Your carrier is not paying commissions correctly: how to prove it

Start by making the claim specific

"My carrier is not paying me correctly" is not something a commission department can act on. A specific claim is: on the statement dated this day, policy number this, my contracted rate is this percentage of this basis, the expected commission is this dollar amount, the paid amount was that, and the difference is this. That single sentence, repeated for each line, is the entire dispute.

Getting to it requires only two documents: the carrier statement and the rate schedule or contract amendment that applies to your writing number. If you cannot locate the second one, request it before you dispute anything — most disagreements turn out to be about which schedule applies.

Rule out the innocent explanations first

Before you contact the carrier, eliminate the reasons a payment can look wrong while being correct. This protects your credibility, which matters if you expect to dispute more than once.

• Timing: the payment may not be due yet under the carrier's normal schedule
• Basis: the rate may apply to annualized premium, modal premium, or target premium rather than total premium collected
• Status: a renewal rate may have been applied to something you logged as new business, or vice versa
• Hierarchy: the split may route part of the commission to an upline or agency
• Policy changes: a reduction in face amount, a rate class change, or a partial refund lowers the commissionable amount
• Reversals: a lapse, free-look cancellation, or NSF premium can legitimately claw back a prior payment

Then calculate the gap line by line

Work one policy at a time. Take the commissionable basis your contract names, multiply by your contracted rate, and compare to the paid amount. Allow a small tolerance for rounding — a difference of a few cents is not a dispute. Record the statement date and payment date beside each line so a follow-up conversation has a reference point.

Keep the original statement file. When a carrier asks how you arrived at a number, the ability to point at their own document beats a spreadsheet you typed.

Look for the pattern, not just the dollar

One short payment is an error. The same product short by the same percentage across ten policies is a rate loaded incorrectly in the carrier's system, and that is a much more valuable finding — fixing it corrects every future statement, not just this one.

Sort your flagged lines by carrier and product and check whether the variance is consistent. If it is, say so explicitly in your dispute. A commission analyst can escalate a rate-table problem far more easily than a list of unrelated single-policy complaints.

Write the dispute so it can be resolved

Address it to the commission or agent-accounting department, reference your writing number, attach or cite the statement, and list each policy with expected, paid, and difference. State the contract provision or rate schedule you are relying on. Ask for a specific outcome and a date: either a corrected payment on the next statement cycle, or a written explanation of the calculation the carrier used.

Then track it. Log the date sent, who responded, what they said, and whether the money arrived. Unrecovered disputes go stale when nobody owns the follow-up.

• Your name, writing number, and agency
• Statement period and statement date
• Each policy: number, product, basis, contracted rate, expected, paid, difference
• The contract or schedule that supports the expected rate
• The requested correction and a response date

Doing this every month without it taking a day

The process above is entirely manual and entirely repeatable, which is exactly the kind of work software should absorb. Commission Guardian stores your carrier and product rates once, applies them to each new statement, and produces the expected-versus-paid comparison and a draft dispute letter for the lines that do not reconcile.

You still make the judgment calls about which flags are real. The tool's job is to make sure none of them go unnoticed.