A bordereau in insurance is a detailed report exchanged between insurance partners, insurers, reinsurers, and MGAs, that documents the policies written, premiums collected, or claims paid during a specific period. It’s the primary way capacity providers stay informed about business being conducted on their behalf, and it remains one of the most important (and most misunderstood) data-sharing tools in the industry.
If you work in reinsurance or delegated authority, you’ve dealt with bordereaux. But the term still trips people up, and the reporting process itself causes real headaches across the industry. Here’s a clear breakdown of what a bordereau is, the different types, how bordereau reporting works, and why getting the process right matters more than ever in 2026 — especially for teams still managing it without dedicated claims management software.
What Is a Bordereau in Insurance?
A bordereau is a detailed report that documents insurance transactions between two parties. It gives the receiving party a structured view of the policies written, premiums collected, or claims paid during a specific period.
The term comes from the Old French word “bort,” meaning border or margin. It originally referred to notes written in the margins of a ledger. Today it refers to a formal reporting document exchanged between insurance partners, and it remains one of the most important data-sharing tools in the industry.
Bordereau vs. Bordereaux: What Is the Difference?
Bordereau reporting shows up in two main contexts.
The first is reinsurance. When a primary insurer transfers a portion of its risk to a reinsurer, it needs to keep that reinsurer informed about what’s been written and what’s been paid out. The bordereau is how that information gets communicated. The ceding company prepares it, and the reinsurer uses it to track exposure and manage reserves.
The second context is delegated authority, and this is where bordereau reporting has become most prevalent today. In a delegated authority arrangement, an insurer grants a Managing General Agent (MGA) or coverholder the authority to write policies and handle claims on its behalf. The MGA then reports back to the insurer through regular bordereaux. According to Lloyd’s of London, delegated authority business now accounts for over 40% of Lloyd’s total premium volume, which gives you a sense of the scale involved. Firms operating under this model typically rely on a dedicated claims management system to keep that reporting accurate and on schedule, particularly independent adjuster firms and TPAs handling delegated claims volume for multiple carriers.
In both cases, the bordereau serves the same fundamental purpose: giving the capacity provider a transparent view of the business being conducted in its name.
Who Prepares and Uses a Bordereau?
Bordereau reporting involves a handful of recurring roles, and it helps to know who’s on each side of the exchange:
- The preparer — typically the ceding insurer (in reinsurance) or the MGA/coverholder (in delegated authority). This is the party actually writing policies or handling claims day-to-day.
- The recipient — the reinsurer or the capacity-providing insurer. This party uses the bordereau to monitor exposure, validate premium due, and check reserve adequacy.
- Compliance and audit teams — on both sides, reviewing bordereaux against the underlying policy or claims files to confirm the data reconciles.
- Actuarial and finance teams — who use bordereau data to calculate loss ratios, set reserves, and forecast results.
Carriers, self-insured programs, captives, and government risk pools all sit on the “recipient” side of this relationship in different ways, which is why bordereau accuracy is a shared problem across nearly every corner of the industry, not just Lloyd’s syndicates.
Premium Bordereau vs. Claims Bordereau
There are two primary types of bordereau, and they serve different purposes.
| Bordereau Type | What It Covers | Key Data Fields | Who Relies On It Most |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium bordereau | Policies written and premium collected | Policy numbers, insured names, gross written premium, commission, taxes, net premium due | Finance, underwriting, ceding insurers |
| Claims bordereau | Losses reported and paid | Claim numbers, date of loss, amounts paid, outstanding reserves, claim status | Claims and reserving teams, reinsurers |
| Risk bordereau | The specific risks underwritten | Risk location, occupancy/class, sums insured, policy limits | Underwriters, property/CAT risk teams |
A premium bordereau covers the financial side of the relationship. It lists the policies written during the reporting period, along with the associated premiums, commission amounts, taxes, and net figures due to the insurer. Some agreements distinguish between a “written” bordereau (policies bound, regardless of payment) and a “paid” bordereau (cash actually received). Both matter, but they tell different stories about the health of a portfolio.
A claims bordereau covers losses. It details every claim reported during the period, including the date of loss, amounts paid, outstanding reserves, and current claim status. Insurers rely on this report to calculate loss ratios, monitor their delegated claims administrators, and make sure reserves are adequate. Without accurate claims bordereaux, an insurer has no real visibility into how the business is performing.
Some agreements also include a risk bordereau, which describes the specific risks underwritten rather than the financial transactions. This is particularly common in property portfolios, where an insurer needs to understand geographic exposure and verify the MGA isn’t writing risks outside the agreed scope.
What Data Goes Into a Bordereau?
The exact fields vary by agreement and class of business, but a standard bordereau typically includes:
For premium reporting: policy numbers, insured names, inception and expiry dates, gross written premium, commission, taxes, and net premium due.
For claims reporting: claim numbers, associated policy numbers, date of loss, date reported, cause of loss, amounts paid, reserve amounts, and claim status.
The Lloyd’s Coverholder Reporting Standards set out a widely used framework for what these reports should contain, particularly for business written in the Lloyd’s market. If you’re setting up a bordereau process from scratch, that’s a solid reference point.
Why Manual Bordereau Reporting Creates Problems for Insurers
Most bordereaux are still exchanged as spreadsheets. Each MGA sends their own version, in their own format, on their own schedule. The insurer then has to manually clean the data, reformat it, validate it, and load it into their systems before they can do anything useful with it.
This creates several concrete problems:
- Data arrives late, which means the insurer is always looking at last month’s picture rather than what’s happening now.
- Errors don’t get caught until someone manually reviews the file, and by then the mistake may have already affected reserving or compliance reporting.
- When data doesn’t match, both sides spend time chasing corrections instead of managing business.
There’s also a regulatory dimension. Insurers cannot delegate their regulatory responsibility to an MGA. The FCA holds the principal firm accountable for everything written under its authority, which means poor bordereau data isn’t just an operational inconvenience — it’s a governance failure. The FCA’s Thematic Review TR15/7 flagged exactly this issue, finding widespread inadequate oversight across the delegated authority market.
This is one of the reasons more carriers, TPAs, and IA firms are moving bordereau production out of spreadsheets and into a connected claims management system that generates the report directly from the underlying claim and policy data, rather than reconstructing it after the fact.
How Software Fixes the Bordereau Reporting Process
The right software removes most of the manual work from this process. Instead of waiting for a spreadsheet to arrive and then spending hours cleaning it, a connected claims management platform captures and structures the data in real time as claims are opened, updated, and closed — from first notice of loss all the way through digital claims payment.
VCA’s bordereau reporting software is built specifically for this workflow. It generates accurate, structured bordereau reports without requiring your team to manually compile or reformat data. For firms operating in the Lloyd’s market, VCA’s Lloyd’s claims management software also handles the specific reporting requirements that come with Lloyd’s business, keeping your submissions clean and compliant.
The practical result is that claim handlers spend their time managing claims rather than fixing spreadsheets, and insurers get a reliable, consistent view of their delegated portfolio — whether that portfolio spans auto, property and casualty, marine, or enterprise-scale claims volume. You can see exactly how this works across VCA’s full product suite, including real-time claim tracking and AI-assisted claims processing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is bordereau reporting mandatory?
It depends on the agreement. Reinsurance treaties and delegated authority contracts typically specify bordereau reporting requirements directly, including format, frequency, and required data fields. Some smaller or simpler agreements allow summary reporting instead, but bordereaux are the industry standard wherever meaningful risk is being delegated.
How often are bordereaux submitted?
Most bordereau agreements call for monthly or quarterly submission, though the exact cadence is set in the underlying reinsurance treaty or delegated authority agreement. Claims bordereaux are sometimes reported more frequently than premium bordereaux, especially for higher-severity lines of business.
What does BDX mean in insurance?
BDX is simply the shorthand for “bordereau,” commonly used in Lloyd’s market communications and coverholder reporting standards.
Can bordereau reporting be automated?
Yes. Rather than compiling bordereaux manually from spreadsheets, insurers and MGAs increasingly generate them directly from a connected claims management system, pulling structured data straight from the claim and policy records instead of reconstructing a report after the fact.
Final Thoughts
The right software removes most of the manual work from this process. Instead of waiting for a spreadsheet to arrive and then spending hours cleaning it, a connected claims platform captures and structures the data in real time as claims are opened, updated, and closed.
VCA’s bordereau reporting software is built specifically for this workflow. It generates accurate, structured bordereau reports without requiring your team to manually compile or reformat data. For firms operating in the Lloyd’s market, VCA’s Lloyd’s claims management software also handles the specific reporting requirements that come with Lloyd’s business, keeping your submissions clean and compliant.
The practical result is that claim handlers spend their time managing claims rather than fixing spreadsheets, and insurers get a reliable, consistent view of their delegated portfolio. You can see exactly how this works across VCA’s full product suite.
Bordereau reporting has been part of the insurance industry for over a century because the underlying need is real: partners sharing risk need shared visibility into that risk. The problem has never been the concept. It’s been the process. Modern claims software finally makes it possible to get the information right without the manual overhead that’s made bordereau reporting so frustrating for so long.
Ready to see what cleaner bordereau reporting looks like in practice? Request a demo and we’ll walk you through it.
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Rob Ogle is a Customer Success executive with 20+ years of experience in insurance and SaaS. He’s built and led high-performing success, support, and sales teams at multiple software companies, driving retention, growth, and customer satisfaction. Rob specializes in scaling success programs, aligning customer outcomes with business goals, and leading cross-functional initiatives in dynamic, high-growth environments. |
Rob Ogle
