Insurance Agents: Want to Earn More in Commissions? 4 Strategies to Try

For insurance agents operating a small insurance agency, one of the most straightforward ways to grow is increasing commissions.

It’s a pretty simple calculation: increase your primary source of revenue, and your agency grows. Increase revenue enough, and you may be able to hire in a way that lets you enjoy efficiencies that lead to further growth – say, by bringing on a dedicated accountant so your producers can focus on sales.

So let’s look at how to grow your insurance agency by increasing commissions. In this post, we’ll explore four strategies that agents can try. (Worth noting: none of these strategies – and really, no strategy out there – is guaranteed to increase commissions.)

1. Go Independent

It’s often easier to start an agency as a captive agent than as an independent. Getting a single appointment takes less time and effort than getting multiple, and some carriers even prohibit their captive agents from selling other carriers’ policies.

But many captive agents find that their potential to grow commissions hits a ceiling. And then there's the reality that carriers can arbitrarily change their commission structures at any time – as Allstate has done in recent years and is planning to do again in 2023.

That’s why, when agents have a few years of experience under their belts, many consider going independent. While there's no guarantee that you’ll earn more in commissions as an independent agent, having the option to sell policies from multiple carriers gives you greater control over your revenue.

2. Sell Different Products

Going independent ant getting appointed with multiple carriers can take time, so a good first step to work on earning more commissions is to expand the lines of business you offer customers..

If, for example, you primarily offer personal lines, you may be able to increase commissions by selling commercial lines. This may be an especially effective strategy if you have existing customers who own businesses, do freelancing, or otherwise have commercial lines needs.

Increasing coverages per customer can lead to higher commissions while minimizing the back-end customer relationship management work you have to do.

3. Sell More Policies Total

The most obvious way to increase commissions is of course to sell more policies.

The trick, of course, is how to do that. Some strategies to try:

• Rethink your email marketing. Email marketing campaigns can help increase renewals, turn prospects into customers, and increase the number of policies you sell to current customers.
• Try social media marketing. Most people hang out on at least one social media platform these days. By marketing and advertising where your prospective customers hang out, you may be able to sell to more of them.
• Take a sales training course. Insurance agents are, at heart, salespeople. But when was the last time you invested in sales coaching? Even the best can benefit from coaches – just look at Olympic athletes!

Also pay attention to how you reward and motivate yourself. When you’re your own boss, it’s important to explore which structures inspire you to push toward your revenue goals.

4. Tap into the Power of Franchising

Becoming a franchisee offers a unique platform for achieving many of the strategies outlined here. For example, when you join a franchise like We Insure, you get access to more than 100 carrier partners, which instantly expands the types of policies you can quote, offer and sell.

In many cases, franchisees are also able to earn higher commissions per sale than other agents, thanks to competitively negotiated commission structures.

Other key benefits of going the franchise route are that agents can: 

• Offload the kind of work that doesn’t drive revenue – data entry, mid-term policy changes, accounting, compliance, and so on.
• Leverage industry-leading technology, including software and tech support, to ensure their business operations run efficiently.
• Tap into marketing materials and expertise to get the word out about their agency.

New to the idea of franchises? Read a bit about the recognition We Insure is getting for providing a great experience for franchisees.

It’s Always a Good Time to Work on Agency Growth

There's no single, surefire method guaranteed to help insurance agents grow their agency, whether by increasing commissions or otherwise. There's also no single time that works best for tackling the challenge of growth. But this is good news, as it means you don’t have to wait to have all the pieces in place to work on growing commissions – you can start today! 

The information contained in this page is provided for general informational purposes only and may not be applicable to all situations. We Insure makes no guarantees of results from the use of this information.