Most consultants can tell you roughly how many employer clients they have. Far fewer can tell you, without opening a spreadsheet, what those clients are actually worth in recurring terms — or which products carry the value.
Recurring premium is the number that matters
One-off wins feel good. Recurring premium is what makes a practice an asset. Reading your book by recurring premium rather than headcount changes which clients look important and which quietly are not.
A book measured only in client count hides where the value actually sits.
Split it by product
Retirement funds, group risk, medical aid and gap cover behave very differently. Splitting recurring premium and commission by product type shows you where the concentration sits — and where a single scheme change would hurt.
- Which product line carries the most recurring premium?
- Which employer groups make up the top slice of the book?
- What would a single large lapse actually cost in a year?
Then decide who sees it
Revenue is sensitive. Principals usually need the whole picture; consultants often need only their own clients. Treating revenue as a permission rather than a default is what lets a practice grow the team without the numbers travelling further than they should.
Read it monthly
This is not an annual exercise. Looking at recurring premium and commission once a month turns it from a report into a habit — and habits are what change decisions.