What Are Loss Runs in Insurance? Agency Guide

If you work in P&C insurance, you’ve handled loss runs. Whether you’re a CSR pulling reports for a renewal, an account manager building a submission package, or an agency owner trying to understand why your team spends so much time on data entry — loss runs are at the center of the workflow.

This guide answers what loss runs are in insurance, what the term means, why insurance companies ask for them, and where they show up in an agency’s year. For the document itself, field by field, see our guide to the loss run report.

What are loss runs in insurance?

Loss runs are an insurance carrier’s record of every claim filed on a policy over a set period, typically five years, with the date, amount paid, reserve held, and status of each claim. Insurers and underwriters use them to judge how a risk has behaved before they agree to cover it, or to renew it.

What “loss runs” means, and the other names for it

The term comes from the carrier’s claims system: you “run” a report of the “losses” on a policy. You’ll see it singular (“a loss run”) and plural (“the loss runs”), and both mean the same document. Other names include loss history report, claims experience report, and loss run statement. Whatever the name, it means the carrier’s official record, not an agent’s summary.

Why insurance companies ask for loss runs

Past claims are the best evidence an insurer has about future ones. An underwriter quoting a new account wants to see how often it has had claims, how large they were, and whether any are still open. A carrier deciding on a renewal checks its own loss runs for the same reasons. That’s why loss runs are a standard part of almost every commercial submission. How underwriters actually read them is covered in our loss run report guide.

What’s on one: the short version

Policy details at the top, then one row per claim: claim number, date of loss, status, and paid, reserved and incurred amounts. Every carrier lays it out differently. Our annotated loss run report example walks through a real layout.

Where loss runs show up in an agency’s year

• Renewals — the current carrier’s loss runs go into the renewal submission, usually five years’ worth and currently valued.
• Re-marketing — shopping an account means sending loss runs from the current carrier to every market you approach.
• New business — a prospect’s prior-carrier loss runs are the first thing an underwriter asks for.
• Changing agents — the new agency can’t request loss runs until it’s agent of record, so the insured often requests their own.
• Stewardship reviews — large accounts get an annual look at their claims, and the loss run is the source.

When a carrier won’t send loss runs

Carriers release loss runs to the agent of record or the named insured. If a request goes unanswered or is refused:

• Check you’re the agent of record. If the account just moved, the broker of record change has to clear first.
• Ask the insured to request them directly. The named insured can always get their own loss runs.
• Use the carrier’s published route. Many carriers route loss runs through an agent portal or a specific inbox rather than your underwriter. Our carrier directory lists each one.
• Follow up by phone after five business days and escalate to your underwriter or marketing rep if it stalls.

The full request process is in our guide to how to get loss runs.

Ordering loss runs for a renewal

Request loss runs 60 to 90 days before the renewal date, not 30. Self-service portals, where a carrier offers one, can return loss runs immediately or the same day. Email or phone requests to a carrier’s claims service center typically take 3-10 business days, sometimes longer. Most markets want loss runs currently valued, often within 90 days of the submission, so a loss run pulled months ago for a different submission usually has to be ordered again.

Why loss runs eat agency time

Format inconsistency

Every carrier formats their loss runs differently. Different column headers, different layouts, different levels of detail, different fonts, different page orientations. There is no universal standard.

Manual data entry

When an agent receives a loss run PDF and needs the data in their AMS, spreadsheet, or submission package — they re-key it by hand. Field by field. Claim by claim. For every renewal, every re-marketing exercise, every new business submission.

Error propagation

Manual re-keying means manual errors. A misread dollar amount, a transposed date, a skipped claim row. These errors cascade through the workflow: from the loss run to the spreadsheet to the AMS to the submission to the underwriter’s desk.

Volume at renewal time

The problem scales with account volume. An agency with 200 commercial accounts renewing quarterly processes hundreds of loss runs per year — each one a manual extraction exercise.

The rise of loss run automation

Agencies have started looking for tools that can automate the loss run extraction process — reading the carrier PDF and converting it into structured, usable data without manual re-keying.

This is exactly what LossRunGuru is built to do. Upload the carrier’s loss run PDF and get clean structured data back by email, usually within minutes. No manual entry, no format-specific setup.

Glossary

• Loss ratio — Total losses divided by total premium, expressed as a percentage
• Incurred losses — Total amount paid plus outstanding reserves on all claims
• IBNR — Incurred But Not Reported; an actuarial estimate of losses that have occurred but haven’t yet been reported as claims
• Open claim — A claim that has not been fully resolved; reserves are still held
• Closed claim — A claim that has been fully resolved and settled
• Reserve — The estimated amount a carrier sets aside for a claim’s expected future costs
• Named insured — The entity or person listed as the insured on the policy