Loss ratio gets the attention. Expense ratio decides it.
This is what we would actually do, in what order, and what it costs.
No discovery call is required to see the number.
What we would go looking for
These are patterns that recur in insurance, written as things to
look for. They are not findings from a named engagement.
Claims leakage — settlements above what the policy required — concentrated in particular claim types or handlers.
Acquisition cost and commission overrides negotiated historically and never revisited against the business each channel now produces.
Underwriting referrals in volumes that suggest authority limits are set wrongly rather than that risks are unusual.
Reconciliation and bordereaux processing absorbing effort disproportionate to the premium involved.
Reserve development patterns that repeat by line and are treated as actuarial rather than operational.
The sequence
Five weeks for one operating unit. More units run in parallel rather than in
series, so a group does not take five times as long.
Week 1
Intake and reconciliation7 requests written for insurance, alongside the 107 covering the operating spine. We tell you which findings the gaps will limit before any fieldwork starts.
Weeks 2–3
Full pass, not a sampleEvery policy in scope is read rather than sampled.
Week 4
Quantification and challengeEach finding sized, and put to whoever owns it before it is written down.
Week 5
Report and walkthroughThe written report, ranked by annual value and by how hard each finding is to act on.
3 core requests written for insurance, inside the full intake.
Anything you do not have can be skipped with a reason — skipping narrows what the
review can conclude, and we tell you where before the work starts rather than after.
Book by line, channel and month — GWP, NWP, policy count.
Loss ratio and reserve development — By line and accident year.
Expense ratio — Acquisition and administration, split out.
If any of this is already happening
The review is always worth doing and rarely urgent. It becomes urgent when
something else is happening — and if one of these is, the sequence above compresses
to fit it.
An acquisition approach — brokerage consolidation is constant, and the buyer's first question is organic growth stripped of contingents
A carrier appointment lost, or a book moved
A producer leaving with accounts, testing what the agreements actually say
A commission reconciliation gap nobody can close
Perpetuation, where an internal buyer needs a defensible valuation
Who needs to be in the room
Signs it: Principal or agency president
Will resist it: Producers whose book economics and service cost become visible — worth telling them what the
review is for before they hear it from somewhere else.
Has been asking for it: The operations lead, who knows which accounts consume the service team
What it costs
Priced by operating unit — an entity, a location, or a business the accounts are
kept separately for. The second unit costs less than the first because by then the
intake is built, the chart of accounts is understood and the patterns are known.
Purchase order is the primary route — most
buyers this size raise a PO and pay against an invoice on terms. Card and bank
transfer exist for those who prefer them.