Agency Credentialing Lead

Keystone Advisors•Houston, TX

About The Position

The Agency Credentialing Lead oversees agency and agent credentialing, contracting, carrier appointments, onboarding, reporting, and reconciliation activities. The role ensures agency partners and associated agents are accurately documented, appropriately credentialed, and efficiently activated with Keystone Advisors and its carrier partners. The Lead manages daily credentialing workflows, monitors application and appointment status, coordinates with carriers and internal stakeholders, and ensures required documentation is complete, accurate, and submitted on time. The position also oversees credentialing data analysis, carrier record reconciliation, and billing-related coordination to identify discrepancies, resolve outstanding issues, and maintain accurate operational records. Working with Agent Support, Sales, Compliance, Finance, Commissions, and carrier partners, the Lead supports a smooth transition from contracting through activation while maintaining operational accuracy, compliance, and service quality. The role calls for organizational and leadership skills, analytical ability, attention to detail, and a continuous improvement mindset.

Responsibilities

Oversee the end-to-end agency credentialing and contracting process, from receiving required documentation through approval and activation.
Ensure agency and agent applications, licenses, certifications, carrier agreements, and supporting documents are complete, accurate, and current.
Coordinate carrier appointments, contract submissions, transfers, releases, and other contracting requirements.
Monitor outstanding applications, pending approvals, missing documentation, and carrier processing delays; resolve discrepancies and contracting issues with carriers and internal teams.
Establish credentialing procedures and turnaround expectations, maintain accurate status records, and transition newly contracted agencies and agents to applicable support teams after activation requirements are met.
Manage daily credentialing operations, assign workloads, set priorities, coach and train team members, and establish performance expectations for accuracy, productivity, turnaround time, and service quality.
Monitor team capacity and performance, address bottlenecks, develop procedures and quality-control processes, and report productivity, outstanding work, risks, and resource needs to leadership.
Serve as a primary operational contact for credentialing and contracting matters and maintain working relationships with carrier contracting and appointment departments.
Coordinate with Agent Support, Sales, agency leadership, Compliance, Finance, and Commissions on onboarding, licensing, documentation, billing, commission eligibility, payment processing, and related issues.
Escalate carrier delays, complex contracting issues, financial discrepancies, compliance concerns, and unresolved credentialing barriers to appropriate leadership or internal contacts.
Ensure credentialing files meet carrier requirements and company standards; monitor licenses, certifications, appointments, and renewal deadlines.
Maintain audit-ready credentialing records and appropriate controls over confidential agent, agency, and financial information; support audits, carrier reviews, and compliance reporting.
Maintain credentialing pipeline records in Salesforce or other designated systems and develop dashboards and reports on volume, approvals, processing times, aging cases, rejection reasons, activation status, billing discrepancies, and trends.
Monitor performance against service-level agreements and departmental goals; identify workflow inefficiencies and implement process improvements, including opportunities to reduce manual work or automate routine tasks.
Maintain standard operating procedures and communicate process changes consistently.
Analyze contracting data and reconcile internal records against carrier reports to confirm appointments, effective dates, contract levels, and other required information.
Support review and reconciliation of carrier billing, agency fees, contracting charges, and related invoices; track discrepancies and outstanding items and coordinate their resolution.
Develop and maintain Excel-based trackers, dashboards, and reports for workload, exceptions, aging items, and resolution status; maintain supporting documentation for audit readiness and management review.