If accounts receivable is one of the largest assets on your balance sheet, your 2027 planning should include a strategy for protecting it.
Right now, companies are building budgets, setting sales targets, pursuing new customers, reviewing credit limits, and deciding where the next year of growth will come from. CFOs, controllers, credit managers, treasury teams, and finance leaders are all part of those conversations.
But every growth plan has a credit risk plan hidden inside it.
More sales can mean larger receivables. Bigger customers can mean greater concentrations. New customers bring unfamiliar credit risks. International expansion can mean extending credit thousands of miles from home. Longer payment terms can help win business, but they also leave capital exposed for longer.
That is why Trade Credit Insurance (TCI), also commonly referred to as accounts receivable insurance, belongs in the 2027 planning conversation.
At its core, TCI protects companies against covered losses when customers fail to pay. But looking at it only as protection against bad debt misses much of its value. A well-structured Trade Credit Insurance program can help credit teams make informed decisions, give CFOs and controllers another tool to protect the balance sheet, support working-capital and financing discussions, and give sales teams greater confidence when pursuing growth.
TCI is not just about what happens when a customer fails. It is about helping companies decide how much business they are comfortable doing before anything goes wrong.
Growth Creates Credit Exposure
Suppose a company enters 2027 targeting 15% revenue growth. That sounds like a sales objective, but achieving it may require larger credit limits for existing customers, onboarding new accounts, entering new markets, offering competitive payment terms, or carrying substantially more accounts receivable.
In other words, the sales target also creates a credit target.
Every additional dollar sitting in accounts receivable represents value the company has already delivered but has not yet collected. Products may have shipped. Services have been performed. Employees, suppliers, and freight providers may already have been paid. The seller is waiting for its customer to complete the transaction by paying the invoice.
Until that happens, the seller is effectively financing the customer.
That is why credit risk deserves a seat at the planning table alongside revenue, margin, cash flow, inventory, and working capital. Growth is good. Profitable growth that ultimately gets collected is better.
Give Credit Managers More Tools, Not Less Responsibility
Strong credit teams are enormously valuable because good credit management is not simply about preventing losses. It is about helping the company determine which risks are worth taking.
Credit managers sit in a difficult position. Sales wants room to grow. Finance wants predictability. Management wants revenue. The credit team must evaluate whether customers have the ability and willingness to pay while maintaining commercial relationships worth millions of dollars.
Trade Credit Insurance should strengthen that function, not replace it.
Credit insurers continuously evaluate companies, industries, payment trends, financial information, economic conditions, and other factors affecting buyer risk. Depending on the structure of the policy, a company may request insured credit limits on individual buyers and incorporate that information into its existing credit process.
Consider a credit manager deciding whether a customer should receive a $250,000 credit limit or a $2 million credit limit. Internal experience with the customer matters. Financial statements matter. Payment history matters. Industry conditions matter. Having a credit insurer evaluating the same exposure adds another perspective.
The credit manager understands the relationship. The insurer brings its own credit intelligence and risk appetite. The controller understands the financial impact of the exposure. The CFO sees how it connects to cash flow, liquidity, financing, and the company’s overall growth strategy.
The best TCI programs complement good credit management rather than trying to replace it.
Protect an Asset You Worked Hard to Create
Accounts receivable often represents one of the largest assets on a company’s balance sheet. Yet businesses sometimes spend more time protecting buildings, equipment, inventory, and vehicles than thinking about what happens if a major receivable suddenly becomes uncollectible.
Consider a $1 million receivable from a long-standing customer.
A long relationship does not guarantee payment. Companies can experience liquidity problems, lose financing, face sudden market disruptions, or file for bankruptcy. When that happens, the seller may have already recognized the revenue and absorbed much of the expense associated with generating it.
Then the receivable disappears.
The mathematics can be painful. At a 10% profit margin, a company would need approximately $10 million in additional profitable sales to offset the economic impact of a $1 million bad debt.
That is where accounts receivable insurance can fundamentally change the outcome. If a covered customer fails to pay, the policy can reimburse a substantial percentage of the insured loss, subject to the policy’s terms and conditions.
For a credit manager, that is protection against customer default. For a controller, it helps protect a major balance-sheet asset. For a CFO, it can help reduce the financial volatility associated with a significant bad debt.
Same policy. Different value depending on where you sit in the organization.
Let Credit Help Drive Growth
There is another side of Trade Credit Insurance that receives far less attention: TCI can help companies say yes.
Imagine a customer currently has a $500,000 credit limit and comes back with an opportunity to double its purchases in 2027.
- Sales sees revenue.
- Credit sees the exposure increasing from $500,000 toward $1 million.
Both are right
Without additional information or protection, the credit department may understandably be uncomfortable with the increase. With TCI, the company may be able to obtain additional credit intelligence and insurance capacity that helps support a larger exposure.
That can change the internal conversation.
Instead of asking, “Should we take this risk?” the company can ask, “How can we structure this risk intelligently enough to pursue the opportunity?”
That is a much more powerful role for the credit function.
The same applies to new customers. A company may identify an attractive distributor, retailer, manufacturer, contractor, or wholesaler but have limited experience with its payment behavior. Trade Credit Insurance can add another layer of information and protection while the seller develops its own history with the account.
It does not make every opportunity a good opportunity. It can help companies make better-informed decisions about the opportunities they choose to pursue.
Domestic, Export, or Both
Trade Credit Insurance is sometimes mistakenly viewed primarily as an export product. In reality, companies can use TCI to protect domestic accounts receivable, export receivables, or both.
The industries can be just as varied: food, produce, manufacturing, chemicals, aviation, technology, apparel, logistics, distribution, professional services, and many others.
The common denominator is not the industry or the country.
It is the payment terms.
If one business sells to another on Net 30, Net 60, or Net 90 terms, the seller is extending credit. Every open invoice creates a credit exposure until the money arrives.
For exporters, the challenge can be even more pronounced. Companies may be evaluating buyers thousands of miles away, dealing with unfamiliar financial information, local business practices, economic conditions, or legal systems.
Trade Credit Insurance can help qualified exporters offer competitive open-account credit terms while protecting eligible receivables against covered non-payment. That can make TCI both a risk-management tool and a commercial tool when competing for international business.
Bring the CFO, Controller and Lender Into the Conversation
Trade Credit Insurance also reaches beyond sales and credit because accounts receivable sits at the heart of working capital.
A rapidly growing company can be profitable on paper and still experience cash-flow pressure. If sales rise faster than customers pay, more capital becomes trapped in receivables. That makes the quality and collectability of those receivables increasingly important.
Banks and other lenders know this. Receivables are frequently part of the analysis behind working-capital facilities, asset-based lending, and other financing structures.
Insured receivables may provide lenders with additional comfort because a portion of the underlying customer non-payment risk has been transferred to an insurance carrier. Depending on the lender and financing structure, Trade Credit Insurance may support conversations around receivables financing, borrowing arrangements, or availability under a credit facility.
This is why TCI should not live in an insurance silo.
Credit sees customer risk. The controller sees the balance sheet. Treasury sees liquidity. The CFO sees capital. Sales sees opportunity. The lender sees collateral.
Accounts receivable connects all of them.
Make TCI Part of the 2027 Plan
The worst time to discover that a company had too much exposure to a customer is after that customer stops paying.
The better time to have the conversation is now.
As companies prepare for 2027, finance and credit teams should be looking at their largest customer exposures, concentration risks, credit limits, payment trends, growth targets, working-capital requirements, domestic expansion, and export plans.
Then ask a simple question:
If our 2027 growth plan works, what happens to our accounts receivable exposure?
That question can reveal a lot.
Trade Credit Insurance does not need to look the same for every company. Programs can be structured around broader portfolios, key accounts, or specific buyer exposures depending on the company’s needs and the available insurance market.
At ATRAFIN, we help companies understand those options, evaluate their accounts receivable exposure, access the Trade Credit Insurance market, compare coverage structures, and build programs around the way they sell.
Because the objective is bigger than buying an insurance policy.
It is helping credit managers make better-informed decisions. Helping controllers protect the balance sheet. Helping CFOs think more strategically about working capital and risk. Helping sales teams pursue opportunities responsibly. And helping companies protect the revenue they have already worked hard to earn.
2027 is around the corner. The sales targets are coming. The budgets are being built. The growth plans are taking shape.
Make sure the credit strategy behind them is ready.