Building Proactive Retention Workflows: A Guide for Agencies

Max Smith -

Retention isn’t just about keeping clients—it’s about maximizing efficiency, increasing revenue, and creating a predictable growth engine for your agency. The insurance industry has historically been reactive when it comes to renewals, with agents scrambling to re-engage clients at the last minute.

This outdated approach leads to missed opportunities, wasted time, and unnecessary re-marketing efforts that drive up operational costs.

With a proactive retention workflow, agencies can prioritize at-risk accounts early, automate engagement, and improve efficiency without adding headcount. Let’s break down exactly how to build and implement a data-driven, proactive retention strategy in your agency.

Step 1: Move Beyond Static Renewal Reports

🔴 The Problem:
Most agencies rely on static X-date reports, meaning they treat every upcoming renewal the same way—whether a client is likely to renew or not. This results in unnecessary outreach, wasted agent time, and even client frustration from over-contacting policyholders who don’t need intervention.

✅ The Solution:
Use predictive analytics to segment your renewal book into priority levels based on churn risk. This allows your team to focus efforts on accounts that truly need attention while automating standard renewals.

How to Implement:

  • Adopt a Retention Scoring Model: Tools like ReFocus AI analyze policyholder behavior, rate sensitivity, and engagement patterns to predict which accounts are at risk of cancellation.
  • Assign Confidence Scores: Instead of a basic renewal list, provide your team with ranked accounts based on likelihood to churn.
  • Eliminate Manual Review: Instead of spending hours reviewing accounts, agents can immediately focus on high-priority renewals.

Step 2: Automate Retention Touchpoints

🔴 The Problem:
Most agencies only engage clients right before renewal, often through last-minute phone calls or emails. This reactive approach means by the time you reach out, it may already be too late—the client has already started shopping elsewhere.

✅ The Solution:
Develop a structured, automated retention sequence that keeps clients engaged year-round and eliminates manual follow-ups for your team.

How to Implement:

  1. 60 Days Before Renewal – Automated personalized email confirming renewal is upcoming, with options to review policy changes.(90 days for commercial accounts)
  2. 45 Days Before Renewal – Flag at-risk accounts and trigger a CSR follow-up task for high-risk clients.
  3. 30 Days Before Renewal – Call clients most at risk and offer incentives (e.g., rate review, policy bundling).
  4. 15 Days Before Renewal – Final automated email/text reminder with a “renew now” call-to-action.

This multi-touch strategy ensures clients aren’t caught off guard, reducing churn without overwhelming your agents.

Step 3: Reduce the Need for Re-Marketing Every Policy

🔴 The Problem:
Many agencies automatically remarket policies when faced with rate increases—regardless of whether the client is truly at risk of leaving. This wastes time and increases operational costs.

✅ The Solution:
Use data-driven insights to determine which clients are actually at risk of shopping, allowing you to focus remarketing efforts only where needed.

How to Implement:

  • Analyze Historical Behavior: Clients who haven’t shopped before are less likely to leave due to small increases—don’t automatically re-market these policies.
  • Look at Policy Changes: If a client reduced coverage or removed endorsements in the past year, they may be rate-sensitive. Prioritize them.
  • Track Engagement: If a client hasn’t engaged with the agency in over a year, they are more likely to churn. Flag them for proactive outreach.

Step 4: Use AMS & CRM Automation to Save Time

🔴 The Problem:
Agents spend hours digging through AMS notes, spreadsheets, and policy details to determine which accounts need follow-ups. This is inefficient and prone to human error.

✅ The Solution:
Leverage AMS and CRM automation to eliminate manual tracking, ensuring agents always know which accounts need attention.

How to Implement:

  • Automatically sync renewal data into AgencyZoom, AMS360, or HawkSoft.
  • Generate auto-tasks for agents based on risk levels.
  • Use AI-generated insights instead of requiring agents to manually track policyholder behavior.

With an automated workflow, your team can focus on client engagement rather than administrative work.

Step 5: Build Retention Into Your Agency Culture

🔴 The Problem:
Retention isn’t just a one-time effort—it requires an ongoing strategy that the entire agency is aligned around.

✅ The Solution:
Make retention a team set KPIs, track results, and reward agents who excel at renewal retention to make retention a team priority

How to Implement:

📊 Set Retention Goals – Track retention by producer and account manager, with incentives for high retention rates.
📅 Discuss Retention in Weekly Meetings – Review high-risk accounts in team huddles.
🏆 Recognize & Reward Retention Wins – Incentivize proactive client engagement, not just new business sales.

When retention becomes a core part of agency culture, teams naturally shift from reactive to proactive strategies.

The Future of Retention is Proactive

Building a proactive retention workflow isn't just about reducing churn—it's about improving operational efficiency, saving time, and driving more revenue per policyholder.

By prioritizing high-risk renewals, automating client engagement, and reducing unnecessary remarketing, agencies can retain more clients while doing less manual work.

Ready to optimize your retention process?


📩 Let's talk about how ReFocus AI can streamline your renewals, cut wasted effort, and drive retention success.