Loss runs

A loss run is the insurance industry's version of a credit report. It is a report generated by the carrier that wrote a policy, listing every claim reported under that policy, what the carrier has paid on each one, what it still expects to pay, and whether the claim is open or closed. One report covers one policy with one carrier, so a full picture usually means several reports.

Underwriters ask for these reports whenever a business shops coverage or comes up for renewal, because past claims are the strongest signal they have about future ones. The standard ask is five years, or the complete history if the business is younger than that. A clean run supports a better rate, and a rough one shapes the questions the underwriter asks next.

The report is a table, one row per claim, under a header that identifies the policy. The header carries the named insured, the policy number and period, and the line of coverage. The rows carry the claim-level detail underwriters care about, and every claim the carrier set up appears, including claims that closed without payment. The record starts the day you file a business insurance claim, not the day it settles.

Two numbers matter most. The paid amount is what the carrier has spent on a claim so far. The reserve is what it has set aside for expected future payments on an open claim. Paid plus reserve is the incurred total, and incurred totals drive how an underwriter prices the account.

Start with your broker. The broker of record can pull loss runs from every carrier they placed coverage with, and most handle the chase as part of the renewal file. If you left a broker or a carrier along the way, send a written loss run request directly to each prior carrier with the named insured, policy numbers, policy periods, and the years you need.

Carriers commonly respond within days, and several states put a deadline in writing. South Carolina requires a loss run statement within ten business days of a written request, per a Department of Insurance bulletin. New York gives commercial lines insurers ten days under guidance from its Department of Financial Services, and Florida allows fifteen calendar days and five years of history. Rules vary by state and by line, and a written follow-up citing your state's deadline usually shakes a slow report loose.

Underwriters read the report on two axes. Frequency is how often claims happen, and severity is how large they are. A shop with six small claims in three years worries an underwriter more than one large storm loss, because frequency suggests a pattern that will repeat while a single severe loss can be bad luck. Open reserves get the hardest look, since an open claim can still grow.

The other lens is the loss ratio, incurred losses divided by premium. An account that consistently costs more in claims than it pays in premium sees that reflected in renewal terms. Brokers read the runs early for the same reason. A surprise two weeks before renewal limits the options a broker can present, and unmanaged surprises are how renewal disputes drift toward broker errors and omissions territory.

Large losses deserve a narrative. If a single claim dominates the run, a short written explanation of what happened and what changed since carries real weight, because a documented fix reads as a closed chapter rather than a live risk. Without the narrative, the number speaks for itself, and underwriters price the silence.

The standard submission asks for five years of currently valued loss runs, meaning the valuation date on each report typically falls within 30 to 90 days of the submission. That freshness requirement creates the renewal crunch. Runs pulled in January are stale by an April renewal, so the same request often has to go out twice in one placement.

Five years usually spans more than one carrier and sometimes more than one broker, so the account manager ends up chasing documents from companies the business no longer works with, on a clock. The businesses that handle this calmly keep an organized insurance file, with policies, endorsements, and carrier contacts for every year in one place. That is a records problem, and insurance document automation exists to remove it.

Clean runs are also leverage. A business that walks into renewal with fresh runs, a tight policy file, and a short narrative for any large claim negotiates from a stronger position. That preparation is half the playbook in how to reduce commercial insurance premiums.