Reference · Definitions and formulas
Insurance agency metrics, explained.
Find the definition that fits the management question. Read retention, book movement and assigned-team evidence with their sources and periods attached.
PUBLISHED BY KEELRIDGE SOFTWARE · UPDATED OCTOBER 16, 2026
The short answer
Start with the question. Keep the measure, source and period together.
Retention asks what stayed from the opening book. Movement asks how the whole book changed between dates. Posted financial results and recurring Book earning power answer different questions. Assigned-team evidence adds responsibility context. Read the relevant measures together, investigate the underlying records and use judgment about what should happen next.
01 · Retention
Three cohort measures, plus the renewal rate.
Client, premium and commission retention follow the same opening customers using different weights. Renewal rate answers a separate renewed-line commission question. Later price changes, added lines and new customers do not increase the three opening-cohort ratios.
Client retention
Did the opening relationships stay? Each customer counts once, regardless of size. Read it alongside the opening premium and recurring commission those customers carried.
opening customers still active ÷ opening customers
Calculate client retentionPremium retention
Did the larger accounts stay? Weight the same customers by opening annual in-force premium. The gap from client retention shows whether departures carried more or less opening premium than average.
opening premium on retained customers ÷ opening cohort premium
Compare the two measuresCommission retention
How much recurring earning power stayed with those customers? Use opening annual recurring commission, with consistent annualization and accepted direct-bill assumptions. It is not booked commission income in the ledger.
opening annual recurring commission on retained customers ÷ opening cohort annual recurring commission
Calculate commission retentionRenewal rate
How does current renewed-line commission compare with the opening book? Include supported replacement credit. Renewal price and exposure changes can affect this measure; it is not a fourth version of the opening-customer ratio.
current annual commission on renewed lines ÷ opening-book annual commission
Read the four views in the retention tour02 · Book movement
What changed between the opening and closing book?
Separate customer arrivals and departures from premium movement on customers who stayed. Use annual in-force coverage premium at two named dates and the same scope. Customer identity, rather than policy number alone, keeps a remarket from becoming a false loss and gain.
Customer departures
Opening premium attached to customers present at the opening date and absent at the closing date.
Customer arrivals
Closing premium attached to customers absent at the opening date and present at the closing date. Organic arrivals, reactivations and acquired customers require separate classification before an arrival is treated as genuine new business.
Change on retained customers
Sum closing minus opening premium for customers present at both dates. It combines rate, exposure, coverage and mix unless more evidence separates them. The public calculator derives this amount from four totals; that arithmetic alone does not verify the records.
03 · Book and ledger
Do the book and booked commission tell the same story?
Compare a year of booked P&C commission with recurring Book earning power over the same months. This is an executive financial review, and the two measures have different reporting bases.
Compare the same period and scope.
The window is twelve calendar months ending at the last closed GL month, no later than the selected Book snapshot. All twelve months are required. Direct-bill modeling and annualization stay disclosed inside earning power; contingency and excluded streams stay outside the tie-out.
booked GL P&C commission vs window-average Book earning power
Walk the same-window comparisonLeave the unresolved difference visible.
Growth from the window average to earning power at the selected snapshot is separate. Timing & unexplained can be positive or negative; no cause is assigned without evidence. This is a directional comparison, not a controlled ledger reconciliation.
Timing & unexplained = booked GL P&C commission − window-average earning power
Put the comparison in the financial review04 · Account-team review
Read assigned-book development in context.
Are relationships staying, is genuine business arriving and are existing relationships developing? Read the components together, with assignment history, workload and service quality. The figures support a management conversation; they do not isolate employee causation.
Managers review their assigned teams; account managers review their own book. Commission, payout and profitability remain executive-only. Compare named periods and state the assignment rule.
| Measure | What it shows | Read it with |
|---|---|---|
| Client and premium retention | Opening customer relationships retained, counted once and weighted by their opening premium. | The period, opening cohort and responsibility history, including internal transfers. |
| Lost business | Customers and opening premium that departed between the named dates. | The agency's explanation of departures; customer presence alone does not establish why someone left. |
| Genuine growth | Source-classified new customers and added lines on existing relationships, with their associated premium. | Separate reactivations, acquisitions, remarkets and transfers before attributing genuine growth. |
| Retained-book movement | Premium change on customers who remained in the assigned book. | Rate, exposure, coverage and mix; the combined change is not all sales or all pricing. |
| Rounding and relationship development | Source-supported coverage additions and removals within existing relationships. | Genuine additions, dropped lines and continuity; policy count alone does not establish a sales action. |
| Assigned-book commission (executive view) | Annual recurring agency commission associated with the assigned book. | The attribution rule, annualization and accepted modeled basis. It is not booked accounting income. |
Where the definitions fit
One management review across financial, book and team performance.
These selected formulas support a broader review: see what changed, investigate the evidence and decide where attention belongs. One agency context gives people the views and context their responsibilities require.
Agency P&L and EBITDA
Is revenue turning into profit? Read booked results against the comparison period and inspect the accounting rows behind the change.
Budget, pacing and benchmark context
Are results developing as expected? Compare actuals with the approved plan and the Big "I" / Reagan Consulting Best Practices Study's figures for the agency's revenue band, with study year and definitions visible.
Retention, growth and movement
Did relationships stay, and what changed in the book? Read the four retention views with genuine growth, customer arrivals and departures, mix and retained-customer movement.
Genuine arrivals and a human-owned pipeline
Review opportunity activity separately from what later appears in the book. People maintain outcomes; tracker-to-AMS matching is not automatic.
Assigned books and responsibility
How are assigned books developing? Review retention, genuine growth, movement and rounding alongside responsibility and human context.
My Book review and follow-through
Use renewal calendars, current-versus-prior-term premium-change flags, review state and rounding candidates within the assigned scope. People complete authoritative service work in the AMS.
05 · Source basis
The reports may already exist. The review still needs assembling.
Book snapshots, posted financials and agency definitions have different jobs, even when one system stores them. Agree the periods, mappings and reporting basis before comparing the figures.
AMS book-of-business reports
Dated customer and policy records, annual in-force premium, recurring commission, renewal dates, carrier and line information, and assigned responsibility.
Income statements or approved accounting reports
Booked income, operating expenses and the accounting periods needed for financial, plan-versus-actual and Book-to-GL review. Accounting can live in the AMS or a separate system.
Agency definitions
Mappings, exclusions, staff assignments, annualization, accepted direct-bill assumptions and plan structure make the comparison repeatable.
Free tools and recurring review
Keep the definitions. Reuse the management evidence.
Work through one calculation.
Enter figures you already have to calculate retention or build a book movement bridge. The arithmetic runs in the browser; entered figures are not sent or stored by Keelridge. These tools do not locate or reconstruct the inputs.
Return to the same evidence when the question comes back.
The management picture should not have to be assembled by hand each time. After setup, supported agency sources are refreshed and validated so Keelridge keeps dated evidence ready for recurring review and authorized Assistant investigation.
- Financial, book and team evidence for one review
- Monthly, YTD, and year-over-year views, according to the measure
- Owner, assigned-team and own-book permissions
- Sources, periods and definitions attached to the figures
Reference questions
How the measures are used.
What insurance agency performance metrics should be reviewed monthly?
Start with the management question: financial results against plan, relationships and opening book value retained, genuine growth, assigned-book development or renewal work. Read client, premium and commission retention alongside the distinct renewal rate. Keep each figure's source, period and definition attached before deciding what needs investigation.
Read the note →What files does Keelridge use to calculate these metrics?
The recurring review uses supported dated AMS Book exports and income statements or approved accounting reports. Accounting may live in the AMS or a separate system. Setup establishes the mappings, definitions and role scope; authorized staff review validation and confirm each supported update. The relevant snapshots and accounting windows must support the comparison being made.
Do agency owners have to calculate these figures by hand in Keelridge?
No. The public reference and calculators show how selected measures work. In Keelridge, supported source reports are mapped and validated so the same management measures can be reused in recurring reviews rather than recalculated from scratch.
Can one number measure an insurance account manager's performance?
Read retention, genuine growth, retained-book movement and rounding together, then bring assignment history, workload and service quality into the conversation. Transfers and acquired books change responsibility context. The figures alone do not establish employee causation or decide compensation. Managers review assigned-team evidence; account managers review their own book. Commission, payout and profitability remain executive-only.
Why can AMS commission differ from the insurance agency general ledger?
The Book describes annual recurring earning power; the ledger records posted income. Keelridge compares booked GL P&C commission over twelve complete calendar months with earning power averaged over the same months. Growth to the selected snapshot is separate, and Timing & unexplained stays signed and unallocated until evidence supports an explanation. This is a directional comparison, not a controlled ledger reconciliation.
Read the note →Can I ask the Keelridge Assistant about these measures in the public demo?
The public demo opens an Assistant notice instead of analytical chat. The Product page shows a recorded fictional-agency answer with evidence. Supported questions can be evaluated during an owner walkthrough; tool access follows the authorized role and evidence scope.
The recurring management review
Carry the definitions into the next review.
See how supported agency reports become recurring management evidence, with sources, periods and role-appropriate context. Pilot terms are available before commitment.