Agency Commission Settings (Anticipated Commissions)

Agency Commission Settings enable you to set the commission basis for each carrier. The commission basis can be used for your own reporting purposes and is used by HawkSoft to create Anticipated Commission statements for those carriers using a Premium Paid or Premium Written commission basis.

You can set default agency commission percentages for each carrier for New/Rewrite and Renewal terms, which will automatically be applied to anticipated commissions. You can also create detailed rules to override the percentages based on writing carrier, application type, or line of business. These details help HawkSoft create more accurate anticipated commission transactions for your agency.

This article explains how to set a carrier's commission basis and default commission percentages, as well as how to create, edit, and manage detailed rules per carrier.

For information on setting rules for how HawkSoft calculates the portion of a commission transaction due to the policy agent(s), see Agent Commission Rules.

The setup steps in this article must be completed before you can create an Anticipated Commission statement. See Creating and Managing Commission Statements for more information.

  1. Click Commissions > Commission Processing & Reporting from the main HawkSoft menu bar.

    OR

    1. Log into the HawkSoft Web app, accessed from any computer

    2. Click the Commissions icon in the left column of the HawkSoft web start page to access Commission Processing and Reporting.

      For more information about logging into the HawkSoft web app, see Logging In and Out of HawkSoft.

  2. Click on the Settings tab and select Agency Commission Settings from the drop-down.

    The Agency Commission Settings screen launches, listing each of your carriers and their commission basis and default commission percentages, if any.

    Click on a carrier for a detailed view, including commission rules, or to edit their commission settings.

What are Anticipated Commissions?

You can create anticipated commission statements to track commissions that are not downloaded or imported from carriers. These commission transactions do not need to be manually entered.

To learn all of the options for creating statements in HawkSoft, see Creating and Managing Commission Statements.

HawkSoft determines anticipated commissions by finding policies with the carrier and the date range you select, as well as additional criteria depending on whether the policy carrier is set as Premium Paid or Premium Written in Agency Commission Settings.

  • Premium Paid - This basis means that the carrier pays the agency a commission each time the premium for a policy is paid, typically used for policies paid in installments. Anticipated Commissions creates a transaction for matching policies that have not had a reconciled transaction within the selected period. The commission amount of the transaction is determined by dividing the total premium by the number of months in the term.

  • Premium Written - This basis means that the carrier pays the agency the commission in full when the policy is written. Anticipated Commissions creates a transaction for matching policies that have had a change to the status (New, Active, Renewal, Rewrite, Cancelled, or Reinstatement), effective date, or premium in the selected date range.

    Anticipated Commissions only creates estimated transactions for Premium Paid and Premium Written carriers. All other commission bases are for record-keeping purposes only.

Once HawkSoft determines which policies need transactions created on the Anticipated Commission statement, it then checks your Agency Commission Rules to determine the correct commission amounts.

For information on reconciling Anticipated Commission statements you've created, see Reconciling Commission Statements.

You can set default commission percentages for Premium Paid and Premium Written carriers and you can set specific rules to override the defaults when the policies match the rules. .

  1. Click on the carrier in the Agency Commission Settings list.

    The carrier's settings open.

    If you need to see inactive carriers, click on the Include inactive carriers toggle in the upper left.

  2. Select the Commission Basis that describes how you receive commissions from this carrier.

    Only Premium Paid and Premium Written affect the creation of anticipated commission transactions. The other options are provided for your agency's reference and record-keeping.

  3. Conditional: If you selected Premium Paid or Premium Written, enter the New/Rewrite term commission % and the Renew term commission %. These are used to calculate agency commission on anticipated commission transactions.

  4. Optional: Add rules to change the commission % based on the writing carrier, the application type, or the line of business (Premium Paid and Premium Written carriers only). See To create, modify, or delete a carrier commission rule.

  5. Click Save to save the rule and return to the agency commission settings carrier list.

Carrier commission rules enable your agency to fine-tune the agency commission percentages for anticipated commissions, based on the writing carrier, the application type, and the line of business of the policy. Commission rules are available only for carriers with a commission basis of Premium Paid or Premium Written.

Carrier rules do not enable you to select multiple commission bases for the same carrier.

  1. Click on the carrier in the Agency Commission Settings list, and then click + Add Rule.

    A new rule is added to the bottom of the rule list.

    You can edit existing rules or remove unneeded rules by clicking the Delete button.

  2. Set the Writing Carrier, Application Type, or Line of Business the rule applies to.

    You can select multiple options from each column.

    You can remove any selection by clicking the X on the selected option. You can also clear out all entries for that field by clicking X on the right-side of the column.

  3. Enter the New/Rewrite % and Renewal % that apply to transactions matching this rule.

  4. Adjust the position of the rule on the list as needed using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.

    Rules are applied in priority from top to bottom.

    Ordering carrier commission rules is vital to ensuring rules are applied correctly. HawkSoft applies the first matching rule to each commission transaction, starting from the top of the carrier's rule list, and will not apply any other rules. If there are no matching rules, then HawkSoft uses the default commission for that carrier.

    The most specific rules should be at the top of the list, and rules that apply the most broadly should be at the bottom. This ensures that broad rules are only applied if a more specific rule does not match the transaction.

    For example, we create three rules for the carrier Bamboo Insurance:

    • First, we create a 10% commission for all policy terms for Commercial lines policies.

    • Second, we apply a 12% commission for all policy terms for Personal lines policies.

    • Third, we apply a 15% rule for all policy terms for HOME policies.

    If we leave our HOME rule in as the third rule, then a Personal lines HOME policy (or a personal lines package policy that includes HOME) will use a 12% anticipated commission rate for all terms. HawkSoft sees that the first rule does not apply - this is a personal lines policy. Then HawkSoft applies the second rule - this is a Personal lines policy. HawkSoft then stops checking.

    If we want our Personal lines HOME policies to instead use a 15% commission rate, then we can select our HOME rule and click ↑ Move Up to put it in the first or second position.

    Newly created rules are added to the bottom of the list. Be sure to check their positioning and move them as appropriate.

  5. Click Save Changes in the lower right of the screen when you are done adding rules for the selected carrier.

    A popup confirms when your changes are saved.

You can review previous commission settings for each carrier, including when the change was made, and who updated the settings.

  1. Click on the carrier in the Agency Commission Settings list.

    The carrier settings panel opens from the right side of the screen.

  2. Click Settings History in the upper right.

    The Settings History dialog launches.

  3. Review previous changes to this carrier's commission settings.

    If you need to copy an entry, click anywhere in the blue box for that entry to copy it to your clipboard. You can paste this information into an email, Word document, or spreadsheet.

To perform these actions, user permissions must be set to include:

Commissions > Access Commission Settings

See User Permissions for more information.

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