Service Cloud · insurance endorsements
A policy change has a dozen steps.
Salesforce can refuse to let one be skipped.
An insurance agency runs endorsements safely in Salesforce as a record of their own with fixed stages, a task list for each stage, and a gate that refuses the next stage while a required task is still open. Salesforce’s own Endorse Policy APIs, the brokerage one included, do a different job: they change the policy record and its premium. This is the eleven stage workflow built for an insurance agency in the US, stage by stage.
Insurance Developer Guide and Salesforce Help read on 1 November 2026. Reviewed 3 November 2026.
The process
What is the endorsement process in an insurance agency?
A client asks for a change to an active policy: a driver, a vehicle, a limit, a deductible. The agency takes a down payment if the premium goes up, sends the change to the carrier, waits for the endorsement and the invoice, records it in its agency system, arranges premium finance if needed, and gives accounting the paperwork.
Each of those is somebody’s step, and the order differs by billing type. With direct bill the carrier invoices the client; with agency bill the agency collects and accounting must hear about every amount. The steps live in experienced people’s heads until something forces them onto a list.
Which tool for which job
Does Salesforce have an endorsement feature for agencies?
It has APIs that change the policy, not a workflow for the agency’s own steps. Insurance Policy Administration documents Endorse Policy, also called a mid term adjustment, which changes the policy version and the premium through a rating step, and since API version 67.0 a brokerage Endorse Policy resource creates and completes an endorsement draft on a policy kept in Salesforce. None of them models who sends what to the carrier, to Epic and to accounting, in what order. An agency that keeps policies in Applied Epic needs those steps around the change.
The definition is in the Insurance Developer Guide, Endorse Policy. What the two products cost an agency and when the insurance data model is worth it are compared in Financial Services Cloud against Service Cloud for an agency. The four ways to hold an endorsement, side by side:
| Option | What it records | Who it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Endorse Policy in Salesforce Insurance Policy Administration | A new version of the policy and its premium, priced through the Rating API | Whoever holds and rates the policy in Salesforce |
| Brokerage Endorse Policy, API version 67.0 | An endorsement draft on a policy record in Salesforce, then the completed endorsement | A brokerage that keeps its policy records in Salesforce |
| An endorsement record with stages and tasks, on Service Cloud | Who does which step, in what order, and what accounting has been sent | An agency that keeps the policy in Applied Epic or another agency system |
| Tasks on the case, no endorsement record | A to do list per request, with no order and no gate | A handful of simple changes a month, one billing type |
The workflow, as it runs
Eleven stages, and the tasks each one creates.
This is the sequence from the agency build: 37 tasks across ten working stages, and an eleventh that only closes. Each billing type has its own Path guidance and picklist values on top of the same stages. Which of these tasks name Applied Epic, and why the agency kept Epic, is in Applied Epic and Salesforce: who holds what.
| Stage | Tasks it creates | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1. New Request | Save the request to Epic; check the client’s billing type | 2 |
| 2. Charged Downpayment | Calculate and charge it; receive and attach the proofs; tell accounting what is due | 5 |
| 3. Endorsement Requested | Send the change to the underwriter or carrier; mark it submitted in Epic; save the request; master certificate (optional) | 4 |
| 4. Received Confirmation (Endorsement & Invoice) | Attach the endorsement and invoice in Epic; set issued or not issued | 2 |
| 5. Endorsement Implementation Section | Make the change in the carrier portal and in Epic; master certificate if needed; check the portal for the declaration page and save it | 5 |
| 6. Create PFA and Receive NOA | Create, sign and activate the premium finance agreement; receive the notice of acceptance; attach both | 6 |
| 7. Deliver Financial Docs to Accounting Dept | Send accounting the invoice, or the invoice with the signed agreement, the notice and the receipt | 1 |
| 8. Processing Section / Proofs Received | Attach the endorsement and invoice; set issued or not issued | 2 |
| 9. Processing Section / Policy Was Financed or Covered | Cover by another endorsement or finance it; update the balance sheet; most steps optional | 9 |
| 10. Accounting Dept. Was Notified with ALL Info About Endorsement | Send accounting the complete package | 1 |
| 11. Archive | No tasks; the parent case closes | 0 |
The rule
How do you stop an endorsement skipping a step?
Put the steps on the record as tasks, and refuse the status change while any required one is open. A Path alone only shows the stages; anyone can click past them. The gate runs on save, so it holds in the list view, on the tablet and in a data load, and it names what to do next.
The message agents see, word for word as it runs in production:
To see what is holding an endorsement, run this in the Developer Console query editor with its Id. Every row is a step somebody still owes:
One build, from the inside
Eight parts, in the order they were built.
A commercial trucking agency in the US, three billing types, every endorsement request arriving as an email that became a case. Path behaviour below is documented in Considerations and Guidelines for Creating Paths; the rest is how the agency build works in production.
- 01
A record of its own, created from the case
Endorsement is a custom object linked to the case, the client and the policy. A Create Endorsement action on the case asks one question, the type of bill, then creates the record at New Request with the right record type, writes it back to the case and opens it.
- 02
Three record types, three Paths
Direct bill, agency bill for fleets and agency bill for single vehicles each get their own record type, picklist values and Path with guidance per stage. Salesforce allows one Path per record type on an object, which is exactly the split the billing types need.
- 03
Tasks created when the stage changes
A record triggered flow runs after save when the status changes and creates that stage’s tasks on the endorsement, owned by its owner. In production every task was its own flow element; I would now keep the list as custom metadata records, so the administrator edits a row, not a flow.
- 04
The gate, in Apex
Before update, a service counts the open tasks on the endorsement that are not optional. If any are left, the save fails with one sentence the agent can act on. Administrators can pass, because data fixes happen.
- 05
Optional steps that do not block
Steps that apply only sometimes, such as changing the master certificate or financing the extra premium, carry “(optional)” in the subject and are skipped by the gate. Without that, the team marks them complete to get past the gate, and the task list stops telling the truth.
- 06
One endorsement per case, by rule
A trigger refuses a second endorsement on the same case with the message “A Case can have only one Endorsement.” If an agency wants several, the rule changes and the case keeps the oldest one, recalculated after every insert, update and delete.
- 07
The case follows the endorsement
Hold and In Progress actions on the endorsement set the parent case status, so the case clock pauses while the carrier works. Archive closes the case only when it has no other open endorsement; test that with two cases, because a filter that is never filled closes every case it is given.
- 08
What the manager watches
A clock in working hours from Received Confirmation to the notice to accounting, a dashboard of endorsements older than 15 days by stage, and a report of endorsement cases older than one business day with no record yet. Only the service manager can delete one.
The acceptance test is one endorsement per billing type, run from New Request to Archive in a sandbox. At each stage the tasks are counted against the table. A move with a required task open must fail with the gate message, and a move after completing them must pass. Archive must close the case, and a second endorsement on the same case must be refused.
Asked often enough to answer here
Questions
- Q
Does the agency enter the change twice, in Salesforce and in Epic?
No. Epic stays the system of record for the policy. Salesforce holds the steps, who did each one and when, and its tasks name what to save in Epic. The change itself is entered once, in Epic and with the carrier.
- Q
Can the agency change the steps itself?
Yes, if the steps are kept as records. Each row says which stage, which billing type, the task subject, its order and whether it is optional. The administrator adds or edits a row, and the next endorsement gets the new list without a deployment.
- Q
Do we need Financial Services Cloud for endorsements?
Not for the workflow. Endorse Policy in Salesforce’s insurance products, the brokerage resource included, changes the policy record and its premium; it does not order the agency’s own steps. An agency running the change around Epic needs stages, tasks and a gate, which Service Cloud carries.
The range depends on how many billing types the agency runs and how many people the steps pass through. The stage sits on the insurance agency page next to the other ten, each priced on its own, with Applied Epic left where it is.
Serhii Skrypnyk · Senior Salesforce Administrator · 7 Salesforce certifications · on the platform since 2018. Reviewed 3 November 2026.
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- 01
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- 02
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For an insurance agency on Applied Epic: licence prices side by side, what the FSC insurance data model holds, and when a light Policy object is enough.
- 03
Case: Insurance agency, United States
Client service moved from shared inboxes to queues: every email a case with one owner, the request type read from the message, policy changes that cannot skip a step, Applied Epic kept.