Definition
Retention shows how much of your business stays with you from one period to the next, whether it’s policies, clients, premium, or revenue.
A typical question that retention answers would be:
“Of everything I had last year, how much is still active or renewed this year?”
Retained policy remains active, renewed, or re-written in the current period.
Lost policy was not renewed or was cancelled before the current period.
Policies That Are NOT Included
The following policies are excluded from the retention calculation:
Non-renewable products: products like surety bonds, builder’s risk, and special events
Invalid: flat-cancelled and otherwise invalid policies
Effective/Expiration Date Toggle
Retention by Effective Date
When choosing policies based on the effective date, we look at the policies that started in year N-1 (prior period), where N is the current (selected) period. Among those policies, we consider a policy retained if it was either renewed or remained active.
For example, if 01/01/2025 - 06/01/2025 effective date range is selected, then the prior period will be 01/01/2024 - 06/01/2024.
Step by step:
We take all policies that started one year before the selected period. These policies (and related accounts) go into the denominator of the retention ratio.
Among them, we count how many policies were lost. Note that an account is considered lost if its last policy expired or was canceled and did not renew.
The remaining ones are retained and used in the denominator of the retention ratio.
Retention by Expiration Date
When choosing policies based on the expiration date, we look at the policies that expired within the selected time period. Among these policies, we consider a policy retained if it was renewed.
Step by step:
We take all policies that expired during the selected period. These policies (and related accounts) go into the denominator of the retention ratio.
Among them, we count how many were renewed — these are considered retained and are used in the numerator of the retention ratio.
The ones that were not renewed are considered lost.
1. Policy Retention
1A. By Effective Date
Policy retention by policy effective date measures the percentage of insurance policies written in the previous period that are still active or renewed in the current (selected) period.
How It Is Calculated
Compare two time periods of equal length - for example:
Current (selected) period: Jan 1 2025 – Jun 1 2025 (H1 2025)
Previous period: Jan 1 2024 – Jun 1 2024 (H1 2024)
Identify all policies that were active in the previous period.
Check how many of those are still active or renewed in the current period.
Calculate:
Retention = (Retained Policies ÷ Total Policies Written) × 100%
Example
Example | Details |
Current period | H1 2025 |
Prior period | H1 2024 |
Policies from prior period | Policy-1, Policy-3 |
Retained | Policy-1 |
Retention | 1 / 2 = 50 % |
1B. By Expiration Date
Policy retention by policy expiration date measures the percentage of insurance policies expiring in the selected period that got a renewal.
How It Is Calculated
Identify all policies that expired in the selected period. This is the total number of policies.
Check how many of those got a renewal. These are renewed policies.
Calculate:
Retention = (Renewed Policies ÷ Total Policies Expired) × 100%
Example
Example | Details |
Selected period | H1 2025 |
Policies expiring in the selected period | Policy-1, Policy-2 |
Renewed policies | Policy-1 |
Lost policies | Policy-2 |
Retention | 1 / 2 = 50 % |
2. Account Retention
Account retention looks at clients as a whole rather than their individual policies.
1A. By Effective Date
Account retention by policy effective date measures how many clients from the prior period still have at least one active or renewed policy in the current (selected) period.
How It Is Calculated
Compare two time periods of equal time length - for example:
Current period: Jan 1 2025 – Jun 1 2025 (H1 2025)
Previous period: Jan 1 2024 – Jun 1 2024 (H1 2024)
Find the total number of clients with policies in the prior period. For example:
Account A has one policy effective Dec 2023 - July 2024. It is active during H1 2024
Account B has one policy effective Jan 2024 - Sep 2025. It is also active during H1 2024
For each client, find the expiration date of their policies.
Account A’s policy ends in July 2024
Account B’s policy ends in September 2025
All clients with their last policy expiring before the end of the current (selected) period are considered lost.
Account A has its last policy expiring in-between the prior and current periods. There is no renewal afterwards. This client is lost.
Account B’s last policy, however, remains active throughout the whole window and will expire only after current period. This client is retained.
→ only Account B is considered retained
Calculate:
Account Retention = (Total Clients – Lost Clients) ÷ Total Clients
Example
Example | Details |
Current period | H1 2025 |
Prior period | H1 2024 |
Account A | last policy expiring in July 2024 → Considered lost (Account A’s last policy expired in-between current and prior periods and was not renewed, so it is considered lost) |
Account B | last policy expiring in September 2025 → Considered retained (Account B still has an active policy during the current period, so it is considered retained) |
Retention | (2 – 1) ÷ 2 = 50 % |
1B. By Expiration Date
Account retention by policy expiration date measures how many clients with expired policy in the selected period got a renewal.
How It Is Calculated
Find the total number of clients with policies expiring in the selected period. For example:
The expiration date filter is set to Jan 2025 - Jun 2025
Account A has a policy expiring in May 2025. It is their last policy and it was not renewed.
Account B has a policy expiring in April 2025. It is their last policy but it got renewed.
All clients with their last policy expiring in the selected period that got no renewal are considered lost.
Account A has its last policy expiring in H1 2025. There is no renewal afterwards. This client is lost.
Account B’s policy, however, received a renewal. This client is retained.
→ only Account B is considered retained.
Account Retention = (Total Clients – Lost Clients) ÷ Total Clients
Example
Example | Details |
Selected period | H1 2025 |
Account A | Policy expiring in May 2025 → No renewal → Last policy → Client is lost |
Account B | Policy expiring in April 2025 → Renewed → Client is retained |
Retention | (2 – 1) ÷ 2 = 50 % |
3. Premium And Revenue Retention
All examples below are for premium retention. Revenue retention follows the same logic.
1A. By Effective Date
Premium retention by policy effective date shows how much of your premium from the prior period has been renewed into the current period.
How It Is Calculated
Add up total premium from prior-period policies.
Add up premium from those policies that were renewed or are still active.
Calculate:
Premium Retention = Retained Premium ÷ Total Premium × 100 %
Example
Policy # | Prior Period | Current Period | Retained? |
PL-1 | $800 | LOST | No - the policy was lost |
PL-2 | $1000 | $1000 | Yes |
PL-3 | $1200 | $1200 | Yes |
PL-4 |
| $1500 | No - the policy is net-new in the current period |
Retention: ($1000 + $1200) / ($800 + $1000 + $1200) = 73%
1B. By Expiration Date
Premium retention by policy expiration date shows how much of your premium from policies expiring in the selected period has been renewed.
How It Is Calculated
Add up total premium from policies expiring in the selected period.
Add up premium from those policies that were renewed.
Calculate:
Premium Retention = Retained Premium ÷ Total Premium × 100 %
Example
Policy | Selected Period | Future | Retained? |
PL-1 | $800 | LOST | No - the policy is lost |
PL-2 | $1000 | $1000 | Yes |
PL-3 | $1200 | $1200 | Yes |
Retention: ($1000 + $1200) / ($800 + $1000 + $1200) = 73%
NEW / RENEW
Decisions | How to describe it to the client |
Renewed | These are rules for every category of policy. A policy is considered to be renewed if:
|
Renewals-Renewed | Policy: If Ultimate Parent Carrier of old policy is the same as for a new one |
Renewals-Rewritten | Policy: If Ultimate Parent Carrier of old policy is different from new |
Lost |
|
Lost | Policy: Isn’t renewed, isn’t in force ATM and wasn’t in force during Renewal Time Gap (currently it is 30 days, but that can be adjusted), and effective day isn’t in the future, line of coverage/business changed Client: As for policy and the client doesn’t have any other policy |
Cancelled | Policy: The policy was renewable and has been cancelled |
New |
|
Net-New | Policy: All policies within 365 days of a client’s first written policy Client: Clients with new policies in current period who didn’t existing in any prior period. |
Retained | Client: Clients with policies in current period that existed in any prior period. |
Cross Sell | Policy: New policies for retained client after 365 days of a client’s first written policy with a new product |