Credit Insurance Claims

Some consider trade credit insurance a nuisance—they purchased it because their lender required it—while for other policyholders, accounts receivable insurance is a must-have.

Regardless of why you have a credit insurance policy, your ability to get your claims paid is of fundamental importance.

Any insurance policy is a promise to pay claims based on the rules of the contract being followed. Insurance companies are not in the business to pay claims out of altruistic motives—they pay them because they must, as they are bound by the contract.

Which brings us to the matter of claims. The rules of a trade credit insurance policy vary by insurance company and by policy type.

For example, many insurers require you to report overdue receivables on a monthly or quarterly basis, while others have no past-due reportingrequirements. When an account must be reported as past due also varies. Even for insurers that require past-due reporting, the amount and number of days past due is negotiable, depending on your unique needs.

Fundamentally, the fewer rules that one must follow is a good thing for all credit insurance policyholders. For a specialty broker, this is a guiding premise—to maximize your ability to file claims, and to minimize the number of hoops through which you must jump to get your money in the event of a loss. Furthermore, a specialty broker is ethically bound to this standard.

For agents of insurance companies, they are beholden to the insurer and responsible for the insurer’s bottom line, not yours.