What a claims bordereau can and cannot tell you

A bordereau arrives looking complete: policy number, paid, outstanding, sometimes a peril code. Treaty teams like it because it fits a spreadsheet. Claims managers like it because it can be sent without scanning a cupboard of paper. For insurance claims analytics it is a starting map, not the ground.

What it usually holds is the money. What it usually drops is why a reserve moved, who last touched the file, whether a recovery letter exists, and whether the claimant was paid in three partials or one. Those facts live in handler notes. If your only listing is a bordereau, a briefing can still chart concentration and age. It cannot honestly say the book is “well handled.”

In Kutaisi we ask for the bordereau and for ten files. The files are not a sample for show. They are a check on whether “outstanding” means a living negotiation or a number nobody has looked at since last summer. When the two disagree, the pack says so on page one. An underwriter who has been given only the listing will ask anyway; it is cheaper to ask yourself first.