Need help from insurance experts on agency accounting

[AgencyAccountant]

Hello,

I am an accountant for a large retail brokerage and I am working on a project to analyze and improve our current revenue recognition practices.

Currently, throughout the year we have been recognizing direct-billed revenue as cash is received from carriers/MGAs. However, we want to bring our procedures fully in line with current accounting guidance by recognizing the full commissionable amount upfront.

The problem is, the policy estimated premium/commission data entered by agency CSRs is either incomplete or inaccurate, making this a seemingly impossible task.

Is there any other workaround to determine the full amount of written premium on in-force policies? Commission statements do not always indicate the full amount, only the paid amount for the statement period.

If there is not a sufficient workaround, why is some data significantly inaccurate? Please excuse my insurance illiteracy, I feel pretty in the dark on the operational side of things. For a direct-billed policy, does the agency not receive some form of documentation detailing the full amount of written premium?

Curious to hear anyone's thoughts and hopefully some workflows they have implemented at their agencies/brokerages.

Thank you!
AA

 

[Tahoe Ray]

Hello,

I am an accountant for a large retail brokerage and I am working on a project to analyze and improve our current revenue recognition practices.

Currently, throughout the year we have been recognizing direct-billed revenue as cash is received from carriers/MGAs. However, we want to bring our procedures fully in line with current accounting guidance by recognizing the full commissionable amount upfront.

The problem is, the policy estimated premium/commission data entered by agency CSRs is either incomplete or inaccurate, making this a seemingly impossible task.

Is there any other workaround to determine the full amount of written premium on in-force policies? Commission statements do not always indicate the full amount, only the paid amount for the statement period.

If there is not a sufficient workaround, why is some data significantly inaccurate? Please excuse my insurance illiteracy, I feel pretty in the dark on the operational side of things. For a direct-billed policy, does the agency not receive some form of documentation detailing the full amount of written premium?

Curious to hear anyone's thoughts and hopefully some workflows they have implemented at their agencies/brokerages.

Thank you!
AA

Solve this and you'll be making 8 figures. Our reporting sucks (professional term).

 

[Markthebroker]

Typically on direct billed p&c policies, we get paid as the insured pays. Furthermore, the insured could cancel for a variety of reasons, as well as the premium can change. For those reasons, the number we focus on is commissions-as-paid.

We have no problems with our producers and CSR's inputting correct premium amounts. If you're CSR's consistently fail at that - you have much bigger problems than the issue at hand.

 

[Kaji]

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