Loss Runs Insurance — A Complete Guide for P&C Agencies

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 covers everything agencies need to know about loss runs: what they are, why they matter, how to request them, and why managing them at scale is one of the most overlooked operational challenges in the independent agency channel.

What are loss runs in insurance?

A loss run (also called a loss history report or claims experience report) is a document produced by an insurance carrier that summarizes the claims history for a specific policy or insured. It lists every claim filed during a given period — typically five years — along with key details like dates, amounts paid, reserves held, and claim status.

Loss runs are the primary source of truth for underwriting decisions. When an underwriter evaluates a risk — whether for a new policy, a renewal, or a re-marketing exercise — the loss run tells them what has happened in the past and, by extension, what is likely to happen in the future.

Why carriers produce loss runs

Carriers produce loss runs as part of their standard reporting obligations. When an agent or broker requests a loss run, the carrier’s claims department (or automated system) generates a report from their claims management system. This report reflects the carrier’s official record of all claims activity for the policy.

Key reasons loss runs exist:

• Underwriting evaluation — Underwriters use loss runs to assess risk quality, frequency, and severity patterns
• Renewal decisioning — Carriers review their own loss runs when deciding whether to renew a policy and at what rate
• Agent re-marketing — When an agent shops a risk to new carriers, loss runs from the current carrier are required
• Audit and compliance — Loss runs serve as the official claims record for regulatory and audit purposes

Who requests loss runs?

Almost everyone in the insurance chain touches loss runs at some point:

• Agency CSRs and account managers — Request loss runs from carriers as part of the renewal cycle or when re-marketing an account
• Brokers — Request loss runs when placing business in specialty or surplus lines markets
• Underwriters — Review loss runs as part of their risk evaluation process
• Insureds — Occasionally request their own loss runs for internal risk management or when changing agents
• Third parties — Lenders, landlords, or contractual counterparties sometimes require loss run documentation

What a typical loss run contains

Loss runs vary significantly by carrier — every carrier formats their reports differently, uses different column headers, and includes different levels of detail. However, most loss runs include two categories of information:

Policy-level fields

• Named insured
• Policy number
• Policy period (effective and expiration dates)
• Carrier name
• Line of business (GL, commercial auto, workers’ comp, etc.)
• Total incurred, total paid, and total reserves

Claim-level fields

• Claim number
• Date of loss
• Date reported
• Claimant name (for liability claims)
• Claim type or cause of loss
• Paid amount (indemnity and expense)
• Reserve amount
• Claim status (open or closed)
• Description of loss

The lack of standardization across carriers is one of the biggest pain points for agencies. A Hartford loss run looks nothing like a Travelers loss run, which looks nothing like a CNA loss run. This means every loss run requires manual interpretation.

How long it takes to get a loss run

Turnaround times vary by carrier:

• Self-service portals — Some carriers (like Travelers, Hartford, and Liberty Mutual) offer loss run downloads through their agent portal. Turnaround: immediate to same-day.
• Email or phone requests — Many carriers require a written or verbal request to their claims service center. Turnaround: 3-10 business days, sometimes longer.
• ACORD forms — Some carriers accept loss run requests via the ACORD 35 form (Loss Run Request). This standardizes the request but not the turnaround.

Common causes of delay:

• Request sent to the wrong department or contact
• Missing information (wrong policy number, missing named insured)
• Carrier backlog during busy renewal seasons
• Multi-state or multi-line policies requiring separate reports

Loss run vs. claims history — the difference

These terms are often used interchangeably, but they’re technically different:

• Loss run — A carrier-produced report showing the official claims record for a specific policy. It reflects what the carrier has on file.
• Claims history — A broader term that can include loss runs plus supplemental information: agent notes, supporting documentation, or aggregated data from multiple carriers.

For underwriting purposes, carriers almost always want the official loss run — not an agent’s summary or a spreadsheet compilation.

How underwriters use loss runs

Loss runs are arguably the most important input to the underwriting process. Here’s what underwriters look for:

• Frequency — How many claims has the insured filed? A high claim count (even if amounts are low) signals operational or risk management issues.
• Severity — What are the individual and total dollar amounts? Large losses or high reserves indicate potential for future exposure.
• Loss ratio — Total losses compared to total premium. A loss ratio above 60-70% is a red flag for most lines.
• Trends — Are losses increasing, decreasing, or stable? Trends matter more than snapshots.
• Open claims — Active reserves on open claims represent uncertain future costs. Large open reserves can kill a submission.
• IBNR (incurred but not reported) — For lines with long reporting tails (like workers’ comp or professional liability), underwriters estimate additional losses beyond what’s on the loss run.

Common problems agencies face with loss runs

This is where the daily reality gets painful:

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 any carrier loss run PDF, get clean structured data back in under a minute. No manual entry, no format-specific setup, no errors.

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