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, how it’s used, and why getting the process right matters more than ever in 2026.
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?
The short answer: one is singular, the other is plural.
“Bordereau” refers to a single report. “Bordereaux” is the plural form, covering multiple reports. Both words come from French, which is why the plural doesn’t follow standard English grammar rules. You’ll also see the shorthand “BDX” used in day-to-day communications, especially in the Lloyd’s market.
Where Bordereau Reporting Is Used
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.
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.
Premium Bordereau vs. Claims Bordereau
There are two primary types of bordereau, and they serve different purposes.
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 in the spreadsheet 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.
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
