How United Home Warranty automated contractor payments and 24/7 claim intake

It started with service provider invoices

Paying service providers on time is one of the most important things a warranty company does. It also rides on behind-the-scenes work (reviewing invoices, reconciling them, scheduling payouts) that grows heavier as the business scales. United knew its service providers were central to the homeowner experience, so getting this right was a top priority.

Like most warranty companies, United started with a small, capable team doing a large share of the work by hand, and for a while that worked. Then success outgrew the process. Reviewing invoices and claims took about three hours a day, paying service providers meant entering work orders one at a time, and at times around 80 percent of invoices sat overdue simply because they were easy to lose in a high volume of email. What was manageable at a handful of claims a day could not scale.

United brought in Polygrade to streamline their invoicing and payment processes. Invoices arrived by email and were reconciled and posted into United's claim system automatically, and each service provider was paid on United's terms as soon as the invoice cleared, with the option of next-day payment.

What it delivered

• Invoice handling went from about 10 minutes per invoice to instant, and 100 percent of invoices were automatically written into United's claim system.

• The time spent on invoices and payments fell from about three hours a day to 10 to 20 minutes. In their words, it became “set it and forget it.”

• Polygrade processed over $500,000 in service provider payouts with no missed payments.

• Nearly half of United's service providers opted into next-day payout.

• Service providers got paid on schedule, which gave them a reason to commit more of their capacity to United’s customers.

Then, claims agents that do not keep office hours

A warranty claim used to start only when a homeowner reached a person during office hours. A homeowner’s appliance that failed on a Friday night waited until Monday to become a claim, and the clock on the repair waited with it.

Polygrade gave United two always-on ways to open a claim. An always-available claim form handled contract lookup and claim creation and kept the homeowner informed at each step. Alongside it, Polygrade and Humach deployed a digital voice agent inside United's existing phone tree. Homeowners called the same number they always had, and the agent could verify the contract and create the claim at any hour. The voice deployment was live in 45 days, integrated into both United's claims platform and its phone system.

What it delivered

• Claims could be created 24 hours a day, with the contract verified and a dispatch triage message sent to the homeowner outside business hours.

• Call volume to United's call center fell by about 20 percent, and 21 percent fewer calls reached a live agent, as routine claim creation moved to the voice agent.

• The capacity that used to go to routine intake moved to the conversations where an experienced person changes the outcome, and customer satisfaction improved.

What it meant for a lean team

The point of clearing the administrative work was never the saved minutes; it was where the time went instead. With invoices and payments running on their own, United's small team could spend its hours on the work only people can do: relationships with service providers, realtors and insurance agencies, and the homeowner conversations where an experienced person changes the outcome.

Polygrade also gave United a second set of eyes on the numbers. The platform caught contract error codes and payment mistakes that are easy to miss across a growing book, from a repair that was not actually covered to a liability that had already reached its limit. That visibility let United scrutinize spend and protect margin.

Each stage makes the next one stronger. Clean invoice and payment data makes claim creation and financial oversight sharper, and the same integration that pays a service provider also verifies a contract and opens a claim. That is the case for a platform rather than a single point tool: the more of the claim lifecycle that runs on it, the more value each part delivers.

United showed what a small, owner-led warranty company can run when the administrative work runs itself: instant invoice handling, service providers paid on schedule, and claims that open at any hour, with the team's time going to the people the business serves.