Straight answers
Which commercial insurance quoting solutions have the best automation?
It depends on which part of quoting you want automated. Comparative raters like Tarmika automate rate retrieval for supported carriers and lines but still need the data keyed in. Portal automation approaches, including Relay's AI Quoting (currently a Research Preview), work the carrier portals themselves, so one intake feeds every appointed carrier. For small commercial with API-connected carriers, raters are mature; for the long tail of portal-only carriers, portal automation is the only route to real coverage.
| Approach | What gets automated | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|
| Comparative raters (Tarmika, EZLynx commercial) | Rate retrieval from API-connected carriers off one data entry | Carrier and line coverage is limited to what the rater integrates; complex risks still go to portals |
| Carrier portals directly | Nothing. Full manual entry per carrier | 15 to 20 minutes per portal per quote, per Relay's published cost math |
| Portal automation (Relay AI Quoting, Research Preview) | The portal work itself: field fill from source documents across appointed carriers in parallel, with human review | Preview status; the agency selects supported carriers and workflows, and coverage is expanding |
The longer version
The honest way to evaluate any quoting tool is to count the minutes it removes for the carriers you actually use. A rater that covers four of your twelve appointed carriers automates a third of the problem. Ask every vendor which of your carriers and lines they support today, not on the roadmap.
Relay published a carrier portal automation benchmark (June 2026 run) with field accuracy and time measurements on live portal work, which is the kind of evidence worth asking any vendor in this category to produce.
Common questions
Is Relay's AI Quoting generally available?
No. It is a Research Preview. Agencies apply, select supported carriers, and Relay runs only configured portal workflows with human review on every output.
Part of the Relay straight answers library. Updated 2026-07-11. See how we source content.
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