Alliant Trade Solutions (formerly One Source Risk Management)
Turning Trade Credit into a Financial Strategy

Mike DeLuca, Managing Partner

Accounts receivable can represent one of the largest assets on a company’s balance sheet, yet they are also the only major asset controlled entirely by someone else. Because businesses cannot make customers pay, receivables require deliberate management to prevent loss.

One Source Risk Management approaches credit risk with the same attention businesses give other material risks, treating receivables as an asset warranting active management.

A division of Alliant Insurance Services, Inc., One Source helps clients assess and protect receivables through credit insurance solutions built around how each business operates. Its work spans coverage, credit information and risk management, giving clients support across the broader credit function.

“We’re a service company first and a sales company second. Our client-focused approach allows us to do things others can’t,” says Mike DeLuca, managing partner.

That philosophy reflects the nature of trade credit itself. Unlike a commodity insurance product, it requires ongoing service as customers, markets and transactions change. One Source’s specialists stay close to those changes, bringing industry knowledge and tailored expertise to clients.

Customizing Protection around Real Exposure

One Source’s industry teams bring expertise across energy, food and technology. In energy, for example, its team includes former traders, risk managers and risk bankers with industry expertise. That firsthand experience helps understand the factors shaping each client’s credit exposure.

It evaluates the client’s industry, geography, variable gross margins and receivables turns, then weighs those against risk tolerance and financial objectives. For instance, if accounts receivable are pledged to a bank, the available advance rate becomes part of the calculation. Insured receivables can also strengthen the borrowing base, potentially improving advance rates and funding economics. It can then use credit insurance as part of a broader financial strategy, with the policy designed around goals like improving profits and lowering days sales outstanding.

One Source’s scale gives it leverage with carriers, helping turn client-specific analysis into tailored coverage. The team determines the right solution first, using customized policies and endorsements where needed, before addressing the economics.

Its service team supports this process, staying close to changing credit needs rather than treating coverage as a one-time transaction. A dedicated client information services team gathers financial, banking and trade information to help establish or re-establish limits that carriers have declined, reduced or removed. In a single year, its team put more than 89 million dollars of previously declined, reduced or removed coverage back on policies.

Where necessary, it also builds a risk structure around an individual debtor to get coverage back in place. For customers entering new markets, the company also assesses factors like political risk, country grades, import and export licenses and the incoterms governing a transaction.

Moving Beyond a Single Credit Solution

Credit insurance is only one part of One Source’s broader credit support. Rather than treating trade credit as another insurance product, it combines credit information, monitoring and technology to support the broader finance and credit function. This includes Compass, a credit management platform designed to fill gaps in the credit function when clients lack the staff or budget to handle them internally.

For businesses facing tighter lending and higher funding costs, structured credit offers another way to approach liquidity. One Source has a dedicated team focused on these transactions, including off-balance-sheet solutions that can provide liquidity without adding traditional debt to the balance sheet.

As AI accelerates the speed at which credit decisions need to be made, One Source sees technology becoming an increasingly important part of the credit function while human judgment remains essential.

For One Source, these capabilities ultimately come back to the same asset— receivables exposed to decisions outside a company’s control. Rather than treating credit insurance as a standalone product, it positions coverage as part of a broader financial strategy built around each client’s risk, liquidity and growth objectives.