How to Grow When There is Insurance Market Softening
With the insurance market softening, how do you grow? Here’s what I know — growing agencies are much more fun to work in. When there’s growth, there are resources and opportunities. When agencies shrink, things can get a little weird — there’s less to go around. Your agency needs a growth strategy, even in challenging conditions.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through how to grow at renewal, in new business, and even during service interactions. It’s going to take an all-hands-on-deck approach. Every client contact is an opportunity for growth — if you choose to see it that way.
Growth From Service Calls
Many service calls can be viewed as transactions – but they can be an experience. I look at service calls like the childhood game of shoots and ladders. Every time we talk to a client we can improve or decrease the premium. The key is the mindset we need to move from transacting to connecting.
Even if you aren’t licensed you can still tee up opportunities or take everything you can off of the licensed team members so they can focus on growth. There are opportunities even when insurance market softening is happening.
Here are some ways we can grow from service calls:
- Confirm and update contact information to speed up the team and make sure marketing communications are going to the right place
- Conduct mini reviews on endorsements (endorsements are changes and change represents opportunity)
- When a monoline client calls in to ask where they have their other policies?
- Pick a policy of the month to focus on and tell as many people as possible
- Educate clients on referral programs
Every inbound call is an opportunity for growth.
Growth From Renewals
Even when insurance market softening is occurring we can still grow at renewal. Growth will take a clear plan and focus. We cannot be price sensitive or price focused. Instead, we need to think about renewal as a growth opportunity. When you conduct proactive renewal reviews you can grow from renewal.
Here are some ways you can improve your clients profile and grow from renewal:
- Update Contact Information
- Encourage Automated Payment
- Boost E-Policies
- Allow Your Client to Ask Questions
- Better Educated Client
- Cross Sales
- Coverage Increases
- Reduced E&O Concerns
- Improved Claims experience
- Reduced Remarketing
- Referrals Generation
- Update and Clean Up Your Management System
You can always check out our 4 part Soft Market series to give your team training on how to manage the soft market.
New Business Growth
You may be thinking, “Well, of course you grow with new business.” And yes — but now it’s time to take it to the next level and grow even more. We recommend you pause and intentionally build a true new business process. Many agencies have a quoting process, but not a sales process.
Here are some things that would be included in a sales process:
- 4 & Score – shooting for 4 lines per account
- Putting clients with the best carrier, not the least expensive
- Asking for referrals – turning every lead into the next one
- Effective follow up – the quote is done, let’s make sure we close it
- Keeping the standards high – we would rather you follow up with great leads than bind something sub-par
- Focusing in on higher premium clientele
- Hopping on leads quickly
Your agency needs a clear process to master selling more in a soft market. It takes some intention, but with the right plan you can get there!
Conclusion on Insurance Market Softening
The insurance market may be softening, but growth doesn’t pause — it adapts. Every service call, renewal touchpoint, and new lead is now a growth lever, not just a transaction. Agencies that treat this shift as a green light to get intentional — training teams to connect instead of transact, turning renewals into coverage upgrades, and building a real sales process instead of a quoting routine — will pull ahead while others shrink. The opportunity is real: higher close rates, stronger accounts, and a book that grows even as premiums dip. But it requires clarity, consistency, and a playbook your entire team can execute.
That’s exactly what our 4-part How to Manage a Soft Insurance Market webinar series delivers. Over four focused sessions, we’ll hand you the scripts, checklists, and systems top agencies use to grow from service, dominate renewals, and close new business with confidence. No fluff — just actionable strategies to turn a softening market into your agency’s strongest growth season yet.
Seats are filling fast. Register your team today and lock in the momentum, morale, and margin that come from leading — not reacting — in a soft market. Your next level of growth starts with one click.
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