Open numbers
How long should a commercial or personal lines quote take?
Published figures on time to quote: manual portal entry runs 15 to 20 minutes per carrier, and Relay's June 2026 benchmark measured automated portal work.
What the published numbers say
Manual entry into a single carrier portal takes 15 to 20 minutes for personal lines and 30 to 45 minutes for commercial, and most quotes go to 3 to 5 carriers, putting a typical fully manual quote at one to three hours of portal work.
In Relay's published carrier portal automation benchmark (June 2026 run, HO-3 new business on a live carrier portal), automated portal workflows completed source-backed field fill with a median time to quote of minutes rather than hours, with the full metric table published alongside methodology and limitations.
How to read this
Time your own shop before comparing to anyone else's numbers. Take five recent quotes, count minutes from intake complete to first quote returned, and note how many carriers were touched. That gives you a baseline the published figures can actually inform.
Then separate rate-time from wait-time. Most quote latency is not typing, it is the risk sitting in a queue between steps. Automation compresses the typing; workflow visibility compresses the waiting.
Caveats
- Time to quote varies enormously by line, state, and carrier mix. A monoline personal auto quote and a layered commercial property submission are different sports.
- Vendor-published numbers, including Relay's, describe the conditions of the test. Read the methodology and limitations before assuming they transfer to your book.
- There is no widely accepted industry-wide standard figure for time to quote. Treat any page that quotes one without a source as marketing.
The Relay number
Relay publishes its portal automation benchmark openly, including methodology and limitations, at the link above. That page is the source for any Relay number cited here. Read the benchmark →
Common questions
Is there an official industry benchmark for time to quote?
No. Associations publish agency performance studies, but there is no standard published time-to-quote figure. The honest approach is measuring your own agency and comparing against clearly sourced, methodology-included numbers.
Every number on this page carries a source. Updated 2026-07-11. See how we source what we publish.
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