Herald Changelog

Streamline quote-and-bind workflow with PDF extraction

Herald recently announced the launch of its Data Extraction feature to streamline the insurance quote-and-bind workflow by enabling brokerages to extract unstructured data from PDF documents—such as application forms—and integrate them into their systems

You can leverage the /data_extraction endpoint to post and retrieve data from PDFs that you upload via the existing /files endpoint. See step-by-step guidance here.

Note that /data_extraction is a beta endpoint. If you would like to request access to this beta release, please contact support@heraldapi.com.

Shareable links in HeRB

We’ve enabled customers to share links at every stage of the quote and bind process in HeRB. For example, you could easily share a link to a quote with your colleagues via email, or share with Herald customer success representative a bind application you need help with.

Additional feature enhancements and bug fixes

• We’ve added customer and agent facing tooltips to the appendix, allowing customers to view tooltips in the /application endpoint response
• We’ve simplified our /insurance_parameters relevance and combined identical conditionals for different products
• We’ve removed a set of conditional parameters for a carrier’s EPLI product to stay in sync with carrier requirements
• We’ve fixed a bug related to authorized vendor parameters for a Management Liability product
• We’ve fixed a bug related to re-rate flow
• We’ve fixed a bug related to a carrier’s MPL file failure in the new quote processor flow

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Bind in HeRB

The bind feature is now available in Herald’s developer portal, allowing users to create a bind order from an active quote and retrieve policies.

Additionally, you are also now able to complete actions in the portal, which enables you to submit additional information to institutions after the policy has been created. It’s not uncommon for an institution to request additional information after providing a quote or policy, and actions allow you to submit this information.

HeRB supports two types of actions to interact with an existing policy: visiting a link provided by the institution or submitting an application (similar to how you submit a quote application). Read the step-by-step guide for completing actions here.

Parameters API Quote Relevance

As noted in our last changelog, we’ve recently introduced the GET/insurance_parameters endpoint to provide users with access Herald’s parameter information in a standardized, intuitive, and machine-ingestable format.

In the most recent release, we’ve added quote relevance (conditionality)  information of parameter to the response body, which enable developers to dynamically handle complex carrier underwriting rules. Please read more about how Herald approaches and standardizes conditionality here.

New quote processor rollout completed

As detailed in the recent high impact changes update, the new quote processor rollout to production is complete as of August 30, which will deliver faster quotes and an improved developer experience by processing files separately from quotes.

Feature enhancements and bug fixes

• We added additional tooltips to clarify carrier question definitions (e.g., long-term liabilities)
• We added agree-to parameters to a certain carrier’s application to separate text-heavy attestation statements from the rest of the application and enhance user experience
• We fixed a bug in our developer portal related to sharing application links

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Parameters API beta release

Parameters are the building blocks Herald customers use to create applications for commercial insurance quoting and binding.

As a step towards providing our users with more visibility into Herald question sets and eventually enabling question set management, we recently launched the GET/insurance_parameters endpoint, which allows users to access Herald’s parameter information in a standardized, intuitive, and machine-ingestable format.

You can now send request to GET/insurance_parameters, and Herald will return a list of parameters and their metadata that the user has access to.

Note that /insurance_parameters is a beta endpoint and subject to change. If you would like to request access to this beta release, please email support@heraldapi.com.

Producer management & disablement

• You can now disable producers and continue to manage entities related to the disabled producer.  The /producers API response now contains an “enabled” boolean which provides information on a producer’s status., which defaults to true if not provided. You can update producer status by sending a PUT or PATCH request (see below) via the producer’s endpoint to modify this value.
• In conjunction, we’ve introduced the PATCH/producers endpoint, which allows users to update any producer fields editable via PUT and reduce accidental changes when disabling producers.

Bind in Herald Developer Portal (HeRB)

• You can now use HeRB to bind policies and simulate the underlying API workflow for binding an application, creating and viewing bind orders, and retrieving details for the policy.

Developer Portal 2.0 is live

• As previewed in our last changelog, developer portal 2.0 is now live.

More features & enhancements

• We’ve updated our integration with one of our carriers to support a parameter pertaining to occupancy types to be captured at the location level instead of policy level
• We’ve made updates to a MPL product to reflect carrier’s filing changes by state
• We’ve made enhancements to a ML product to stay in sync with carrier application requirements
• We’ve made updates to time-based parameters for ML products to allow for more flexible enum inputs
• We’ve added the ability to request bind order for a carrier’s ML product
• We’ve fixed a bug related to the foreign location parameter for an ML product

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