Blog

Sep 16

Warranty Administrators: A cautionary tale—and a fix you can implement today

When it’s time to sell your company, everything gets scrutinized. Especially the numbers. For F&I administrators, few metrics carry more weight with buyers than the loss ratio—and yet that number is only as accurate as the earnings curve behind it. If your curve is wrong, your loss ratios are wrong. And if your loss ratios […]

Sep 2

July 2025 Home Sales: What Home Warranty Providers Need to Know

The housing market isn’t crashing—but it is shifting. Slowly. Unevenly. And for home warranty providers, July 2025 offers critical signals about where demand is likely to rise, where lead quality is improving, and where to allocate marketing and service resources next. While national home sales totals held steady compared to June, the underlying details show […]

Aug 8

Best-in-class Metrics for VSC and Home Warranty Marketers

You Can’t Afford to Guess Most direct-to-consumer marketers in the vehicle service contract (VSC) and home warranty space know their topline numbers. Sales volume. Cancel rate. Cost per lead. But those numbers don’t tell you what’s really happening. They don’t show you which reps are killing margin, which campaigns are quietly failing, or where your […]

Aug 7

The Quiet Leak in Your Funnel: Resold Leads and Lost Contracts

What a spike in your cancellation curve is trying to tell you. Most cancellation curves follow a predictable shape: a small bump in early months, then a slow, steady climb. That’s the norm. But if you’re seeing a sudden spike in Month 3, something is off—and it’s probably not your product. For VSC and home […]

Aug 4

What’s a Cancellation Curve—And What Can It Tell Me That a Simple Cancellation Rate Can’t?

If you’re a VSC or home warranty marketer, tracking cancellations isn’t optional. But if you’re still relying on a single cancellation rate number, you’re missing the full story—and leaving money on the table. A cancellation rate tells you how many customers cancel. A cancellation curve tells you when they cancel—and that changes everything. What is […]

Jul 30

Cancellation Curves: What Slope Tells You That Totals Can’t

At high rate of early cancellation can fundamentally alter the shape of the graph.

In experience curves, the trajectory of cancellations matters more than the final number. For VSC and home warranty marketers, the timing of cancellations drives profitability. Early cancels destroy cash flow—so don’t just track how many. Track when. Why do early cancellations hurt more? If you’re a VSC marketer or home warranty marketer, you know cancellations […]

Jul 28

How to Get Your Finance Company to Lower Your Reserve Rate

When you’re scaling direct-to-consumer sales in the Vehicle Service Contract (VSC) or home warranty space, cash flow is king. You launch a $100,000 campaign. You pay your mail house and lead vendor on June 1. The mail hits mailboxes on June 10. Responses trickle in through early July. You close sales—but then wait 45 days […]

Jul 24

Why Blended Cancellation Curves Are Misleading

If you’re relying on cancellation curves from your payment plan provider—like PayLink, Mepco, or Walco—you’re only seeing part of the story. Those blended curves are useful for tracking total portfolio performance. But they won’t tell you why cancellations are happening. Because they don’t show you the differences that matter. The only way to do that? […]

Jul 22

Why Vintage Analysis Matters in Understanding Cancellations

Two curves, representing different vintages, generated by the Dark Sky Data Experience Curve.

If you’re only looking at your overall cancellation rate, you’re missing the real story. Cancellation behavior isn’t static. It shifts over time—and across different groups of contracts. That’s why you need to break it down by vintage. “A vintage is a group of contracts that started in the same period—typically a month, quarter, or. It’s […]

Jul 18

How the Wrong Earnings Curve Almost Cost an F&I Administrator Millions When Selling the Company

When preparing a company for sale, financial optics matter. For F&I administrators, few metrics carry more weight with buyers than loss ratios—and those ratios are only as accurate as the earnings curve behind them. F&I earnings curve optimization must happen before a company goes up for sale. Here’s a real-world example of how defaulting to […]