Driving firm growth can feel chaotic – and is often a collection of reactive decisions and missed opportunities. But when you leverage data analytics for insurance brokers, you get clarity: well-defined goals, aligned teams, and measurable progress.
Scrutinizing your firm’s performance is increasingly important as the rate environment has turned. MarshBerry analysis shows that without the boost from the hard rate environment, real organic growth for the average insurance agency was just 2.7%.
MarshBerry recommends utilizing Critical Performance Indicators (CPIs) to turn chaos into confidence. These growth ratios help a firm benchmark against insurance industry peers:
- Sales Velocity
- New Business Dollars per Production Person
- Net Unvalidated Producer Pay (NUPP)
1. Sales Velocity and Insurance Performance Trends
Sales Velocity is like a growth speedometer – it measures the amount of the current year’s new business as a percentage of prior years’ commissions and fees. Measuring new business production with such scrutiny indicates how sustainable the growth truly is.
2025 Regional MAX Performer winner Starke Agency is in the 91st percentile of sales velocity according to MarshBerry’s proprietary financial management system Perspectives for High Performance (PHP) database, which equates to over 23% new business rate. President of Starke, Kyle Drumwright, attributes this aggressive growth toward a multi-pronged approach. First, the firm is hiring talent from outside the insurance industry to encourage new book growth as opposed to inheriting and retaining existing business. In addition, these new producers likely have experience in markets with larger average account sizes. Because of this experience, they avoid applying the same high service standards deployed with VIP clients to much smaller accounts. Lastly, Starke has hired account executives. This position is more senior than an account manager and does everything a producer does but doesn’t pursue new business. The producer can then focus on obtaining larger accounts instead of just renewals and client volume.
2. New Business Dollars Per Production Person (NBPP)
The success of each individual producer is essential to the firm’s overall organic growth strategy. Calculating the average new business per producer can help set smarter sales goals, establish minimum expectations, and improve producer accountability.
Keep in mind, not all producers should have the same goals – they should be individualized for every level of performance. For 2025 National MAX Performer winner Associated Agencies, these goals are part of an accountability culture. Josh Herz emphasized the importance of each producer adopting a ‘major’ and ‘minor’ niche market focus to satisfy minimum account thresholds.
For 2025 National MAX Performer winner Associated Agencies, those goals are a part of an accountability culture where those delivering below average results are guided and coached to improve. More specifically, President of Associated Josh Herz recalls only two producers in his firm achieving $250k of new business revenue annually when the firm joined the MarshBerry Connect membership over ten years ago, but today over fifteen producers achieve that new business volume and over five write over half a million dollars of new business every year. When asked how Associated was able to move upstream, Josh emphasized the importance of each producer adopting a ‘major’ and ‘minor’ niche that satisfies their existing markets and minimum account thresholds to focus on. To walk the talk, both Josh and CEO Skip Schryaer still hold themselves accountable toward these high new business expectations as well.
3. Net Unvalidated Producer Pay (NUPP)
Investing in producers without a book offers substantial rewards for insurance brokerage firms. Net Unvalidated Producer Pay (NUPP) is a metric used to measure a firm’s investment in newer producers, such as compensation, training, or mentoring.
High-revenue generating firms are better incentivizing producers to focus on new business development rather than just retention. Firms that increase NUPP investment often outperform the market average. Measuring your firm’s investment in unvalidated producers can help uncover if leadership is properly supporting succession planning and talent pipelines.
Industry growth benchmarks show that producers under the age of 45 are generating more new business than older peers. Investing in younger insurance talent who are not burdened by an existing book of business will yield a much stronger Sales Velocity.
Are you ready to Connect?
Measuring your firm’s growth isn’t fundamentally different from tracking progress toward any other meaningful goal. Without performance measurement, goals remain aspirations. With it, they become achievable milestones.
You can learn even more about how to take advantage of insurance CPIs by becoming a MarshBerry Connect member. Connect members gain access to exclusive market intelligence as well as an invaluable peer-to-peer exchange network.