Billing implications for premium reporting

PolicyCenter handles some policies on a reporting basis. In this case, from the PolicyCenter user interface, you choose a reporting plan instead of an installment payment plan.

If you use BillingCenter, the reporting plan implies a simple payment plan in BillingCenter.

Sending reported premiums to your billing system

For a policy using premium reporting, some or all costs are subject to reporting. During regular policy jobs (submission, issuance, renewal, policy change, cancellation, reinstatement, rewrite), PolicyCenter does not send those charges to the billing system.

In the base configuration integration to BillingCenter, PolicyCenter sends the deposit requirement and costs that are not subject to reporting to BillingCenter. For examples, taxes might not be subject to reporting.

At the end of a premium report in PolicyCenter, PolicyCenter sends the premium transactions to the billing system. If you use BillingCenter, BillingCenter converts the associated web service request from PolicyCenter to a premium report billing instruction.

In addition to sending the charges to the billing system, PolicyCenter sends whether the company already received the payment. Sometimes a PolicyCenter user enters a premium report prior to posting the payment in BillingCenter. If so, BillingCenter does not send the insured an invoice for the amount due if the insurer already knows that the payment was received. Even if the payment was not paid accurately, PolicyCenter wants the billing system to wait until the payment posts. Only after that does BillingCenter determine the difference between the amount owed and the amount received. The base configuration integration to BillingCenter includes information about whether the payment was received. BillingCenter uses this information to create a PremiumReport billing instruction.

However, it is more common for a billing system to receive the premium report payment before the premium report notification from PolicyCenter. Checks and reports are often send together and the insurer usually deposits the check immediately before the report arrives in the audit department for data entry. If so, the billing system assigns the payment to the account as a suspense payment and waits to receive the report.

The BillingCenter part of the integration sets the Premium Report due date as the override PaymentDueDate on the premium report. This ensures that BillingCenter knows to expect the payment by that date rather than waiting for the typical next invoice plus 30 days date.