Renewals and expiry tracking
Policies, certificates, cards and licences all carry a date, and few of them announce themselves. The date sits in a diary or a spreadsheet until somebody looks. This role keeps one register of every dated item, opens each renewal with time in hand and chases the people it depends on, so your team hears about a date before it passes.
The role in brief
Keeps one register of every dated item, opens each renewal at the lead time you set, chases what it needs and files the new document.
Whatever system or spreadsheet holds the dates, with your mailbox and files.
Whoever owns the item, such as an account handler, a property manager or a contracts manager. Costs, exceptions, refusals and anything already expired go to them.
Renewals started on time, items past their date, and days from request to document.
Who watches the dates today
Usually it is nobody's only job. An account handler works a renewal list in the broking system, a property manager keeps certificate dates in a diary, an office manager has a spreadsheet of cards and insurances. Each looks when there is time. The dates that slip are the ones that fell due in a busy week, and they surface when someone outside the business asks for the document.
A lapse with a penalty attached
Some dates carry a legal duty. In Great Britain most employers must hold employers' liability insurance and can be fined £2,500 a day without it. A landlord must have each gas appliance and flue checked yearly and give existing tenants the record within 28 days. The duty is theirs whether or not anyone reminded them.
Renewal work that starts too late
A renewal is rarely one task. An insurance renewal needs updated details from the client and terms from insurers. A gas certificate needs an engineer booked and a tenant at home. When it starts in the final week, there is no time left to compare, question or look elsewhere.
Dates kept in several places
One list lives in the main system, another in a spreadsheet, a third in somebody's calendar. When that person is away, or leaves, the dates go with them. Nobody can say on a given morning what falls due this month and what is already overdue.
How each renewal runs, from date to document
The agent keeps the register, opens each renewal and does the chasing. Your people approve costs, handle exceptions and make every decision. Each item's owner and lead time are set with you when the register is first built.
Register
Builds one register from your systems and files, holding each item, its expiry date, its owner and the lead time you set. Lists every item it finds with no date.
The lead times, and what to do about items already expired.
Opening
At the lead time, opens the renewal, sends the request to the client, contractor or cardholder in wording you approved, and lists what is needed to complete it.
Any cost above your limit. In an FCA-regulated firm, any client message not in wording approved in advance.
Chasing
Reminds whoever has not answered, by email, at the intervals you choose, and tells the owner who is holding things up as the date comes closer.
Phone calls, refused access, and any reply that disputes a fact or asks for an exception.
Filing
Checks the new document's dates and details against the register, files it where your team looks, updates the record and sets the next date.
Anything that does not match, and what happens to an item that has lapsed.
Renewals started on time
The share of items where the first request went out at or before the lead time you set. Reviewed with you each month.
Items past their date
How many items on the register are beyond expiry on a given day, who owns each one and what it is waiting on.
Days from request to document
Counted for each renewal, from the first request going out to the new document being on file.
Insurance brokers
Each policy's renewal date: the request for updated details sent in approved wording and chased, the answers set beside last year's schedule for the handler.
Letting agents and property managers
In England, the yearly gas safety check, the five-yearly electrical report and the ten-year EPC on every property, each requested ahead and filed.
Construction contractors and trades
CSCS cards, most valid for five years, and each subcontractor's insurance certificate, chased before the operative or the firm is next on site.
Questions owners ask
Which kinds of date can it track?
Anything with an expiry date and a document that proves renewal, such as policies, safety certificates, accreditations, cards, licences and contracts. It can check that the new document carries the right name and dates. Whether the renewed policy or certificate is adequate is a person's judgement, and stays with the item's owner.
Does it renew policies or certificates by itself?
No. It opens the work early and chases it to a finish. Accepting terms, choosing a supplier, spending money and deciding what to do about a lapse all wait for a person. You can set a cost limit below which a routine booking needs no separate approval.
Our dates are in a spreadsheet and three inboxes. Is that a problem?
That is the usual starting point. The first step is to build one register from what you have, and to list the items with no date or no owner for you to settle. Where the dates should live afterwards is agreed with you when the role is scoped.
What happens when someone does not reply?
It reminds them by email at the intervals you choose, and tells the item's owner before the date, with what is still missing. It does not telephone anyone. A call to a tenant who will not give access, or to a client who has gone quiet, is a person's job.