Features How It Works Intelligence Glossary Blog

Category archive

Operations & Best Practices

Sarvada research, workflows, and commentary focused on operations & best practices.

Archive

148 published articles

Topic

Operations & Best Practices

Latest

October 3, 2026

Browse by topic

148 articles

All AI & Insurtech Claims & Loss Prevention Global & Cross-Border Insurance Industry Risk Profiles Insurance for Startups & New Economy Insurance Products Market & Trends Operations & Best Practices Regulation & Compliance Risk Management Strategies Underwriting & Risk

Operations & Best Practices - July 23, 2026 - 8 min read

Regulatory Change Management for Broking Firms: Lessons From IRDAI's June 2026 Drafting Cycle

In five days in mid-June 2026, IRDAI put out four exposure drafts, each with a comment window of about three weeks. A firm that responds to that ad hoc loses on all four. This is the standing function that lets a mid-size broker read, assess, comment on and implement regulatory change as a routine rather than a scramble.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 22, 2026 - 10 min read

Taking Over a Client's Programme: The Broker-of-Record Transition Done Properly

Winning the account is the easy part. The transition, getting the file, verifying the open claims, understanding the declaration positions and setting the first ninety days, is where a broker-of-record change is delivered or quietly botched. A takeover playbook for the incoming broker on a commercial client.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 21, 2026 - 9 min read

Scoring Your Insurers: An Insurer Service Scorecard for Broking Firms

A broking firm rates its clients and its insurers rate the firm, but almost nobody rates the insurers on their own service. The one relationship the broker cannot see clearly is the one that decides whether its clients get paid. A quarterly insurer service scorecard: the six dimensions to measure, a simple weighting model, and how to use it in a relationship meeting.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 21, 2026 - 9 min read

Building the Intermediary Disclosure Pack: Data Your Firm Should Assemble Before IRDAI's Norms Are Finalised

IRDAI's June 2026 intermediary-disclosure draft would make brokers earning over Rs 10 crore in commission publish related-party dealings, dividend repatriation and audited financials every year. The rule is not final, but the data assembly can start now. A workstream guide.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 20, 2026 - 10 min read

How POSP Commission Income Is Taxed: TDS Under Section 194D, ITR Filing, and GST Questions

Your commission is business income, not salary, and that one fact changes your whole tax return: the ITR form you file, the expenses you can claim, why the presumptive schemes are closed to you, and why the 2 percent TDS the insurer took leaves you with an advance-tax bill. A plain-language guide for individual advisors, with the points to take to a CA.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 20, 2026 - 10 min read

Placement File Documentation: The Records That Defend a Broker When a Placement Is Questioned

When a claim is short-paid and a client says the broker should have advised differently, the case is won or lost on the file, not on memory. What a complete placement file contains: the quote comparison, the written recommendation, the client's instruction where it chose less cover, the wordings and exclusions flagged, the declinatures, and the timestamped advice trail.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 19, 2026 - 9 min read

Client Retention Reviews for Broking Firms: A Quarterly Process That Protects the Book

A commercial client rarely leaves at renewal. It decides to leave months earlier, and the renewal only records a decision already made. A quarterly retention process for broking firms: the leading indicators of a defecting account, the at-risk review meeting, loss-reason coding, and why you should measure retention by revenue rather than by count.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 18, 2026 - 9 min read

Motor Policy Break-In Inspections: A POSP Guide to Renewing Lapsed Motor Covers

The moment a motor policy expires, a two-minute renewal turns into an inspection, a wait, and a client with a reason to shop around. What the break-in inspection is, why insurers require it, the self-inspection app flow, the no-cover window nobody warns the client about, and how the 90-day NCB rule really works.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 18, 2026 - 10 min read

Account Planning for Commercial Clients: A Cross-Sell Framework for Broking Firms

The cheapest new business a broking firm can write is the cover its existing clients already need and buy elsewhere or not at all. A framework for annual account plans on commercial clients: the coverage-gap matrix, a worked manufacturing example, timing to renewal and business events, and how to measure the wallet share you actually hold.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 16, 2026 - 10 min read

Persistency Management for Individual Advisors: Working the 13th and 25th Month

Persistency is the number that decides whether an advisor's book compounds or quietly drains. What the 13th and 25th month measure, why insurers watch them more closely than they watch your sales, and what to do in months 9 to 12 and 21 to 24.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 15, 2026 - 10 min read

Using WhatsApp as a Client Service Channel Without Breaching IRDAI Conduct Rules

WhatsApp is where most Indian advisors actually run their book, and almost none of them have checked which messages are servicing and which are unapproved sales material. Where the line falls, why a broadcast list is riskier than a personal message, and what to keep.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 15, 2026 - 10 min read

Running a Multi-Insurer Portfolio as a POSP Without Losing Track

A point of sales person is tied to one principal at a time, yet may end up placing business with several insurers behind that principal. What that actually means, and the operational load it creates across portals, statement formats, product sets and renewal rules.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 15, 2026 - 10 min read

Forecasting Broking Income: Building a Commission Budget for FY27

Non-life commission expense grew close to 19 percent in FY2024-25 against 8.5 percent premium growth, and the rulebook that will govern FY27 is still unwritten. A build for the FY27 commission budget: the expiring register as base, retention measured on commission rather than count, a weighted new-business bridge, rate and mix as separate assumptions, phasing on the real renewal calendar, and a variance report that names a cause.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 14, 2026 - 10 min read

Advisor Productivity Metrics: What an Individual Agent Should Actually Measure

Most individual advisors measure how many policies they sold last month, which is the one number that predicts almost nothing about next year's income. Five measurements that do, and how to compute each from your own book rather than from someone else's benchmark.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 14, 2026 - 10 min read

The Advisor's Morning Review: A Daily Operating Routine for POSPs

Twenty minutes, five lists, same order, before the first call: renewals due, claims in flight, proposals pending against the four-working-day POS-Life issuance standard, follow-ups owed, and commission gaps aged rather than totalled.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 14, 2026 - 10 min read

Commission Data Migration During a Broking System Implementation

Commission is the workstream that quietly sinks broking system implementations: legacy extracts with no rate-table history, in-flight policies at cutover, opening receivables nobody can reconcile, and endorsement chains the new data model cannot represent. A guide to scoping, mapping, parallel running and accepting a commission migration.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 13, 2026 - 10 min read

Record-Keeping for POSPs: What You Must Retain, For How Long, and Who Will Ask For It

The five-year retention in the POSP master circular attaches to training and examination records, and nothing else. What that means for KYC files, sales evidence and advertising approvals, and why the entity that will actually ask you for a document is your principal rather than IRDAI.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 13, 2026 - 10 min read

Policy Document Filing for Advisors: From PDF to Retrievable Record

Policy PDFs arrive by email and WhatsApp and die there. The seven fields to pull out of every schedule, a naming convention that turns your phone's search box into an index, and the ninety-second test that tells you whether your filing actually works.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 13, 2026 - 10 min read

Premium Instalments and Commission Timing: When Does the Broker Get Paid

Section 64VB of the Insurance Act, 1938 means no risk attaches until premium is received, which puts broker commission downstream of a cash event the firm does not control. How entitlement fragments on instalment-paid policies, what deposit premium does to it, what happens on dishonour, and why insurer receipt and broker payout are different dates.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 12, 2026 - 10 min read

Household Coverage Mapping: Selling the Second Policy to an Existing Client

The client who bought one motor policy from you lives in a household that owns several things and depends on someone's income. Mapping what a family already holds against what it plausibly needs is a different exercise from cross-selling, and the honest version of it is bounded by what a POSP is actually permitted to place.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 12, 2026 - 10 min read

Reconciling Your Commission Statement: What POSPs Should Check Line by Line

Nobody at your principal is checking whether you were paid for every policy you sold. That job is yours, and it starts with understanding that a POSP is paid under a contract of engagement rather than by the insurer directly. A line-by-line method for matching statement to book, and the five gaps that hide in the difference.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 12, 2026 - 10 min read

Commission on Cancellations, Short-Period Policies and Refunds

The arithmetic of an early-ending policy: how the short-period scale actually computes, why it is stepped rather than proportional, when short rate is a price rather than a penalty, and how the refund number drives the brokerage number.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 12, 2026 - 10 min read

Commission Receivable Ageing and Broker Working Capital

Broking firms book commission at placement and collect it months later, and almost none of them age the gap properly. How to build a commission ageing schedule, compute days outstanding, provision under Ind AS 109's simplified approach, protect drawing power on a receivable-secured facility, and answer the questions an auditor asks about aged commission balances.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Operations & Best Practices - July 11, 2026 - 10 min read

Lapse Recovery Workflow: Reviving Policies Before the Grace Period Closes

A lapsed policy is not a lost client, but the window in which it can be recovered cheaply is short and it closes differently for motor, health and life. What happens mechanically when premium goes unpaid, why revival hardens every month, and the win-back sequence an advisor should run from day zero.

By Tarun Kumar Singh

Sarvada Intelligence

Use these ideas inside your underwriting workflow

See how Sarvada turns research, risk signals, and operational context into faster commercial underwriting decisions.

Explore the platform Contact the team