Renewal costs
What are lost renewals costing you?
Five questions about your book. You’ll see what the clients who don’t renew take with them each year, and what it’s worth to keep a few more.
Under a minute. The sums run in your browser — your figures stay with you unless you ask for the report.
Five questions
Rough figures are fine. You can change them as you go.
If you’re not sure, use your total live policies. Most renew once a year.
Your average across insurers. Include any fee you charge per policy.
78 of 100
If you’ve never counted it, somewhere in the seventies or low eighties is a reasonable starting guess for personal lines.
+4 in 100
This is your target, not our promise. Keeping 2 or 3 more in every 100 is a realistic first year just from reaching everyone in good time.
Chasing renewals eats hours. This won’t change the money figure above, but it shows how much of your team’s week goes on it.
Calls, emails, checking the record, chasing, and the ones nobody answers.
Salary plus NI, pension and overheads. Around £24 for a renewals handler on £30k.
The repeat attempts, not the conversations that need a person. We’d start at 45% and treat anything higher as a stretch.
Your answer
Commission you lose each year when clients don’t renew
£20.6kAbout 264 clients walk each year. Keep 4 more in every 100 and £3.7k of that comes back.
Behind that number
If you kept 4 more in every 100
Out of every 100 renewals
- 78stay today
- 4you’d keep
- 18still leave
Three targets, side by side
Tap a row to update the panel above. These are scenarios you’re modelling, not results we’re promising.
| Target | Clients kept | Premium kept | Commission kept |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keep 2 more in 100A cautious start | 24 | £12.5k | £1,872 |
| Keep 4 more in 100A realistic first year | 48 | £25.0k | £3,744 |
| Keep 7 more in 100A good year | 84 | £43.7k | £6,552 |
How we worked this out
1,200 renewals a year, and 78 in every 100 stay — so about 264 leave.
1,200 × (100 − 78)% = 264
Each was paying around £520, so £137,280 of premium leaves the book.
264 × £520 = £137,280
At 15% commission, that’s £20,592 of your income gone.
£137,280 × 15% = £20,592
Keeping 4 more in every 100 means 48 of them stay.
1,200 × 4% = 48
Those clients are worth £3,744 in commission.
48 × £520 × 15% = £3,744
If it holds for three years
A client kept this year can renew again next year, so it builds.
| Year | Clients kept | Commission | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 48 | £3,744 | £3,744 |
| Year 2 | 85 | £6,664 | £10,408 |
| Year 3 | 115 | £8,942 | £19,350 |
Three years together
£19.4kIllustrative, not a forecast. Clients kept in an earlier year renew again at your current retention rate, not the improved one, and book size and premiums are held flat.
What it would cost you
Your plan, on this book size
Starter
Up to 1,500 policies · £39 a month
A year
£468
Left after paying for it
£3.3k
For every £1 spent
£8.00
Keeping 48 more clients covers the £468 and leaves £3,276. Put another way, it pays for itself once 6 clients stay — the rest is yours.
List prices, excluding VAT. Staff hours are not counted here — this compares against commission alone.