The Year-End Reconciliation Checklist Every Agency Needs

Before December 15

• Pull a year-to-date premium register from each carrier you write more than $50k of business with. Spot-check against the AMS.
• Send invoices for any past-due agency-billed premium. Do this before the holiday lull, not after.
• Reconcile the trust account through November. Anything you can clear now is one less December problem.

Between December 15 and 31

• Lock down the producer book of business attribution. Anyone moving between books on January 1 should already have a transition agreement. Verbal hand-offs on the 31st cause February disputes.
• Process any pending mid-term endorsements that affect this year's earned premium.
• Review aged receivables. Anything over 90 days that you know won't pay should be written off in the current year — not carried into next year as phantom receivable.

Between January 1 and 15

• Reconcile the December carrier statements as they arrive. December is the highest-volume statement month at most carriers; expect 2-3 days of dedicated effort.
• Calculate producer year-end overrides. If your compensation plan has annual thresholds, this is when true-ups happen.
• Generate 1099s for any independent producers paid over $600.

Between January 15 and 31

• Run the year-over-year retention report by carrier and by line of business. Flag anything that dropped more than 3 percentage points; that's a renewal-process problem, not a market problem.
• Schedule the annual E&O coverage review — premium changes lag, so confirm your policy still matches the size and shape of the agency.

What to skip

Things that consume time but rarely produce signal: full policy-level audits of every account; renegotiating contingency plans before the carrier publishes their scorecard; re-keying historical commission data because you have new software.