Key Takeaways
- J.D. Power found that 57% of auto insurance customers shopped for a policy in the prior year, up from 49%
- CMS raised Medicaid and CHIP automatic renewals from about 25% in April 2023 to 47% in December 2023
- In July 2024, 55% of Medicaid and CHIP renewals were completed ex parte while 11% of people due for renewal lost coverage for procedural reasons
- The NAIC property insurance model calls for at least 30 days of nonrenewal notice and at least one year of mailing evidence, but state rules control
- Renewal staffing should use contacts, missing items, exception minutes, and late cases rather than policy count alone
Insurance renewal work starts well before a policy expires. A service team may need to confirm contact details, send the required notice, collect updated records, answer premium questions, route coverage changes, chase payment, and document the result. A policy that renews automatically can take minutes. A policy with missing information or an unresponsive customer can stay in the queue for weeks.
The evidence does not support one universal number of calls or minutes per renewal. Insurance products and state rules differ too much. It does show where workload accumulates and which rates a team can use to plan capacity. These insurance policy renewal follow-up workload statistics cover personal insurance shopping, regulated notice records, public health coverage renewals, and operating measures that apply across renewal teams.
Insurance renewal workload statistics at a glance
| Measure | Result | Follow-up implication |
|---|---|---|
| Auto customers who shopped in the prior year | 57% | Renewal conversations can include price comparisons and revised options |
| Prior-year auto shopping rate | 49% | The increase was 8 percentage points |
| Auto shoppers also seeking a home bundle | 33% | One contact may expand into a multi-policy workflow |
| Medicaid and CHIP automatic renewals | 47% in December 2023 | Verified data removed a manual response for nearly half of people due |
| Medicaid and CHIP ex parte renewals | 55% in July 2024 | Automation reduced forms requiring customer action |
| Procedural disenrollment | 11% in July 2024 | Missing steps can end coverage without an ineligibility finding |
| NAIC model property nonrenewal notice | At least 30 days | Notice production needs deadline controls |
| NAIC model retention for notice records | At least one year | Work continues after a letter is sent |
These figures come from different settings and should not be combined into a market-wide renewal rate. The shopping figures cover US auto customers. The public coverage figures cover Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. The notice period comes from an NAIC model act, not a rule that automatically applies in every state.
Shopping turns renewal into service work
The 2025 J.D. Power U.S. Insurance Shopping Study found that 57% of auto insurance customers had actively shopped for a policy during the previous year, up from 49%. The study was based on 12,720 customers who had requested at least one competing auto quote between April 2024 and January 2025.
That result does not mean 57% changed carriers. Shopping can end with a switch, a revised policy, or a decision to stay. It does mean that many customers may reach renewal with competitor pricing in hand. The queue needs time for questions about premium changes, deductibles, limits, discounts, and bundles.
J.D. Power also found that 33% of active auto shoppers wanted to bundle auto and homeowners coverage. Bundling adds records and decisions. A straightforward auto renewal can become a two-policy review involving property details, declarations, effective dates, and another set of underwriting questions.
The study found an average carrier tenure of 7.0 years for customers with bundled policies, compared with 5.5 years for customers without a bundle. This association does not prove that bundling caused longer tenure. It does support tagging bundle requests and allowing enough time to handle them accurately.
Notice deadlines create a fixed queue
The NAIC Property Insurance Declination, Termination and Disclosure Model Act says an insurer should deliver or mail written notice of an intended property policy nonrenewal at least 30 days before the end of the policy period. The model also calls for the specific reason to accompany the notice and for proof of mailing or equivalent business records to be kept for at least one year.
The NAIC text is a model for states to consider. It does not replace the rule for a particular policy. State law, product type, reason for the action, and policy wording can change the required interval and content. A renewal operation needs a jurisdiction and product rules table, not one company-wide countdown.
The model still shows why notice work is more than a mail merge. Each record needs the correct expiration date, delivery address, required reason, and evidence that the notice was sent. A bad address or missing reason can turn a completed sending task into a compliance exception. Dashboards should separate notices created, sent, returned, corrected, and stored with proof.
Document collection determines manual workload
Public health coverage provides unusually detailed renewal data. Its rules differ from commercial insurance, but CMS reports which renewals can be completed from verified data and which require a response.
In March 2024, CMS reported that the national Medicaid and CHIP automatic renewal rate had risen from about 25% in April 2023 to 47% in December 2023 and 46% in January 2024. CMS described the increase as roughly 85%. When a system can verify eligibility from reliable data, it avoids asking a customer for information the organization already has.
The July 2024 national renewal summary showed a 55% ex parte renewal rate. Coverage was renewed for 74% of people due for renewal that month, while 17% were disenrolled. Eleven percent of all people due were disenrolled for procedural reasons.
CMS uses people due for renewal as the denominator, not returned forms. The procedural figure therefore covers cases that did not reach a completed eligibility decision because information or process steps were missing. It should not be used as a benchmark for auto, property, or life policies. It does show the scale of preventable coverage loss in a high-volume system.
CMS also reported that about 20% of renewals had remained pending after their due month since March 2023 in its data definitions overview. Reasons included forms returned late and states holding procedural disenrollments while conducting outreach. Pending cases create carryover work, so staffing only for new monthly arrivals understates the queue.
What lapse prevention requires
A lapse is an outcome, not a reason. A customer may have chosen another policy, missed a payment, failed to return information, changed contact details, or no longer needed coverage. Each cause calls for a different action.
| Outcome | Required disposition |
|---|---|
| Renewed without changes | Confirm effective date, payment status, and delivered documents |
| Renewed with changes | Record the request, approval, revised terms, and acceptance |
| Rewritten or moved | Record the replacement and avoid conflicting coverage |
| Customer declined | Capture the decision and close future reminders |
| Unable to contact | Preserve attempts, channels, dates, and escalation |
| Incomplete documents | Identify each missing item and communicated deadline |
| Nonrenewed by insurer | Preserve the reason, notice, delivery evidence, and referral steps |
| Lapsed for nonpayment | Record notice and payment history under the applicable rule |
Repeated reminders are not proof of effective follow-up. A useful contact log records whether a message reached the customer, what the customer supplied, what remains missing, and the next dated action. Managers can then separate unworked cases from cases waiting on a customer, carrier, or third party.
A workload model for 1,000 renewals
Published sources do not provide a defensible universal handling time. Teams should estimate it from their own queue. For a book of 1,000 policies, record policies eligible for no-touch renewal, cases needing a notice, responses after each attempt, missing documents, coverage reviews, bundle requests, underwriting exceptions, payment exceptions, completions, intentional departures, and preventable lapses.
Then use observed medians:
total follow-up hours = contacts × median contact minutes + documents × median processing minutes + exceptions × median exception minutes
Use the 90th percentile as a separate capacity check. The median describes ordinary work. The 90th percentile exposes cases that occupy the queue much longer.
The J.D. Power result offers one scenario input, not a staffing standard. If 1,000 auto customers behaved like its study population, 570 might shop during the year. That is 1,000 multiplied by 57%. It does not say how many will call at renewal or how long a conversation will take. Those variables must come from the insurer's own records.
Metrics that support staffing decisions
A weekly report should include notices sent on time, returned notices, policies renewed without customer action, cases missing documents, contacts attempted, successful contacts, median and 90th percentile handling minutes, open exceptions, completion at 30, 15, and 5 days before expiration, procedural losses, switches, renewals, and lapses.
The denominator matters. Contacts per open case answer a different question from contacts per completed renewal. Publish the unit beside every percentage so staff can reproduce it.
Teams can reduce manual work by checking existing records before requesting documents, validating addresses early, and routing exceptions to a named owner. An insurance policy renewal virtual assistant can maintain the queue, collect routine records, log contacts, and escalate licensed or coverage questions. Businesses comparing broader administrative support can also review Stealth Agents services.
Renewal follow-up is dated casework. The strongest public evidence points to three pressure points: more customers shopping, significant gains when verified data supports automatic renewal, and coverage loss when procedural steps remain unfinished. A reliable operation measures each one instead of treating every policy as the same unit of work.
Sources
- J.D. Power, 2025 U.S. Insurance Shopping Study
- NAIC, Property Insurance Declination, Termination and Disclosure Model Act
- CMS, HHS Takes Additional Actions to Help People Stay Covered During Medicaid and CHIP Renewals
- Medicaid.gov, National Summary of Renewal Outcomes, July 2024
- Medicaid.gov, Unwinding Data Sources and Metrics Definitions
- CMS, Streamlining Medicaid, CHIP, and Basic Health Program Renewal Processes
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Insurance Sales Agents
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