How insurance brokers keep track of claims

A broker's office keeps track of claims by holding one record per claim that shows where it stands, what is outstanding and who acts next. Update it whenever an insurer email or document arrives, then draft the client update from it. Your team decides what to chase or escalate. This applies to offices that support their clients through claims.

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Who does what on a claim

The insurer (carrier in the US) decides the claim and pays it. The broker's role varies. Some brokers hold claims authority from the insurer and some only pass claims on and support the client. Know which you are, because the duties differ.

In the UK, the FCA's rules and guidance for regulated firms cover both ends. ICOBS 8.3.4 says a firm without claims authority "should forward any claim notification to the insurance undertaking promptly, or inform the policyholder immediately that it cannot deal with the notification." The insurer's own duty is in ICOBS 8.1.1: to give "appropriate information on its progress".

Payment has a legal standard too. Section 13A of the Insurance Act 2015 makes it a term of every contract of insurance that the insurer must pay sums due "within a reasonable time", which "includes a reasonable time to investigate and assess the claim." These are UK rules, and your compliance contact can tell you how they apply to your office.

Insurer portals show their side of a claim. They are one input to your own record, not a replacement for it, because the portal does not know what you promised the client or what you are waiting for from them. Trade press agrees that tools vary. Insurance Times reported in December 2025 that the chief executive of the MGA trade body MGAA called claims tracking tools "hit and miss", and a claims director at Howden said "The issues we have from clients is when they haven't heard anything."

What a claim record should hold

Claims information can live in several places: the client's first email, the insurer's acknowledgement, a loss adjuster's request, a photo sent by text, a note from a phone call. The record pulls the essentials into one place.

• Client, policy and claim reference, and the insurer's handler if there is one.
• Date of loss, date reported, and a short description of what happened.
• Current status in the insurer's words, with the date it was last confirmed.
• Requests outstanding: what was asked for, who must supply it, and the date it is due.
• Amounts mentioned so far, labelled as estimate, reserve or payment.
• The next action, who owns it, and when it falls due.
• Links to the emails and documents behind each entry.

The test of a good record is simple. A colleague who has never seen the claim should be able to read it and tell the client where things stand.

Turning the inbox into a list of outstanding requests

Much of what moves a claim forward arrives by email. The insurer asks for a repair estimate. The adjuster asks for proof of ownership. The client replies with half of what was needed. Each message may contain one request, or four.

When that stays in the inbox, outstanding items depend on someone's memory and a search box. A better habit is to read each message and ask three questions: does it change the status, does it ask for something, does it answer something earlier? Then record the answers on the claim.

The list of outstanding requests across all claims is one of the most useful views an office can have. Sort it by due date, and it tells you every morning which claims need a nudge today.

A made-up example: an insurer asks for a second quote for repairs on Tuesday. The client sends one quote on Thursday, and mentions the other is coming. The record should now show the request as partly met, the item still outstanding, and the next reminder date.

Writing client updates from the record

Clients with open claims want to know three things: what has happened, what is happening now, and what they need to do. A record that holds those facts makes the update quick to write.

Write in short sentences and say what the insurer has actually said. If the insurer has not replied, say so, and say when you will chase. Do not guess at outcomes or timings that the insurer has not given you.

Draft updates from the record instead of from memory, and read them before they go. A client who gets a clear update every time something changes is less likely to phone for news, and more likely to trust that someone is watching the claim.

Record what the client says as well as what the insurer says. If the client reports a new loss detail on the phone, note it on the claim with the date, and send it to the insurer in writing so both records agree.

Close the record only when the insurer confirms the claim is settled or declined, and your client has been told. Keep it afterwards, because the history can matter at the next renewal.

When to chase and when to escalate

Chasing is routine: a reminder to the insurer or the client about an item that is due. Escalating means involving someone more senior, at the insurer or in your own office, because something is not moving or is going wrong.

Set a rule for each and write it down. For example, chase after a set number of working days without a reply, and escalate when a second chase has gone unanswered or when the client is at risk of real hardship. The exact numbers are for your team to choose.

These calls are judgement. Whether to push, to wait, or to raise a concern with the insurer depends on the client, the insurer and the size of the loss. A system can show which claims have gone quiet. A person decides what to do about it.

Claims depend on a correct policy underneath them, so see insurance policy checking for how to catch errors before a claim exposes them. Once claims settle, commission and payments flow back through statements, which is the subject of commission reconciliation. The wider view is in AI for insurance brokers.

Can AI do this?

Yes, for the record keeping. A system can read insurer emails and documents, update the claim record, list outstanding requests and draft the client update. Your team decides what to chase, what to escalate and what to tell the client.

Where Navicade fits

Navicade builds and runs AI systems that do this work. For offices supporting claims, emails and documents become a claim record, a list of outstanding requests and a draft client update. Results arrive in your existing tools. Insurance decisions stay with your team. The system checks its work on every run and alerts us.

See the row on keeping track of claims, or ask for the free operations map in our contact section. It starts with a free 30-minute call, and we take on one agreed task at a time.