Ask most insurance agents what reporting they get from their TPA, and you’ll hear some version of: “I get a commission statement.” Maybe a monthly production summary. Maybe a list of active policies. That’s about it.
Now ask those same agents what they wish they could see, and the list explodes: retention rates by product, cancellation reasons, client billing history, revenue projections, book of business health metrics, at-risk account alerts, and comparison data across products and time periods.
At Premier Health Solutions, our Nexus platform delivers real-time reporting that agents can access 24/7, and we’ve built our reporting capabilities based on years of feedback from our agent network. The gap between what most TPAs provide and what agents actually need is staggering. This post is a practical checklist of what your TPA should be giving you, what good reporting looks like, and what red flags signal that your TPA’s reporting is stuck in the past.
The Baseline: Reports Every TPA Should Provide
These are non-negotiable. If your TPA can’t deliver these, you’re operating blind.
Production Reports
What it shows: new enrollments by date, product, and premium amount. How many new clients you brought in, what they bought, and what it’s worth in monthly recurring revenue.
What to look for: the ability to filter by date range, product type, and enrollment source. You should be able to see this week’s production, this month’s production, and this year’s production without requesting a custom report. The data should be available on-demand, not in a PDF that arrives two weeks after month-end.
Active Book of Business
What it shows: all currently active enrollments with the member name, product, effective date, premium amount, and billing status.
What to look for: the ability to sort and search. If you have 500 active clients, you need to find a specific one quickly. You should also be able to see the total monthly premium your book generates and the product breakdown across your portfolio.
Commission Statements
What it shows: earned commissions by period. Which members generated commissions, for which products, and at what rate.
What to look for: itemized detail, not just a lump sum. You should be able to reconcile every dollar back to specific clients and products. Discrepancies between expected and actual commissions should be identifiable without forensic accounting.
Cancellation Reports
What it shows: members who have cancelled or lapsed, along with the date and reason.
What to look for: cancellation reason codes that are actually useful. “Voluntary cancellation” tells you nothing. “Payment failure after 3 retries” tells you everything. The best reports also show the member’s tenure and product, so you can identify patterns.
The Advanced Reports: What Good TPAs Provide
Beyond the baseline, these reports separate functional TPAs from strategic ones.
Persistency and Retention Metrics
Your retention rate is the most important number in your business, and your TPA should be tracking it for you. This report should show retention by product, by enrollment month cohort, and over time. You should be able to see whether your 12-month retention is improving or declining, and which products are driving the trend.
Even better: persistency data that’s broken out by enrollment channel, demographic, or geographic region. These cuts help you understand not just how well you’re retaining, but why.
Billing Health Dashboard
What percentage of your book is billing successfully each month? How many members have failed payments pending retry? How many are in a grace period? How many are about to cancel due to non-payment?
This information is critical because billing problems are the leading indicator of cancellations. An agent who can see that 8% of their book had failed payments last month knows they have a retention problem developing and then can act on it before those 8% become cancellations.
Revenue Projections
Based on your current book, production trend, and retention rate, what’s your projected commission income for the next 3, 6, and 12 months? This isn’t a crystal ball, it’s math. And it’s math your TPA has the data to calculate, even if most don’t bother.
At-Risk Account Alerts
Proactive alerts when a member’s account shows warning signs like a failed payment, approaching the high-cancellation window, or multiple contact attempts from the member that may signal confusion or dissatisfaction. These alerts give agents the opportunity to intervene before it’s too late.
Cross-Sell Opportunity Reports
Which of your current clients have only one product, but fit the profile of members who typically carry two or three? These reports identify your highest-probability cross-sell targets based on actual data, not guesswork. A client with fixed indemnity and no accident coverage, in a demographic where accident insurance retention is strong, is a natural cross-sell opportunity.
The Red Flags in TPA Reporting
Not all reporting is created equally. Watch for these warning signs:
| Red Flags | Why They Matter |
|---|---|
| Reports only available by request | If you must email someone and wait for a CSV file, the TPA hasn’t invested in self-service reporting infrastructure. |
| Monthly cadence only | In this modern age, waiting 30 days for production data is unacceptable. Real-time or daily reporting should be the standard. |
| No drill-down capability | A report that shows you have 500 active clients is useless if you can’t click into each one to see their details. Aggregate numbers without underlying detail create more questions than they answer. |
| No retention data | If your TPA can’t tell you your retention rate, they’re either not tracking it or not sharing it. Neither is acceptable. |
| Static PDFs | Reports delivered as fixed PDF documents can’t be sorted, filtered, or analyzed. Interactive dashboards are the modern standard. |
| Commission-only focus | A TPA that only reports on commissions is treating you as a revenue source, not a business partner. Your reporting should cover the full picture: production, retention, billing health, and portfolio trends. |
How to Use Reports to Grow Your Business
Having good data is only valuable if you act on it. Here’s a practical framework for using TPA reports as a growth tool:
- Weekly: Review production — Are you on pace for your monthly goal? Which products are you enrolling most and least? Adjust your focus for the coming week.
- Monthly: Analyze retention — What’s your trailing 12-month retention rate? Is it improving? Which products are retaining best? Use this data to inform your product recommendations.
- Monthly: Review billing health — How many clients had payment issues? Follow up with at-risk accounts before they cancel.
- Quarterly: Evaluate cross-sell opportunities — Review your single-product clients and identify the best candidates for additional coverage. A systematic quarterly cross-sell effort can significantly grow your book without any new leads.
- Annually: Assess your TPA relationship — Is the data getting better? Are the tools improving? Is the reporting helping you grow? If the answers are no, it may be time to evaluate alternatives.
PHS Reporting Through Nexus
PHS’s Nexus analytics platform provides agents with on-demand access to production data, book of business management, and commission tracking. We’re continually expanding our reporting capabilities based on agent feedback, because we believe the data PHS generates belongs in the hands of the agents whose business depends on it.
If your current TPA’s reporting doesn’t meet the baseline described in this article, you owe it to your business to see what’s available elsewhere.
Premier Health Solutions provides the reporting agents need from day one — production tracking, retention analytics, billing health, and commission data — all through the Nexus platform. See what data-driven administration looks like with PHS.
