How to Run a Weekly Pipeline Review That Closes Cases

Cases rarely die from a decline. They die from three weeks of nothing, a client who cooled off, and a requirement nobody chased. By the time a stalled case looks like a problem, the effort to revive it has already exceeded what it would have taken to prevent.

The fix is unglamorous: one recurring block on the calendar where every pending case gets looked at on purpose. Thirty minutes a week, same day, no exceptions.

Why Pending Cases Stall

Underwriting is slow in ways that are invisible from the outside. Per Policygenius, the underwriting process typically spans five to six weeks on average, and a records request can extend that by several weeks more.

So a case sitting for a month is not necessarily broken. That is the trap. Normal slowness and actual stalls look identical from your inbox, and the only way to tell them apart is to check deliberately rather than wait to be told.

Meanwhile the client is experiencing something different from what you are. You see a case progressing through known stages. They see silence after handing a stranger their medical history. Those two experiences diverge fast, and the divergence is where not-taken policies come from.

The Review Itself

Pull every case that is not issued and paid, and put each one into exactly one of four buckets. The buckets matter more than the tooling. Do this in whatever system already holds your pipeline, whether that is a CRM built for agents or something simpler.

Waiting on the Carrier

The requirement is in and the clock is theirs. Your job here is a status check and a note of when you last confirmed. If it has been longer than the carrier’s own stated turnaround, it moves to the next bucket.

Waiting on Someone You Can Reach

A missing signature, an unscheduled exam, an unreturned interview call, a physician’s office sitting on a records request. These are the cases where your effort actually changes the outcome, and they should get worked first every single week.

Waiting on a Decision

An offer is out and the client has not said yes or no. Silence here is not neutral. It decays. A case in this bucket for more than a few days needs a call, not another email.

Needs a Real Decision From You

The case is rated, declined, or has gone quiet past the point of reviving as-is. Something has to change: reposition, re-present, or close it out. Leaving these in the pipeline inflates your numbers and hides how the rest of the book is doing.

What to Actually Do in the Thirty Minutes

1. Sort by days since last contact, descending. The oldest untouched case gets worked first, not the one that feels most promising.

2. For anything in the reachable bucket, make the contact during the block. Not later. Later is how the case got there.

3. Log the next action and the date it is due for every case, even the ones where the next action is “check again Friday.” A case without a next action is a case you have stopped working.

4. Flag anything that has crossed the carrier’s stated turnaround, and escalate to your case manager rather than waiting another week.

5. Close out what is dead. A clean pipeline you trust is more useful than a long one you avoid looking at.

The Client-Facing Half

A status update with no news is still an update. “Nothing new from the carrier, I checked Tuesday, here is when I expect to hear” takes ninety seconds and does more to protect the case than anything else on this list.

This matters most immediately after the client has done something effortful, like the exam or the carrier phone interview. That is the moment they are most likely to wonder whether this was a good idea, and the moment they are least likely to hear from anyone.

Expert Insight: The Review Is a Leading Indicator

Run this for two months and the review stops being only a task list. It becomes the clearest read you have on your own process.

If the same requirement keeps appearing across different cases, your intake is missing something and the fix is upstream in pre-qualification. If cases cluster at one carrier, that is a relationship or an appetite problem, not bad luck. If the reachable bucket is always the biggest, your follow-up cadence is too loose.

None of that is visible case by case. It is only visible when you look at the whole board on a regular rhythm, which is the actual argument for doing this weekly rather than whenever something feels wrong.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should the review take?

Thirty minutes for a normal pending book. If it consistently runs much longer, the pipeline is carrying cases that should have been closed out.

What if I have a case manager who handles follow-up?

Then review with them rather than instead of them. The point is that someone looks at every pending case on a fixed schedule, with the client relationship in view.

Does this replace a CRM?

No. The CRM holds the data. The review is the habit that makes anyone look at it.

Peach Pilot supports licensed agents’ workflow. Carriers make final underwriting and issue decisions.