What to Check When You Switch Carriers or Get a New Appointment

By the CommCheck team · The first 90 days with a new carrier decide whether you get paid right for years

A new appointment feels like pure upside: a better product, a competitive rate, a rep who actually returns calls. But the first 90 days with a new carrier are also when the most expensive commission mistakes get baked in — wrong rate loaded in their system, a chargeback window you never read, your existing book's trails quietly orphaned in the switch. None of it is dramatic. All of it compounds. Here's the checklist that keeps a good move from becoming a slow leak.

Before you sign: get the money terms in writing

• The full commission schedule, as a document. New-business and renewal rates for every product you plan to sell, plus trails if they apply. If a rate was mentioned in a recruiting conversation, it doesn't exist until it's on that schedule.
• Your commission level. Carriers have tiers. Confirm which one you're actually contracted at — agents have written for a year at a starter tier while believing they were at the level the recruiter described.
• Advance terms, if you take advances. How much is advanced, over what period, and what interest or fees ride along. And the big one: what happens to your debt balance if you leave.
• The chargeback window and dispute window. Two different clocks. How long can they claw back? And how long do you have to contest an adjustment? Write both dates in your calendar system, not your memory.

At setup: the plumbing that decides your pay

• Your producer code. Confirm the exact code your business will be paid under, and that it's keyed correctly in their system. A surprising number of "missing commission" mysteries are just business sitting under a mistyped or legacy code.
• Payment method and cycle. Direct deposit set up, statement frequency confirmed, and the statement format — can you actually export it as CSV or Excel, or is it a PDF-only portal from 2009? You'll care about this every single month.
• Upline splits. If you're under an IMO, FMO, or GA, confirm the split in writing and how it shows on the statement. "The carrier pays them and they pay you" arrangements deserve extra scrutiny — your visibility into the real numbers depends on it.
• Who's agent of record on day one. If business is transferring, get the AOR list confirmed. Policies that arrive without clean AOR status are policies whose renewals and trails may never find you.

The first three statements: audit them like you mean it

Whatever your normal checking routine is, triple it for the first three cycles with a new carrier. Setup errors surface immediately, and they're ten times easier to fix in month one than month nine.

1. Verify the rate on real policies. Take your first five paid policies and do the math by hand: premium × contracted rate. If the carrier loaded the wrong tier, it will be wrong on all five — and on everything after until somebody fixes it.
2. Confirm every new policy appears. Match your own sales log against the statement. A policy you sold that isn't paying yet might be pending, might be coded to someone else, might be lost. All three answers are better learned now.
3. Read every adjustment. New relationships generate odd one-off fees and corrections. Each negative line should have a story you recognize.
4. Check the renewal dates. Note when each new policy will first renew and at what rate, and put those on your expected-payments list from day one — not a year from now when you're trying to remember.

Questions worth asking your new rep, out loud

• "If a commission is wrong, who exactly do I contact, and what's the contest window?"
• "Do statements show the rate applied per line, or just the amount?" (Amount-only statements make self-auditing harder — plan accordingly.)
• "If I ever leave, what happens to my renewals and trails — vested or gone?" Get the answer while they're still courting you.
• "Are there production bonuses or tiers that change my rate mid-year, and how will I be notified?"

Reps answer these questions happily during onboarding. Six months in, the same questions take three emails. Ask early.

The habit that makes all of this stick

Every carrier you write with adds a rate card, a statement format, and a set of windows to your life. Keep one folder — physical, digital, doesn't matter — per carrier: the agreement, the commission schedule, the chargeback terms, and a note with your producer code and who to call about money. Ten minutes of filing at appointment time saves hours of archaeological digging the first time a statement looks wrong.

A new carrier should mean new opportunity, not a new set of leaks. Verify the setup in the first 90 days and you'll collect what you're owed for as long as you write with them.