How modern payment infrastructure is reshaping the insurance industry
I have been working in insurance for more than 25 years. Few concepts have irritated me more than the bordereau.
In a digital world where artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, the bordereau remains a central element of the insurance industry. Brokers and agents collect premiums, transfer them to the insurer’s account, and accompany them with the ever-present bordereau. Commissions retained? Another column in the bordereau. Claims paid by third parties? Reported through bordereaux as well.
Bordereaux exist as a way to explain money flows after the fact. The money is in the account, and the bordereau follows to explain what it relates to. And no, this is not a local peculiarity. The bordereau is just as present in the elegant London market.
The reality is simple. Money moves through outdated systems, while data follows in separate files, often in the ever-reliable Excel.
Fortunately, we do not have to remain in Dante’s inferno. There is hope.
For a long time, payment systems in insurance have been treated as simple utilities. Necessary, but without strategic importance.
This is starting to change.
Modern systems for payment collection and processing are emerging, supporting the payment methods widely used in other industries. Today’s infrastructure enables continuous control over money flows and real-time reconciliation. Premiums are collected based on clear payment instructions, either into the broker’s account or directly into the insurer’s account, with automatic allocation.
This is where the difference becomes clear. Commissions are generated instantly, not after 45–60 days, once someone has managed to decipher the bordereau.
Funds collected in the broker’s account can be split directly between commission and the premium due to the insurer. At the same time, the system can automatically calculate and allocate commissions to the broker’s assistant.
Instead of operators importing and checking bordereaux, systems process transactions and allocate them automatically. Manual intervention is required only to handle exceptions.
Cash and capital positions become visible to the finance function almost in real time. The need to maintain blocked liquidity, to compensate for the lack of clarity around payables and receivables, is reduced.
At the same time, distribution models are becoming increasingly complex. Insurers work with more partners, across more markets, in increasingly sophisticated commercial arrangements. The volume and diversity of transactions continue to grow.
A model based on post-factum reconciliation becomes increasingly difficult to sustain in such an environment. As complexity increases, reliance on retrospective explanations becomes more fragile.
Bordereaux will not disappear overnight. They will gradually lose ground as brokers and insurers gain confidence in systems that provide direct control over money flows, rather than explanations after the fact.
It is time to rethink how money flows and align with modern practices from the payments industry. Because in the end, this is not only about processes and systems. It is about trust, about how we respond when customers need us most, and about the responsibility we carry towards the communities we serve.
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