How Heffernan Transformed the Policy Checking Status QuoIn 2024, Heffernan Insurance Brokers partnered with Fulcrum, an AI workflow automation platform purpose-built for insurance, to accelerate operational efficiency and reduce manual workload across core workflows. The initial focus was on proposal generation — a high-volume, time-intensive task for account managers and producers. Fulcrum’s automated Proposal tool streamlined this process by eliminating duplicative data entry and enabling the creation of client-ready, brand-consistent proposals in a fraction of the time. On average, the tool saved hours per proposal and reached 100% adoption across the sales team within months.
The success demonstrated both the impact and scalability of AI-driven workflow automation within our operations. With proposals fully optimized, we turned our attention to a more complex, business-critical opportunity: modernizing the policy checking process.
The Challenge with Policy Checking
Policy checking is one of the most risk-sensitive workflows in commercial insurance. Even small discrepancies between a bound quote and the issued policy can introduce errors & omissions (E&O) exposure.
At Heffernan, tens of thousands of policies are processed annually, with the majority of checks done manually and requiring external capacity. This approach, though the conventional method for most brokerages, introduced high costs, long turnaround times, and variability in review quality — often due to inconsistent training and limited system integration.
It became clear that we needed a better solution: one that was faster, more accurate, fully integrated with our core systems, and allowed us to own the process end-to-end.
Deploying Agentic AI for End-to-End Policy Checking
To address the challenges of policy checking, Heffernan worked with Fulcrum to develop and deploy an agentic AI workflow capable of managing the full lifecycle of a standard policy check. The system sources the relevant policy documents from Applied Epic, compares all coverage details at a granular level, and identifies discrepancies for resolution. Where issues are detected, the AI can flag required changes, push edits to Applied Epic, as well as draft and send requests for correction directly to the carrier. Once validated, the finalized policy is routed back through Epic and delivered to the client.
Fulcrum’s deep integration with our systems, combined with tailored business logic, allows the AI to execute this process seamlessly, maintaining consistency, accuracy, and turnaround speed at scale.
The Results
The results have been transformational. We’re now transitioning 80% of our policy checking to Fulcrum, leaving behind the manual way of doing checks which is commonplace in the industry. This means Fulcrum’s AI handles tens of thousands of policy checks annually, reducing turnaround times from up to multiple days to just 15 minutes for standard policies. That means faster delivery of accurate policies to clients and more responsive service across the board.
The shift has also led to significant cost savings, improved data quality, and faster client delivery. Because the system is integrated with Epic, there’s no risk of rekeying errors, and flagged items are easier to track and resolve. The ROI is clear, driven by reduced resourcing spend and internal efficiency gains.
With Fulcrum’s AI now powering both policy checking and proposal generation, Heffernan continues to set new standards on how AI automation can streamline operations and lead to efficiency — all with one goal in mind: giving our account managers more time to focus on delivering exceptional service to our clients.
