The Annual Dealer Reinsurance Review

Documents to have in hand

• The most recent annual and interim statements.
• The current, itemized fee schedule.
• Claims and loss experience for the year.
• Reserve development detail (earned and unearned).
• Investment performance, where reserves are invested.
• Last year’s review notes and decisions.

People to involve

• The administrator or your point of contact.
• Your CPA or controller for the financial and reserve review.
• Your own tax or legal advisor for anything touching compliance or structure.
• The finance-office leaders responsible for product performance.

Financial review

Start with the year in whole. Read the program’s financial statements the way you read your store’s: what came in as premium, what went out as claims and fees, what earned into income, and what the net position is now. The question is simple and worth asking every year: is this program building value the way it is supposed to?

Model the economics on your own numbers.

Claims review

Claims are the largest cost, so a year of claims tells you more than any projection. Look at the loss experience, how it trended, whether any product line ran hotter than expected, and how disputes were handled. The goal is to understand the pattern, not to react to a single month.

Reserve review

Review how reserves developed over the year: what is earned, what remains unearned, and whether the reserve is keeping pace with the book. Reserves are the buffer between a good year and a bad one, so understanding how they moved is central to reading the program’s health.

How reserves earn and are held.

Reporting review

Step back and assess the reporting itself. Over the past year, did statements arrive on schedule, show a clear net position, and let you understand performance without a translator? If you struggled to read your own program, that is a finding worth raising.

What strong reporting shows.

Fee review

Re-examine every fee against what it delivered. Fees are easy to forget once a program is running, and they quietly decide how much underwriting profit reaches you. Confirm the schedule has not changed unexpectedly and that each fee still maps to real value.

How fees affect net premium.

Investment review

Where reserves are invested, review how those assets performed and whether the approach still matches your tolerance for risk and need for liquidity. Investment return on reserve capital is a real part of the program’s result, and it deserves a deliberate look each year.

Reserves and investments.

Product review

Revisit the product mix. Which lines drove premium, which drove claims, and does the current mix still fit your store and your goals? Product decisions made a year ago may deserve adjustment in light of a year of real experience.

How product selection affects results.

Compliance review

Confirm the program stayed inside the lines: filings made, elections maintained, and any regulatory or state changes accounted for. This is a coordination point with your own tax and legal advisors, not a substitute for them.

Technology review

Assess how well you could access data over the year. Did the portal or reporting feed give you and your advisors what you needed, when you needed it? Access gaps that seemed minor month to month can add up to a year of guessing.

Communication review

Review the relationship itself. Was the administrator responsive and proactive, or did you only hear from them when something went wrong? A year is enough evidence to judge whether communication met the standard you expected.

Training review

Consider whether your team stayed fluent in the products and procedures over the year, and whether the support you received kept pace with turnover and new hires. A program performs only as well as the people running the products understand them.

Strategic planning

Close the review by looking forward. Given a full year of real data, what should next year look like? Consider growth, added rooftops, changes to product mix, distribution decisions, and where the program sits relative to succession and long-term goals.

Reinsurance, wealth, and succession.

How often should a dealer review a reinsurance program?

At minimum once a year, with a structured review that covers financials, claims, reserves, reporting, fees, investments, products, compliance, technology, communication, training, and strategic planning. Many dealers add lighter interim check-ins so nothing waits twelve months to surface. The annual review is where a year of real data replaces assumptions with evidence.

What should an annual reinsurance review include?

A repeatable annual review works through twelve areas: a financial review of the year, a claims review, a reserve review, a reporting review, a fee review, an investment review, a product review, a compliance review, a technology review, a communication review, a training review, and forward-looking strategic planning. Gathering the statements and prior-year notes first makes each area faster and more honest.

Who should be involved in an annual reinsurance review?

The dealer, the administrator or point of contact, and the dealer’s own CPA or controller for the financial and reserve portions. For anything touching compliance, tax, or structure, involve your own tax or legal advisor. Finance-office leaders responsible for product performance are useful for the product and training portions. The review is stronger with independent eyes than with the administrator alone.

What should a dealer do if the annual review surfaces problems?

Treat findings as a list to raise, not a reason to react abruptly. Bring specific questions to the administrator, document the answers, and give reasonable issues a defined timeline to improve. Persistent problems with transparency, reporting, or claims can justify a closer look at alternatives, but a change of administrator has its own mechanics for reserves and open contracts that should be planned, not rushed. Nothing here is tax, legal, or accounting advice.