Loss Runs: Why 5 Years of Claims History Matters

When you apply for commercial property insurance, one of the first things a carrier asks for is loss runs, usually five years' worth. For a lot of investors this is the most mysterious item on the submission, and the one most likely to be missing when you're buying a property. So let's clear it up: what loss runs are, why they matter so much, and how to actually get them.

What a loss run is

A loss run is an official report from an insurance carrier listing the claims history on a policy over a set period, typically the past five years. Each entry shows the date of loss, the type of loss (wind, fire, water, liability, and so on), the amount paid, and whether the claim is open or closed. Think of it as the property's (or the insured's) claims track record, straight from the carrier's own records.

Why carriers weigh it so heavily

Insurance pricing is really about predicting future losses, and the best predictor of future losses is past ones. A property or owner with a clean five-year history is a very different risk than one with repeated water or wind claims. Loss runs let the underwriter do a few things:

Spot a pattern. Recurring water damage, for example, points to a plumbing or roof problem, not bad luck.
Tell a one-off catastrophe apart from chronic issues.
Price with confidence instead of padding for the unknown.

A clean loss run is one of the strongest things you can put in front of a carrier, and it directly supports better terms. Just as important to understand: a missing loss run gets treated as a negative, because the underwriter has to assume the worst rather than the best.

The wrinkle when you're buying

Here's where investors get stuck. On an acquisition, the loss runs belong to the seller's policy, not yours. You don't have them yet. Your options, from strongest to weakest:

Ask the seller (or the listing broker) for the loss runs as part of due diligence. This is a normal request, and a cooperative seller can usually get them from their carrier or agent within days.
Provide a no-known-loss letter or attestation if the property genuinely has no claim history the seller is aware of. Weaker than actual runs, but far better than silence.
Note "new acquisition, seller loss runs requested" so the underwriter knows the gap is being worked, not ignored.

The mistake is leaving the loss-history field blank with no explanation. That reads as "unknown," and unknown gets priced conservatively.

How to request them

If you already have your own policy, whether a renewal or an existing property, you or your broker just request the loss runs from the current carrier. They're required to provide them, typically within a couple of weeks. When you're buying, fold the loss-run request into your diligence checklist right alongside the estoppels and the PSA, so it's in hand before you go to market for insurance rather than after.

The bottom line

Five years of clean loss history is one of the cheapest ways to earn better terms. It costs nothing but a request. And even when you're buying and don't have your own history yet, tracking down the seller's runs (or documenting why there aren't any) turns a conservative "unknown" into a concrete, favorable data point.

How we handle it

We ask about loss history up front and make it easy to answer: actual loss runs if you have them, a clean "no losses" if that's the case, or a note that seller runs are being requested on an acquisition. Either way, we make sure the carrier sees a real answer instead of a blank, so your history helps your pricing instead of quietly hurting it.

This article is general education, not insurance or legal advice. Coverage terms vary by policy, carrier, and jurisdiction.