3. Wait 3 days. Branch - reason is price or cover and vulnerability-declared is absent: one short message from the handler, not from BO: "[First name], sorry we could not keep your business this year. If anything changes, or when you come round to next year's renewal, we would welcome the chance to look at it again. We will be in touch nearer the time unless you would rather we did not - just say." One message, with an opt-out, and then nothing.
4. Branch - reason is service or complaint-adjacent: no automated message at all. Route to the manager and to the complaints process if the brokerage's rules treat it that way. An automated note to an unhappy client makes a complaint worse.
5. Set a dated reminder 10 months out to consider an approach before next year's renewal, subject to marketing consent, and respect Consent Marketing Email absolutely - a lost client is not automatically a marketing contact.

Trigger B: scheduled, every Monday at 07:00.

1. Email each handler their own book and the operations owner the whole book: renewals by stage, every renewal inside 14 days with its stage, anything presented later than day minus 20, accepted-but-unpaid inside 7 days of expiry, declarations outstanding past day minus 40, and last week's bound, lapsed and lost counts with reason codes.
2. Branch - exceptions block, always at the top: policies with no Renewal Date, policies whose renewal date has passed with no opportunity ever created, opportunities with no Handler Owner, and opportunities held by mid-term-adjustment-pending for more than 14 days. These four categories are where renewals disappear, and the only defense is something that looks for them every week.

Exit: both triggers run to completion and are self-contained.

Renewals move onto the brokerage's clock. The opportunity exists sixty days out whether or not the insurer has sent an invitation, which means the brokerage is working to its own timetable instead of reacting to whatever arrived in the inbox this morning. The question "what renews in the next sixty days and where is each one up to" has a single answer that is always current.

Late presentation stops being normal. Because the pre-renewal declaration is chased from day minus 58 and the handler is chased internally at day minus 30, terms tend to reach the client with two to three weeks of decision time rather than five days. A client with time to think is a client who engages with the options instead of defaulting to the invitation.

The silent lapse becomes almost impossible. The countdown tags make the last two weeks visible, the lapse-risk flag pulls automation out of the way and puts a human on the phone, and a renewal that lapses anyway lands in a stage with a reason code rather than vanishing. The brokerage ends up knowing why it lost business, which is the input it has never had.

The file improves as a by-product. Markets approached, terms received, when options were presented, what the client declared in their own words, their written instruction, and the demands-and-needs record all sit on one opportunity. When a claim is disputed or a complaint arrives, that is the file.

Watch these:

• Retention rate by policy class and by handler. One number for the brokerage hides everything useful; split it.
• Lapse count, and lapses with no recorded reason. The second number should be zero. If it is not, the pipeline is being closed sloppily.
• Median days between Terms Presented Date and Renewal Date. This is the single best predictor of retention in the whole build. Drive it up.
• Pre-renewal declaration completion rate, and median attempts to get it.
• Share of renewals where Markets Approached Count is 1. A renewal that never went to market is a renewal that was invited, not broked.
• Material change rate - and separately, how many material changes were discovered at renewal that should have been a mid-term adjustment. That gap is a service problem worth naming.
• Decision-to-payment days, and the count of accepted renewals sitting unpaid inside 7 days of expiry.
• Decision reason codes, reviewed quarterly. Losing on price and losing on service are different problems with different fixes.

Data

• A clean policy list with, for every live policy: policy reference, class, renewal date, current insurer, and the named handler. Renewal date is the one field the entire build depends on - if it is wrong or missing, the renewal silently never opens. Reconcile it against the back-office system before go-live and again a month after.
• A decision on Renewal Horizon Days per policy class. Anything needing a survey, a mid-term adjustment to clear first, or a long carrier turnaround needs a longer horizon than a household policy.
• Your declared-changes rules written down: which answers on the pre-renewal declaration set Material Change Flag and route to a senior handler. Agree these with whoever owns technical standards, not in the build session.
• A policy on multi-policy clients: whether a client with four policies gets four separate declarations or one consolidated request. Four is cleaner for the audit trail and more annoying for the client; decide deliberately.

Integrations

• Two-way calendar sync for every handler.
• A payment provider such as Stripe for premium collection, with a hosted payment page. Card and bank details must never be captured into platform fields.
• Premium finance provider links where used, so the installment path hands off cleanly rather than being faked with a payment link.
• Accounting sync - QuickBooks or Xero - if the brokerage reconciles premium there.
• A sync or at least a scheduled import from the back-office or policy administration system. The policy system remains the record of truth for cover; the platform runs the process around it. Decide which system wins on conflict, in writing, before you connect them.
• Document storage under the brokerage's own retention policy, with the platform holding links rather than being the archive.

Numbers and messaging registration

• Provision a dedicated service number and complete application-to-person registration under the brokerage's legal entity - in the United States, 10DLC brand and campaign registration. Submit sample copy that matches what you will send; a campaign approved on generic samples and then used for different traffic is a filtering risk. Begin this in week one.
• Keep renewal service traffic in a separate campaign from any marketing traffic.
• Opt-out handling on every channel: STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL and QUIT honoured instantly and permanently on SMS, a working unsubscribe on marketing email, and written confirmation back to the client. Note the distinction and settle it with your compliance function: a renewal notice is service communication about a contract the client holds, and treating it as marketing - or suppressing it as if it were - are both mistakes. What a client can and cannot opt out of on a live policy is a question for your compliance function, and the answer should be configured, not assumed.
• Quiet hours in the client's own time zone. Decide explicitly, and record the decision, whether an expiry-day notice is exempt.
• Authenticated sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, warmed if new.

Compliance, and what this build may not do

Insurance distribution is regulated activity, and the boundary matters more here than almost anywhere else in this knowledge base. Three constraints shape the build:

• Advice and recommendation. Comparing options, recommending one, commenting on whether cover is adequate, or interpreting a wording is work for a qualified person acting within the brokerage's permissions. The automation delivers what a handler produced; it does not produce it, summarize its merits, or answer questions about it. BO's instructions must be written as hard prohibitions, and they should be tested adversarially before launch - try to get BO to recommend something, and keep trying until you cannot.
• Suitability and demands and needs. Whatever your regime requires by way of a statement of demands and needs, a suitability assessment, or a record of why the cover offered matches what the client said they wanted, must be produced by a person and stored on the renewal. The automation can generate the container and chase the signature; the content is the handler's.
• Record-keeping and disclosure. Client communications, including automated ones and BO transcripts, are generally retainable records. Configure retention before go-live. Required disclosures - brokerage identity, regulatory status, the capacity in which you act, remuneration disclosure where your rules require it, complaints routing - belong in every template, approved as written copy by your compliance function, not drafted in a build sprint.

Two more worth settling early. Non-disclosure: the pre-renewal declaration is the brokerage's mechanism for giving the client a fair chance to disclose, so how the questions are worded is a compliance matter, and the record that the questions were asked matters as much as the answers. And data protection: renewal declarations collect business and personal information, sometimes including claims history and in some classes health or criminal-conviction information, which usually attracts a higher standard - confirm your lawful basis, retention and transfer position for every connected store.

None of this is legal or regulatory advice, and none of it substitutes for your own permissions and rules. What you must disclose, what counts as advice in your jurisdiction, what you must record and for how long, and what a client may opt out of on a live policy are all questions for your own compliance function and your own counsel. Get their answers first, then configure to match. To scope the build around those answers, book a call at bookings.appbo.io.