Loss run reports are a critical element of insurance processing
Like many insurance policies, commercial lines policies come with a specific set of requirements, reports, and data requirements. They also come with busy business owners who have a million things on their plate, and don’t think about their insurance policies until they need them.
Loss run reports are a critical element of insurance processing, specifically writing and binding commercial insurance policies. While they’re essential in helping you service your clients, getting up-to-date loss run reports from a client’s past carriers can feel like pulling teeth. How important are loss run reports exactly, and how can an insurance BPO partner help you secure these reports more efficiently?
Loss run reports contain detailed information about a business’s policy claim history, including the frequency of claims, type of claims filed, and the financial impact of these claims. A loss run report gives you the best picture of the risks associated with a particular policy, in addition to carrier performance in closing the claim efficiently.
This information is absolutely critical in order to underwrite commercial insurance based on risk. Loss runs are required for a wide variety of P&C commercial lines, including general liability, commercial property, and worker’s compensation. That means that large policies and revenue can get stuck if loss runs aren’t issued in a timely fashion.
Ordering loss runs is, unfortunately, an extremely manual process. Ordering these reports requires sending a letter, typically via mail or email, to request the report. Loss runs typically have to be ordered from each individual carrier, and if a policyholder shops their policies every year or two, this means you’ll have to order multiple reports.
If a policyholder attempts to order these reports on their own without guidance from an agent, it’s likely that they won’t get a currently valued report. Plus, if a client attempts to order their own loss runs from their current agent rather than the carrier directly, it alerts the agent that their client is shopping for a new policy, and the agent might take steps to attempt to save the relationship—costing you new business.
If you’re the broker of record, you can likely access loss runs online. While this might make things slightly more convenient, you’ll still have to go directly to each carrier’s website to pull individual loss run reports by client. If your client has been in business for a while, they likely have worked with multiple carriers, and if you’re dealing with a big enough book of business, requesting loss runs from individual carriers can take days of pulling reports and back-and-forth.
While loss runs are legally required to be disclosed within ten days of a request in most states, requests often get lost or missed. You might need to make a second or even third request in order to secure the information you need from a carrier, and if you have repeated issues you will need to involve your state’s insurance commissioner.
If you work with an insurance processing partner, loss run management is just one of many tasks that can be handed off as part of your insurance outsourcing. Whether you need to generate these reports for your existing clients, request them for new quotes, or manage them as part of your policy service, an insurance BPO partner should be able to assist you with these and other critical documents.
Good insurance BPO services should be able to help standardize workflows involved in commercial P&C insurance processing, including ordering loss runs, maintaining up-to-date data, and requesting updated information as needed for quotes, renewals, and policy changes. Top-tier BPO partners will even be able to completely take over servicing a book of small accounts, ensuring margins are maximized on these policies and reducing the administrative work associated with servicing, maintenance, and renewals on these policies.
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About Patra
Patra is a leading provider of technology-enabled outsourcing services and software solutions to the insurance industry. Patra powers insurance processes by optimizing the application of people and technology, supporting insurance organizations as they sell, deliver, and manage policies and customers through our PatraOne platform. Patra’s global team of over 6,500 process executives in geopolitically stable and democratic countries that protect data allows agencies/brokerages, MGAs, wholesalers, and carriers to capture the Patra Advantage – profitable growth and organizational value.