Guided owner tour · 5 steps
What stayed with your agency?
Start with the clients you already served. Review which relationships stayed, how much of last year's premium and commission renewed, and where changes deserve attention. Use the figures to decide what to investigate next.
KEELRIDGE SOFTWARE · REVIEWED · Screens come from a fictional, read-only agency.
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The short answer
Start with who stayed. Investigate what changed.
Which relationships did we keep?
Follow last year's clients to the ending date. Read the count beside how much of last year's premium and commission renewed.
What does the gap tell us?
Compare client retention with retained premium and with premium retention to see what account size and price changes did to the result.
What needs attention next?
Use monthly movement to locate the change, then choose the next investigation or agency conversation. People own the follow-through.
Which book are we measuring?
Where: Agency Performance, Book, Retention. A switch at the top picks All business, Commercial or Personal.
Start with last year's book: the clients and policies in force at the opening snapshot. Ask which of those clients remain, and what their policies renewed at. New and acquired business arriving during the period comes after renewal business in book movement; it was not part of last year's book.
The view should state both dates, the segment, and the treatment of rewrites, carrier moves and missing identifiers before presenting a percentage. In the demo the window is the twelve months to September 30, 2026.
Try the formula in the public calculator →
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What do the three measures tell us?
Two agencies can both say “premium retention” and mean different things. Keelridge uses the Best Practices Study's convention: renewal business over last year's book.
Client retention counts each of last year's clients once. In the demo, 92.0% of clients were retained, 92.8% of premium and 93.0% of commission renewed. Premium retention is renewal business over last year's annual in-force premium: last year's premium less lost clients and dropped lines, plus rate and exposure changes and rewrites. Commission retention is the same bridge in annual recurring commission represented in the AMS, with estimates disclosed. Premium and commission retention can pass 100% when prices rise.
Commission retention is not booked commission income from the general ledger. Benchmarks compares the study's calendar-year commission renewal business separately.
Compare all three measures in the owner demo →
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Were the lost accounts larger or smaller?
Where: Agency Performance, Book, Growth, the same twelve months.
Take price out first. Retained premium is last year's premium less lost clients and dropped lines, before rate and exposure. If client retention is stronger than retained premium, the departing accounts carried more premium than average. Stronger retained premium means they were smaller. In the demo, retained premium is $5.60M of a $6.28M opening book, 89%, against 92% of clients retained: the clients who left were larger than average.
The step from retained premium to renewal business is rate and exposure, plus the price change on rewrites. Commission retention adds the annual commission view, with its estimates and basis kept visible.
The Keelridge Assistant supports questions about authorized figures and links answers to the figures behind them, helping the owner investigate without rebuilding the review.
Why client and premium retention can move apart →
Owner viewOpen this page in the live demo →
When did the book change?
The annual retention rate covers twelve months at once. The monthly movement chart answers a related but different question: when premium left with lost clients and dropped lines, and when it arrived as new or acquired business (Gained on the chart). Read those months as context for the annual result.
A client who leaves and comes back inside the year can show as lost in one month and gained in another. The twelve-month bridge compares only its two end dates.
Inspect monthly movement in the owner demo →
Owner viewOpen this page in the live demo →
Repeat the review. Follow through with context.
The public calculator is useful when the totals are already known. Keelridge does the harder recurring work: after mapping, the owner, or someone the owner authorizes, uploads supported AMS reports, reviews the checks and confirms the update. Keelridge compares dated book records using the agreed definitions, so management can start from the figures without rebuilding book movement from several reports each month.
A monthly conversation is a useful rhythm; supported uploads can happen whenever reports are available. Decide which changes need investigation, then give managers and account teams context within their roles. People own follow-up and authoritative insurance activity stays in the AMS.
See how recurring source files become a review →Before drawing a conclusion
Keep the figures and responsibility clear.
- Use consistent dates and definitions.Compare the same book, price basis and reporting window.
- Investigate the reason with the agency.Client presence in a book export does not establish why someone left or who caused the result. Bring source records and human context into that conversation.
- Read growth separately from retention.New arrivals come after renewal business in book movement, outside the retention calculation.
- Give each role appropriate context.Commission retention belongs in the executive review. Managers and account teams use permitted assigned-team or own-book figures.
Questions from agency owners
Before comparing one retention rate with another.
How do you calculate an insurance agency's retention rate?
Client retention divides the clients still with the agency by the clients a year earlier. Premium retention, which Keelridge reports as renewal business, starts with last year's premium, takes away lost clients and dropped lines, and adds rate and exposure changes and the price change on rewrites; divide by last year's premium. Commission retention is the same calculation in annual recurring commission, with estimates disclosed.
Read the note →Why are client retention and premium retention different?
Client retention counts each client once. Premium retention is renewal business over last year's premium, so it moves with account size and with price. The measures diverge when the clients who leave are larger or smaller than average, and when renewal prices rise or fall. Retained premium, the premium left before price changes, separates the two.
Read the note →Does new business belong in an insurance agency retention calculation?
No. Retention starts from last year's book, so new clients, new lines, acquired books and coverage back after a gap in the records are outside both sides of the calculation. A rewrite is not new business either: it stays retained, and only its price change counts. Arrivals are tracked in the same book movement, after renewal business.
How often should an insurance agency review retention?
A monthly management conversation helps keep losses and movement current. Read the headline rates over a complete, consistently defined period, such as the trailing twelve months, and compare like-for-like windows. The owner, or someone the owner authorizes, can upload supported reports when available; the checks and a confirmation come before the updated review.
Can the Keelridge Assistant help investigate retention?
The Keelridge Assistant supports questions about authorized figures and links answers to the figures behind them. People bring agency context and decide what to do next. The public demo answers a few questions on the fictional agency.
Your agency’s retention questions
Bring the changes you need to understand.
Keelridge is free for five design partners until February 15, 2027. It starts with a 20-minute fit call, where we walk through Keelridge using fictional agency data. Discuss how you review retention today, which changes are hard to explain and who needs the resulting context. No agency files are needed for the conversation.