What the E&O Renewal Application Actually Asks For

Most A/E principals approach E&O renewal as a clerical task — fill out the application, renew with the same carrier, move on. The application itself disabuses most of them of that notion fairly quickly.

E&O underwriters are assessing risk. To assess risk accurately, they need to understand the firm's project mix, client relationships, contract practices, and revenue history — not just a headcount and a revenue total. The application reflects that.

Revenue summarized by project type category

The centerpiece of the E&O renewal application is a revenue summary organized by the underwriter's project type classification list. Not by project. Not by the client. By category — Commercial, Healthcare, Residential, Educational, Industrial, Government, and so on, in whatever groupings the carrier uses.

For each category, the underwriter wants three numbers: gross billings, subconsultant costs, and net professional fees. The premium is calculated on net professional fees—the firm's own work, with subconsultant pass-throughs removed.

Three years of data

Most underwriters request three reporting periods: the current year and the two prior years. This gives them a trend view, not just a snapshot. A firm that shifted significantly toward higher-risk project types in the current year shows that shift more clearly in a three-year view. A firm with a stable project mix year over year signals consistent, predictable risk.

Producing three years of data when project records are not organized by category is three times the reconstruction problem. When the data is organized at intake, three years is the same report run three times.

Five largest clients by revenue

The underwriter wants to know who the firm's largest clients are — by name, project type, and revenue — to understand client concentration risk. A firm that derives 60% of its revenue from a single client has a different risk profile than one with revenue distributed across 30 clients.

Client type breakdown

Private owner, government agency, developer, contractor, public institution — the mix of client types affects the risk profile because different client types have different tendencies toward claims, different contractual expectations, and different sophistication levels in managing disputes.

Contract type breakdown

AIA standard agreements, the firm's own contract, letter agreements, client-provided contracts — the contract types the firm uses signal how well its professional liability exposure is managed. Firms working under AIA standard agreements with appropriate limitation of liability clauses are viewed differently than firms working primarily under client-provided contracts with unfavorable terms.

Claims history

Five years of claims history, typically, including any claims made against the firm's professional liability policy, how they were resolved, and the amounts involved. This is the backward-looking risk indicator that underwriters weigh heavily.

→ Read: What Your E&O Underwriter Actually Asks For at Renewal

Gross, Subconsultant Costs, and Net — Why the Distinction Matters

The revenue summary at the heart of the E&O renewal application requires three separate figures for each project category. Understanding why all three are needed — and what each one represents — clarifies both what the underwriter is doing with the data and why subconsultant separation is the step most firms skip.

Gross billings

Gross billings are the total amount invoiced to clients during the reporting period — everything that appeared on an invoice, regardless of who performed the work. For a prime A/E firm that contracts with engineering subconsultants and passes their fees through to the client, gross billings include both the firm's own professional fees and the subconsultant costs billed to the client.

Gross billings give the underwriter a picture of the firm's total revenue footprint — the scale of its practice and the volume of work it manages. But gross billings overstate the firm's own professional exposure because they include work performed by subconsultants whose own E&O policies cover their services.

Subconsultant costs

Subconsultant costs are the amounts the prime firm paid to subconsultants whose fees were included in client billings. These represent work performed by other licensed professionals — structural engineers, MEP engineers, civil engineers, geotechnical engineers, and others — who carry their own professional liability coverage.

The prime firm's liability for subconsultant work is real but different in nature from its liability for its own professional services. Underwriters want subconsultant costs separated from the prime firm's own fees to understand the true professional exposure — the work the firm did itself, under its own professional seal.

Net professional fees

Net professional fees are gross billings minus subconsultant costs. This is the figure that represents the prime firm's own professional services — the work it performed, the drawings it sealed, the engineering it provided, the design decisions it made. This is the number the E&O premium is rated on.

For a firm doing significant subconsultant pass-through billing, the difference between gross billings and net professional fees can be substantial. An architecture firm that billed $2.5 million gross but paid $800,000 to engineering subconsultants has net professional fees of $1.7 million — and should be rated on $1.7 million, not $2.5 million. Firms that report gross billings without subconsultant separation may be overstating their net professional fee base and paying a higher premium than their actual exposure warrants.

BaseBuilders tracks subconsultant costs as a distinct cost type in normal project management — the same tracking that drives subconsultant liability management and pay request processing. At renewal, the E&O report draws on existing subconsultant cost data to automatically populate the Subs column, by category, for any reporting period.

→ Read: Gross Billings, Subconsultant Costs, and Net Fees: How E&O Underwriters Calculate Your Premium Base

Fees vs. Billings vs. Income — Which Revenue Figure to Report

The E&O renewal application asks for revenue by category — but revenue can be measured three different ways, and the choice matters.

Why contracted fees distort multi-year projects

Contracted fees are the amounts the firm agreed to deliver services for — the fee stated in the contract or proposal. For a project that begins and ends within a single reporting period, the contracted fee and the billings for that period are approximately the same. For a project that spans two or three reporting periods, they diverge significantly.

A $900,000 design contract signed in year one and billed across three years should appear as roughly $300,000 in each year's renewal report — reflecting the work actually performed and invoiced in each period. If the firm reports the full contracted fee in year one, it overstates year-one revenue and understates year-two and year-three revenue. If it reports nothing in years two and three because the fee was already counted, those years are understated.

Most underwriters want period-level revenue data — what the firm actually did during the reporting period — not contract-level totals that may span multiple years. Contracted fees are a contract-level number. They do not accurately reflect activity within a specific reporting period when projects span renewal cycles.

Billings

Billings are what were actually invoiced to clients during the reporting period. For any reporting period, billings reflect the work the firm delivered and invoiced — regardless of when the underlying contract was signed or when payment was received. Billings are a period-level number and a more accurate reflection of the firm's activity during a specific renewal period than contracted fees.

For multi-year projects, billings automatically capture the right portion of each year's work. The year-one billing includes only the invoices issued in year one. Year two includes only year-two invoices. The revenue is correctly distributed across reporting periods without any manual calculation.

Income

Income is what was actually collected — payments received during the reporting period. Income is the most conservative measure and reflects the firm's realized revenue for the period, independent of billing timing.

For firms with consistent collection performance — invoices that are paid within 30 to 60 days — billings and income will be close. For firms with significant aged receivables or slow-paying clients, the difference between billings and income can be meaningful.

Which to use

Use billings or income — not contracted fees — unless the underwriter specifically requests contracted fees. Most underwriters in the A/E professional liability market ask for billings or income precisely because they want period-level accuracy on multi-year projects. When in doubt, ask the broker. The broker knows what the carrier wants.

BaseBuilders supports Net Fees, Net Billings, and Net Income in the E&O renewal report. The user selects which measure to report when running the export.

→ Read: How to Categorize Your A/E Projects for E&O Insurance Renewal

The Category List Challenge — Why No Two Carriers Are the Same

One of the most consistent friction points in E&O renewal reporting is the project type classification list. Every underwriter uses one. None of them is the same.

One carrier may organize project types into twelve categories — Commercial Office, Retail, Healthcare, Hospitality, Educational, Residential Single-Family, Residential Multi-Family, Industrial, Government/Civic, Infrastructure, Mixed-Use, and Other. Another may use eight broader categories that combine some of these. A third may split Healthcare into Acute Care, Medical Office, and Long-Term Care because healthcare project risk profiles vary significantly by facility type.

The specific categories matter because the underwriter's risk assessment — and the premium — are built on them. Healthcare carries different risk assumptions than commercial office. Residential carries different assumptions than the government. A firm that incorrectly categorizes a medical office project as commercial office is presenting a risk profile that doesn't accurately reflect its exposure.

For firms that change carriers at renewal—or shop across multiple carriers—the category-mapping problem compounds. The prior carrier used twelve categories. The new carrier uses eight. The broker needs the revenue mapped to the new carrier's list. Without an organized, flexible categorization system, that remapping is another manual exercise.

Why the flexible Select field approach solves this

BaseBuilders handles E&O project categorization through a custom Select field on the project record. The user creates the field, names it "E&O Category" or a similar name, and loads it with the specific categories from their underwriter's classification list. When a new project is opened, the project manager tags it with the appropriate category. That tag stays with the project and is automatically carried over to the renewal report.

When the firm changes carriers or shops across carriers with different category lists, the Select field is updated to reflect the new list, and projects are retagged as needed going forward. The flexibility of the custom field means the system works for any carrier's classification list, not just one hardcoded taxonomy.

The alternative — no category tag at project intake, annual reconstruction from invoices and project descriptions — produces a categorization that is an estimate at best. A project tagged at intake by the project manager who set it up is categorized correctly. A project is categorized at renewal time from an invoice description and a project name, by someone who may not remember the specifics or may not know the underwriter's list well enough to apply it accurately.

Using the Renewal Report to Shop Competitively

Most A/E firms renew their E&O policy with the same carrier every year. The carrier is familiar. The renewal is manageable. The premium is accepted without significant scrutiny.

That pattern exists not because the incumbent carrier is necessarily offering the best terms — but because shopping requires producing the renewal data more than once. When building the renewal data is a multi-day reconstruction project, submitting it to one carrier is painful enough. Submitting it to three is unthinkable.

The E&O market for A/E professional liability includes approximately 60 active carriers. Pricing varies meaningfully across carriers for identical risk profiles. Brokers who specialize in A/E professional liability have relationships across the market and access to pricing that a firm renewing with a single carrier every year never sees.

The firms that consistently pay competitive E&O premiums are not the ones with the best claims histories — though that helps. They are the ones who go to market regularly with organized, complete data that brokers can use to get real quotes from real carriers without significant additional work.

When the E&O renewal report runs in minutes from BaseBuilders, the barrier to competitive shopping disappears. The same export that goes to the incumbent carrier goes to two competing brokers simultaneously. Each broker shops the firm's book across their carrier relationships. The firm receives competitive quotes and makes an informed decision — rather than renewing on autopilot because the alternative was too much work.

Clean data is leverage. The firm that walks into renewal conversations with organized, complete, three-year revenue data by category — gross billings, subconsultant costs, and net fees clearly separated — is a firm that brokers can actually go to market with. That is a different conversation than the one most A/E firms have at renewal.

→ Read: How to Set Up and Run Your E&O Renewal Report in BaseBuilders

How BaseBuilders Generates the E&O Renewal Report

The E&O renewal report in BaseBuilders is a summarized export of project billing and subconsultant cost data, organized by the E&O Category tag on each project, for a user-defined date range. The setup is one-time. The report runs every year in minutes.

What's automatic from day one

BaseBuilders already tracks project billings and subconsultant costs as distinct line items in the normal course of project management. Every invoice issued to a client contributes to the gross billings total for that project. Every subconsultant pay request recorded and paid contributes to the subconsultant cost total. These two figures are maintained separately and automatically — as a consequence of how BaseBuilders manages billing and subconsultant costs, not as a special reporting feature.

Net professional fees — the figure the premium is rated on — is calculated automatically as gross billings minus subconsultant costs.

What requires one-time setup

Creating the E&O Category Select field on the project record takes minutes. Loading it with the underwriter's specific category list takes a few more. Once the field exists and the categories are loaded, project managers tag new projects at intake — one field, populated when the project is opened, requiring no additional effort in the future.

For existing projects already in BaseBuilders, a one-time tagging pass — reviewing active and recently completed projects and assigning the appropriate category — completes the historical data. For most firms, this is an afternoon's work the first year and zero additional work every year after that.

Running the report

At renewal, the user selects the reporting period date range — typically the underwriter's twelve-month window — and runs the E&O renewal report. The report summarizes by E&O Category, showing Gross, Subs, and Net for each category within the date range.

For three years of data, the report is run three times — once for each period — and the three exports are combined into the renewal application format.

The user selects whether to report Net Fees, Net Billings, or Net Income based on what the underwriter asks for. All three options are available in the same report.

The export goes to the broker. The broker submits it to the underwriter — and, if shopping competitively, to multiple underwriters simultaneously. The renewal conversation happens from a position of organized, complete, accurate data.

E&O Renewal Reporting Deep Dives

These articles cover each component of the E&O renewal reporting process — from understanding what underwriters ask for through setting up the BaseBuilders report and using clean data to get competitive quotes.

What Your E&O Underwriter Actually Asks For at Renewal
‍The complete renewal application picture — revenue by category, gross versus net, subconsultant separation, client type mix, contract types, five largest clients, and claims history — and why each item matters to the underwriter assessing your risk.

Gross Billings, Subconsultant Costs, and Net Fees: How E&O Underwriters Calculate Your Premium Base
‍Your E&O premium is rated on net professional fees — not gross billings. Here's what that distinction means, how subconsultant costs are separated, and why firms that report correctly may be paying less than they think.

How to Categorize Your A/E Projects for E&O Insurance Renewal
‍Every E&O underwriter uses a different classification list. Here's how to build a project tagging system in BaseBuilders that matches your specific carrier's categories and makes renewal a report run rather than a categorization exercise.

How to Set Up and Run Your E&O Renewal Report in BaseBuilders
‍The complete setup guide — creating the Select field, loading the category list, tagging projects at intake, and running the annual export that gives your broker everything needed to go to market on your behalf.

How E&O Renewal Reporting Connects to the Rest of the Firm

The data that drives the E&O renewal report is not separate from the data that drives the firm's financial management. It is the same data — project billings and subconsultant costs tracked in BaseBuilders for billing, profitability, and cash flow management.

Subconsultant management — the subconsultant cost-tracking that drives E&O renewal reporting is also the same tracking that manages pay requests, accrued liabilities, and subconsultant payout workflows. The separation of subconsultant costs from net professional fees in the renewal report is an automatic output of a system that was already tracking those costs for other purposes.

Billing and profitability — the gross billings that appear in the renewal report are the same invoiced amounts tracked for billing cycle management, WIP, and realization rate calculation. The billing data exists because the firm manages its revenue cycle — the renewal report draws on it as a byproduct.

Project management — the E&O Category tag lives on the project record alongside all other project data — phase budgets, fee allocations, team assignments, and status. Tagging a project with its E&O category at intake is an additional field in the project setup process, not a separate system or workflow.

R&D Tax Credit — both the R&D labor report and the E&O renewal report follow the same pattern: data that already exists in BaseBuilders, organized through a one-time setup, exported annually in minutes for compliance purposes. The firms that have configured both reports are completing two annual compliance workflows in the time it used to take to complete one — and doing both more accurately than the reconstruction approach ever allowed.

→ See: BaseBuilders vs Monograph

→ See: BaseBuilders vs BQE Core

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