Reviewing commercial insurance clients annually

Aug 29
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Introduction

A business insured five years ago as a small operation now has three vans, a second site, staff who work from home, and a product it did not previously make. The policy has been renewed each year on substantially the same terms, because nobody asked what had changed.

The client is underinsured in two respects and paying for something they no longer do. Neither of them knows. An annual review is the mechanism that catches this, and it is simultaneously the single largest source of additional business in most commercial books. It requires no acquisition spend and no credibility that has not already been established.

1. Reviewing commercial insurance clients annually finds what has changed

Businesses move faster than policies.

Turnover, headcount, premises, activities, equipment, stock values and how people work all change continuously. A renewal that repeats last year's schedule assumes none of that happened, which is never true.

2. Ask about the business, not about the policy

The question that produces the information.

What has changed in the last year, what is planned, what worries them. Clients cannot tell you what affects their insurance because they do not know what does, and asking about the operation surfaces it. Clients will describe a new activity happily and never connect it to their policy.

3. Check the values properly

The most common form of underinsurance.

Rebuilding costs, stock at current prices, equipment replacement values and business interruption periods. Values set years ago and never revisited are frequently far below what a claim would require, and clients rarely revise them unprompted. Inflation alone moves rebuilding and replacement costs faster than most schedules are updated.

4. Look at how the business now operates

Where new exposures hide.

Homeworking, subcontracting, online trading, deliveries, overseas customers and new equipment. Each can move a business outside its cover in a way that is invisible until something happens.

5. Identify what is not covered at all

The uncomfortable half of the review.

Cyber exposure, business interruption, key person, professional liability. Naming an uninsured exposure lets the client decide, and where they decline it, the record of the conversation protects you both.

6. Treat it as the growth channel it is

Commercially the most efficient activity available.

Additional cover sold to an existing client requires no acquisition cost, no credibility building and no procurement. Most brokerages generate more from reviews than from new business and do not structure themselves around that fact.

7. Prepare before the meeting

Preparation determines whether it is worth their time.

Read the file, note what has changed, check what similar businesses now buy and prepare specific questions. A review that consists of asking whether everything is the same wastes the appointment and confirms that you add nothing.

8. Record it thoroughly

Both an obligation and a protection.

What was discussed, what was recommended, what the client declined and why. Where a claim is later declined for something you raised and they refused, that record is the whole of your position.

9. Do it on a schedule, not at renewal

Separate the conversation from the invoice.

A review a couple of months before renewal is about their business; one at renewal is about price. The first produces additional cover and the second produces negotiation.

Contact the clients you rarely speak to as a priority. The accounts that renew quietly every year with no contact are simultaneously the most likely to be underinsured and the easiest for a competitor to take, because nothing is holding them.

Conclusion

Use the annual review to find what has changed rather than to confirm what has not.

Ask about the business rather than about the policy, check that sums insured reflect current values, look at new ways the business operates, name the exposures that are not covered at all, treat the review as your principal growth channel, prepare properly before the meeting, record what was recommended and declined, hold the conversation separately from the renewal invoice, and prioritise the quiet accounts you never speak to.