Working with charge breakdowns

PolicyCenter supports integration with billing systems that require charges to be itemized as multiple lines on an invoice. PolicyCenter supports defining categories that specify how the charges are broken down. In the base configuration, the personal auto line demonstrates the use of these categories.

Each line item is categorized by the rate amount type, such as standard premium, non-standard premium, or taxes and fees. The rate amount types are known as breakdown criteria. Line items can be categorized further by the coverage or coverable. A charge can appear in multiple categories. For example, a premium charge for a vehicle on a personal auto policy can be in a category for an individual vehicle and a collision damage category. If the policy includes charges that do not match any of the categories, those charges are aggregated into a remainder line item.

For a policy product that includes multiple lines of business, such as the commercial package policy, if any line in the product is itemized, charge breakdowns are applied to all lines in the product.

To enable charge breakdowns, you must set the EnableChargeBreakdowns configuration parameter to true.

Translation of names for criteria and categories

If PolicyCenter supports multiple languages, it sends the translations for the rate amount type criteria and the category names to the billing system. Because the names for rate amount types are static, PolicyCenter sends the translations for the names of criteria after determining all possible values from the available charge breakdown category lookup classes and before sending itemized charges. Category names are generated dynamically in the process of making the charge breakdowns, so PolicyCenter sends the translations for those names, if they are available, at the same time as the line items.