Quote-to-bind cycle time
Industry-typical homeowners quote-to-bind cycle time is 1–3 hours. Sunsure's published target is under 3 minutes from email to ranked carrier quotes. Here's how each step compresses.
- Industry baseline: 60–180 minutes per homeowners submission, dominated by document handling and sequential portal logins.
- Sunsure target: under 3 minutes from email arrival to a ranked list of carrier quotes.
- How: document AI replaces manual extraction; parallel quoting replaces sequential carrier logins.
- Why it matters: faster quotes win more business, same-day-quoted insureds bind at materially higher rates than 24+ hour quotes.
The four steps and where each one bleeds time
A typical homeowners submission has four steps. Each one absorbs 15–60 minutes when done manually:
- Step 1, Triage and intake. Producer reads the inbound email, identifies the request type, opens a new submission file. 5–15 min.
- Step 2, Document handling. Open dec page, 4-point, and wind mit. Read each. Key the relevant fields into the agency system or carrier portal. 30–60 min, depending on document quality.
- Step 3, Carrier submissions. Log into carrier A, paste the fields, submit, wait. Log out. Log into carrier B, repeat. 20–60 min for 20 carriers.
- Step 4, Result review. Compare the carriers, sort by premium, flag eligibility issues, prepare to discuss with insured. 5–15 min.
How each step compresses with AI
Step 1: AI watches the inbox. Email-intake automation recognizes a new submission the moment it arrives and opens the draft quote automatically. Producer time: roughly 0 min.
Step 2: Sonny reads the documents. Sonny extracts every field with confidence scoring. Producer reviews flagged fields, not the whole document. Producer time: under 1 min for clean documents, 2–3 min when verification is needed.
Step 3: Parallel submission. Sunsure submits to every eligible carrier at the same time. Results stream back. Producer time: 0 min for the submission step itself.
Step 4: Ranked results. Sunsure surfaces carriers sorted cheapest-first with full coverage breakdowns. Producer time: 1–2 min to review.
Why same-day quotes win
Insureds that get quotes the same day they ask for them bind at higher rates than insureds who wait. The longer a quote takes, the more time the insured has to call other agents, get tired of the process, or lose the insurance window altogether (closing dates, mortgage requirements, lapses).
A 2-minute cycle isn't just operationally cheaper, it changes the bind-rate curve. More on why quoting takes so long.
Frequently asked questions
Under 3 minutes from email arrival to a ranked list of carrier quotes is achievable today on standard homeowners risks with clean documents. Outliers (poor-quality scans, unusual properties, manual UW questions) take longer; sunsure flags those for the producer.
Commercial submissions are more variable, BOP and small commercial property quote in 3–5 minutes; larger or more complex risks (multi-location SOVs, layered programs) take longer because of the underwriting complexity, not the data entry.
Sonny scores every field with a confidence value. Low-confidence fields are flagged for human verification before submission. The producer sees "Roof age: 8 years (97% confidence)" or "Roof age: ? (verify)" and acts accordingly.