Open numbers
What retention rate should an independent agency expect?
Independent agency retention clusters in the mid 80s, with top performers in the low to mid 90s. MarshBerry shows retention rises as clients add policies.
What the published numbers say
MarshBerry's account rounding analysis found retention climbs as a client holds more policies, from 77.1 percent for single policy clients to 84.7 percent for clients with five or more. Over five years, that 7.6 point gap makes a multi policy client nearly twice as likely to stay.
MarshBerry, Boost Retention and Revenue with Account Rounding Strategies · 2025
Agency KPI writeups citing the Big I and Reagan Consulting 2025 Best Practices Study place a typical independent agency's client retention around 84 to 85 percent, with top performing firms around 93 to 95 percent. A common rule of thumb: retention above about 92 percent signals strong service, carrier relationships, and pricing.
QuoteSweep, Insurance Agency KPIs Every Owner Should Track · 2025
Sources disagree on the average. An agency valuation firm that reviews hundreds of agencies a year puts standard property and casualty retention nearer 88 percent, and estimates fewer than 5 percent of agencies hold 94 percent or better. Read any single average as directional, not a target.
Agency Brokerage, The Value of Insurance Agency Customer Retention · 2022
How to read this
Measure your own book two ways. Client or account retention counts how many customers stay year over year. Revenue retention weights that by premium, so losing one large commercial account stings more than losing a small monoline policy. Owners and buyers usually care about revenue retention.
Judge yourself against your own line mix and client tenure, not one headline number. Personal auto and first year clients churn more. Multi year, multi policy commercial clients churn far less. A book heavy in the first reads lower than a book heavy in the second, and neither is wrong.
Caveats
- There is no free, official retention figure for the whole channel. The Big I and Reagan Consulting Best Practices Study is the recognized benchmark, but its detailed tables are paid, so the ranges here come from secondary writeups and from MarshBerry. Read them as directional.
- Averages hide the mix. Retention varies by line, by client tenure, and by whether the account is bundled. MarshBerry's own figures show a 7.6 point spread just between single policy and five plus policy clients.
- How you count changes the number. Rewritten policies, remarketed accounts, and midterm cancellations get handled differently across agencies, so two shops reporting the same retention rate may be measuring different things.
The Relay number
Relay does not publish a retention benchmark, so the numbers here belong to the sources cited. The lever every one of these studies points to is service capacity. Account rounding and proactive contact drive retention, and both compete with re-keying and document triage for a CSR's day. Relay's live tools, Ask Relay, Document Parsing, and ACORD Generation, take some of that manual work off the desk. Read the benchmark →
Common questions
What is a good retention rate for an independent agency?
Secondary writeups citing the Big I and Reagan Consulting Best Practices Study put a typical agency around the mid 80s and top performers in the low to mid 90s. A common line is that retention above about 92 percent signals strong service and pricing. Measure your own book first, and separate client retention from revenue retention.
Does bundling actually improve retention?
Yes, and it is one of the few levers with a clean number attached. MarshBerry found retention rising from 77.1 percent for single policy clients to 84.7 percent for clients with five or more. Over five years that makes a multi policy client nearly twice as likely to stay.
Every number on this page carries a source. Updated 2026-07-11. See how we source what we publish.
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