How brokers run the insurance renewal process 30 days ahead

A brokerage that wants renewal terms in front of every client 30 days before the renewal date has to start the run a month or more before that. Count back from the date: terms with the client at 30 days, the market approached before that, and the client's updated details asked for before that. An AI worker can run the list, prepare the requests and do the chasing. The terms, the advice and the client call stay with the account handler.

Is 30 days an FCA rule?

No FCA rule gives a number of days. For a consumer, the rules say the renewal information must arrive "in good time before the renewal", and they set what it must show. For a commercial client, the Insurance Act 2015 puts a duty on the insured to make a fair presentation of the risk before the contract is entered into, so the insurer needs the client's answers before it can offer terms worth having. Thirty days is a service standard a brokerage chooses for itself, and it holds only when it is written down as a set of dates.

The renewal run, step by step

1. Pull the list by renewal month. From the broking system, every policy renewing in the month, with its handler, insurer and last year's premium. If terms are due with the client at 30 days, the list has to be pulled a month or more earlier, because a client's answers and a holding insurer's reply each take time.

2. Ask the client what has changed. Send last year's details and ask for corrections: turnover, wages, staff numbers, vehicles, premises, activities, claims and incidents. A client corrects a list faster than they fill in a blank form.

3. Ask the holding insurer for the claims experience. Request it the day the client's request goes out, because it takes time and does not depend on the client's answers. The renewal terms do, so they are asked for once the handler has those answers.

4. Chase on fixed days. A renewal that is waiting on a client at 45 days is a reminder. At 35 days it is a phone call from the handler.

5. Lay the answers beside last year. One page for the handler: what the client says has changed, set against the current schedule. This is where the handler spots a new activity or a vehicle never declared.

6. Go to market where the handler decides to. The handler chooses whether to accept the holding insurer's terms or approach others. The presentation is assembled from the client's answers and the file, and each insurer's terms are set side by side.

7. Send the renewal to the client. It carries the handler's recommendation, the demands and needs statement and the terms. For a consumer policy of ten months or more, the notice must show the new premium, last year's premium for comparison, a statement that the client can compare other providers and whether the policy renews automatically or the client must act, with a set shop-around message from the fourth renewal.

8. Take the instruction and finish. Place the cover, check and send the documents, raise the invoice and set next year's date.

What can an AI worker do in the run?

Much of the run is lists, requests and chasing, which an AI worker can take on, answering to the handler. It can pull the list at the lead time you set and prepare each client's request, with last year's schedule filled in from the record, for the handler to check and release. It can ask the holding insurer for the claims experience, send reminders in wording approved in advance and tell the handler each morning which renewals are behind their dates. It can lay the client's answers beside last year's schedule and mark every difference without judging it. That is the renewals and expiry tracking role.

At step six it can assemble the presentation for the handler to check before it goes to any insurer, and build the comparison of terms, quoting each insurer in its own words, and at step seven it can draft the renewal letter in your template for the handler to check, as described under quote and proposal preparation.

What waits for the handler, and why

• Advice and the recommendation. Whether a policy meets the client's demands and needs is for your authorised staff. The agent can fill in the facts of the statement. The handler writes the reasons.

• Anything that carries one client's details, premium or terms. The pre-filled request, the presentation, the renewal notice and the quote wait for the handler's approval, every time. Reminders to reply are the only client messages that go in pre-approved wording.

• Whether the presentation is fair. The duty is the client's, and the handler is the one who knows when an answer looks wrong or thin.

• Any question about cover, placing or binding cover, and every phone call.

What to have ready before you start

Write your dates down: when the list is pulled, when the requests go, when it becomes the handler's call and when terms are due with the client. Approve the wording of the request and reminders for each class of business once. Give every policy record a renewal date and a handler. And take a baseline from your broking system: of last quarter's renewals, how many had terms with the client 30 days out.

The case for an AI worker instead of a new handler is in how to scale an insurance brokerage without hiring more staff. The insurance brokers page covers the rest of a brokerage's admin an AI worker can take on, from mid-term adjustments and certificates to claims updates and premium chasing.

The AI worker would keep a brokerage's renewal list, prepare each request for the handler to release and chase the replies, so that your handlers start every renewal with the answers in hand. Talk to our agent about next month's renewal list.