Automate Quoting Across Multiple Carrier Platforms
Insurance agencies integrate quoting platforms using a central API gateway. This gateway sends quote requests to multiple carriers simultaneously.
Syntora engineers custom API gateways for insurance agencies to centralize quoting across multiple carriers. This involves integrating diverse carrier systems, including those requiring browser automation, and normalizing quote data using advanced parsing techniques. Syntora's approach focuses on building tailored, maintainable solutions rather than selling off-the-shelf products.
The main challenge is normalizing data from carriers with different systems. Some offer modern REST APIs, while others require browser automation to scrape quotes from their agent portals. A custom API normalizes these varied inputs and outputs into a single, unified format for your agency management system (AMS).
Syntora provides custom engineering engagements to build these central quoting hubs. The scope of each engagement depends on the number of carriers to integrate, the complexity of their data requirements, and the specific APIs or portal interfaces they present. We partner with agencies to design, build, and deploy robust integration solutions tailored to their unique operational needs.
What Problem Does This Solve?
Most agencies start with the built-in rater in their Agency Management System, like those in Applied Epic or Vertafore. These tools work for standard carriers but often lack integrations for smaller, regional, or specialty carriers. This forces agents back into the carrier portal, defeating the purpose of a single system and requiring them to re-enter client data multiple times.
Third-party comparative raters like EZLynx or Vertafore's PL Rater solve this for personal lines but are less effective for complex commercial policies. They present a fixed data model, meaning if a new coverage option becomes critical, you cannot add it. Their per-seat SaaS licensing model also becomes expensive as your agency grows, penalizing you for adding producers.
A typical failure scenario involves a commercial lines agent quoting a general contractor policy. They can get rates from three national carriers through their AMS rater in five minutes. But for the two specialty carriers that offer the best coverage, they must log into separate portals, manually re-type dozens of fields from the ACORD application, and then copy-paste the results back into their AMS. This fragmentation adds 30 minutes of low-value work and introduces a high risk of data entry errors.
How Would Syntora Approach This?
Syntora's approach to building a custom quoting API begins with a thorough discovery phase. We would audit every carrier your agency works with, mapping all data fields required for a quote and identifying which carriers offer documented APIs versus those requiring browser automation. We would utilize httpx for direct API-to-API communication where available and Playwright to build resilient automation scripts for agent portals without APIs. A unified data schema, defined with Pydantic, would ensure consistency across all inputs and outputs.
Next, Syntora would engineer a central API gateway using FastAPI. This service would expose a single, secure endpoint designed to accept standardized quote requests from your AMS. Internally, the service would translate these requests into the specific formats required by each carrier system and manage parallel execution of quote requests.
The system would then aggregate the diverse responses, which commonly arrive in inconsistent formats such as PDFs, HTML pages, or JSON. Syntora has extensive experience using the Claude API to parse and extract key data points like premiums, coverage limits, and deductibles from complex documents (for example, in financial services), and the same pattern applies to insurance documents. These normalized results would be temporarily stored in a Supabase database and returned as a single, clean JSON object, ready for ingestion by your AMS.
For deployment, the FastAPI service would be containerized and deployed on AWS Lambda, providing a serverless, cost-effective, and scalable solution. As a final deliverable, Syntora would build a webhook to push the final, normalized quote data directly into a custom object or note field within your agency management system (such as Applied Epic, Vertafore, or HawkSoft). A typical build engagement for this complexity would span 8-12 weeks, requiring the client to provide API keys, portal credentials, and detailed mapping requirements. Expected monthly hosting costs for a system of this nature are typically under $50.
What Are the Key Benefits?
Get All Quotes in 3 Minutes, Not 45
Our parallel processing fetches quotes from every carrier simultaneously. Agents get a complete market view without logging into multiple systems.
One Build Cost, No Recurring Seat Fees
We build and transfer the system to you for a one-time project fee. You only pay for minimal cloud hosting, not a recurring per-user SaaS subscription.
You Own The Integration Code
You receive the full source code in your own GitHub repository. There is no vendor lock-in, giving you full control to modify or extend the system.
Alerts When Carrier Portals Change
We build in monitoring that detects when a carrier's website layout or API schema changes, sending an immediate alert so the integration can be updated.
Pushes Quotes Directly to Your AMS
The final, normalized data is written back to Applied Epic, Vertafore, or HawkSoft. No more copy-pasting premiums or coverage details.
What Does the Process Look Like?
Audit and Scoping (Week 1)
You provide read-only access to your carrier portals and AMS. We deliver a technical specification detailing the integration strategy for each carrier.
Gateway Development (Weeks 2-3)
We build the core FastAPI service and the individual carrier connectors. You receive a staging API endpoint to submit test quote requests.
AMS Integration and Testing (Week 4)
We connect the API gateway to your production AMS. You receive a live demonstration of a quote flowing end-to-end into a client record.
Monitoring and Handoff (Weeks 5-8)
We monitor system performance and handle any issues. You receive the complete source code, a runbook for maintenance, and full ownership.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does a custom quoting integration cost?
- Pricing depends on the number of carriers and the quality of their technology. Integrating five carriers that all have modern REST APIs is a faster build than integrating five that each require custom browser automation. After a 30-minute discovery call where we review your carriers, we can provide a fixed-price proposal. Book a discovery call at cal.com/syntora/discover.
- What happens when a carrier's website or API breaks the integration?
- The system is designed to fail gracefully. If one carrier integration fails, the others continue to return quotes. We use `structlog` for structured logging, which triggers a CloudWatch alarm if a specific carrier's error rate passes a threshold. This sends an alert, allowing us to patch the specific connector, usually within a few hours.
- How is this different from a comparative rater like EZLynx?
- Standard raters are closed systems excellent for personal lines. You cannot add your own specialty carriers or customize the data you get back. We build an open system that you own. It is designed for agencies with a unique mix of carriers or complex commercial lines that off-the-shelf raters cannot support. You control the entire workflow and data model.
- Can this system handle documents like ACORD forms?
- Yes. The same AI pipeline that parses quote PDFs can be adapted to extract structured data from ACORD applications or other forms. This allows you to digitize incoming applications and use that data to pre-fill quote requests, eliminating another manual data entry step for your team. This can be included in the initial project scope.
- Does this system store sensitive client PII?
- No, the API gateway is stateless. It acts as a passthrough, relaying data from your AMS to carriers. While quote results may be cached for performance in a Supabase database that you control, no long-term PII is stored in the system itself. This architecture simplifies compliance and enhances security by keeping client data inside your existing systems.
- What kind of training is required for our agents?
- Almost none. The integration is designed to work inside the AMS your team already uses. Instead of opening five browser tabs, an agent will click a new button like 'Get All Quotes' on the client screen in Applied Epic. The results then appear back in a custom tab or note automatically. The core user experience remains within the AMS.
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