Vertafore Workforce Study: Agencies Are Working to Create the “Next Normal”

The insurance agency workforce did not exactly wake up one morning and decide to reinvent itself. It was pushed there by a mix of pandemic aftershocks, rising expectations, tech pressure, and a labor market that suddenly made “just keep doing what we’ve always done” sound a lot less clever. Vertafore’s 2022 workforce study captured that pivot clearly: nearly 80% of agency owners and principals said they had already made operational changes to retain employees, with compensation increases, flexible schedules, and remote work options leading the way. The report’s central message was simple and surprisingly modern for an industry that still loves a good paper trail: agencies were building the “next normal,” not trying to restore the old one.

What the study actually showed

Vertafore’s survey reached more than 1,300 people from independent agencies and MGAs, and the answers painted a workforce that was generally proud of the job but also highly responsive to practical changes. Agencies were using a mix of retention levers: 41% were increasing compensation, 34% were offering remote work, 32% were offering flexible schedules, 31% were using bonuses and other financial incentives, 29% were adding more time off, 22% were sponsoring more professional development, and 16% were improving benefits. In other words, agencies were not betting on one silver bullet; they were trying to make the whole employment package less annoying and more livable.

The same report also showed why the issue was urgent. One in five respondents said they had changed jobs in the prior 12 months, and financial considerations such as salary and bonuses were the main drivers. More than one in four of those who switched said they left for remote work opportunities, while 54% left to retire. That combination is a warning label: agencies were not only competing with other agencies, but also with retirement and a broader labor market that offered more flexibility than many insurers had historically provided.

Why “next normal” meant more than working from home

The phrase “next normal” sounds catchy, but Vertafore used it to describe something more concrete than a slogan. Agencies were reconfiguring both employment and technology infrastructures while employees were “readjusting their expectations for where, when, and how they want to work.” That is the real shift. The issue was not simply whether someone could log in from their kitchen table. It was whether agencies could build a work model that felt fair, flexible, and functional enough to keep people from quietly shopping for a better fit elsewhere.

That tension has stayed relevant. The Big “I” and Future One’s 2024 Agency Universe findings showed that the independent agency channel remained resilient, but also that agencies still needed support in market access, client communication, and technology. The same study found that 75% of agencies saw revenue gains from 2022 to 2023 and that 32% had increased their employee counts in the past two years, yet the pressure to modernize did not disappear just because business improved. Success and strain were living in the same office. Sometimes literally.

Compensation matters, but it is no longer the whole story

The compensation story in the Vertafore report is both obvious and revealing. Of course people care about pay. But the report also showed that work-life balance and career advancement were almost as important in the decision to stay or leave. That matters because it means agencies cannot treat turnover like a math problem solved by tossing in a bonus and hoping everyone calms down. Modern retention is part paycheck, part schedule, part growth path, and part “do I actually want to keep doing this here?”

Insurance Journal’s coverage of the study said it plainly: “show me the money” was resonating, but remote work, flexible schedules, and time off were all part of the retention toolkit. And the same logic showed up again in later reporting. In 2024, IA Magazine noted that nearly 40% of agencies were offering remote work and 33% flexible schedules to retain workers, while 2025 coverage found that the share of agencies with remote employees had fallen from 61% at the height of the pandemic to 46%, even as flexible work continued to influence talent attraction. The market did not stop caring about flexibility just because some leaders became eager to bring people back under the fluorescent lights.

Technology became a retention strategy, not just an operations issue

One of the most practical insights in Vertafore’s report was that technology was no longer a back-office afterthought. Three out of four survey respondents said technology had had a positive impact on their agency over the previous two years, but more than half also said their agency could do a better job staying up to date with tech advances. That gap is important: people may like the tools they have while still feeling that the agency itself is one clunky system upgrade away from losing momentum.

By 2024, technology was showing up as a retention lever in a more explicit way. Vertafore reported that a quarter of respondents saw technology as an important element in retaining and motivating employees, and 55% said streamlined workflows were a key feature for improving the employee experience. The same report also pointed to increasing adoption of digital communication tools as agencies responded to hard-market pressure. Technology was no longer just helping agencies serve clients faster; it was helping them make the job itself less tedious. That is a big deal in a profession where repetitive data entry can quietly eat morale for breakfast.

The workforce problem is also a knowledge problem

Insurance’s talent challenge is not only about hiring enough people. It is also about not losing institutional knowledge in a hurry. Insurance Journal reported in 2024 that over the next 15 years, 50% of the current insurance workforce is expected to retire, leaving more than 400,000 open positions unfilled, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Wipfli added in 2026 that retirements are fueling an industry-wide talent crisis and that firms need better knowledge transfer, stronger culture, and mentorship to keep the lights on and the wisdom flowing. That is a much bigger challenge than posting another job ad and hoping a unicorn with five years of commercial lines experience appears.

Aon’s research on insurance’s next-generation workforce makes the same point from a broader labor perspective: attracting and retaining talent now depends on more than competitive pay. Purpose, inclusion, wellbeing, and flexibility are part of the employee value proposition, and organizations that ignore those expectations will struggle to compete across industries. In other words, agencies are not just competing with other agencies. They are competing with every employer that has already figured out that adults like autonomy and dislike being treated like a seating chart.

Hybrid work is still the most useful compromise

If the last few years have taught insurance leaders anything, it is that hybrid work can be both messy and valuable. Agent for the Future’s guidance notes that many employees were just as productive remotely, while leaders had to reconcile the tension between executive preference and employee preference. That page also cites broad workplace data showing strong support for hybrid arrangements, which helps explain why agencies keep circling back to flexibility even when they try to re-center the office.

PIE Insurance’s agent-focused guidance adds a practical angle: hybrid work can improve engagement and satisfaction, reduce office overhead, attract talent from across the U.S., and require a more robust technology environment. That is the real trade-off. Flexibility is not free, but neither is losing experienced people because they cannot imagine doing their best work in a single zip code. In 2024, IA Magazine also reported that jumbo agencies were more likely to offer remote opportunities, suggesting that larger firms were using location flexibility as one more tool to ease staffing pressure.

What successful agencies seem to be doing differently

The agencies that seem most prepared for the next normal are not the ones promising a perfect solution. They are the ones making small, credible changes that stack up: clearer compensation paths, more realistic schedules, better onboarding, fewer manual tasks, and a stronger case for why someone should build a career there. Vertafore’s 2024 report showed that agencies were leaning on remote work, flexible schedules, professional development, and technology to hold onto talent, while the Big “I” study showed that digital communication and better client workflows were increasingly part of day-to-day operations. That combination matters because it turns retention into an operating model instead of a poster on the break-room wall.

There is also a subtle leadership lesson here. Insurance Journal’s 2024 coverage reported that remote jobs could generate nearly 10 times more applications than office-only roles in some recruiting situations, and that remote placements could fill months faster than in-office searches. That does not mean every agency should go fully remote. It does mean that leaders who insist flexibility is irrelevant are likely doing their recruiting with one hand tied behind their backs.

Experience notes from the agency floor

In practice, the agencies that adapt best usually start with the unglamorous parts of the job. They look at where time gets lost, where new hires get frustrated, and where managers are accidentally creating extra friction. That often means replacing “we’ve always done it this way” with “what is the fastest path to a clean result?” When a team can quote, service, document, and follow up without digging through seven systems, morale usually improves before anyone even announces a culture initiative. Vertafore’s 2024 findings on streamlined workflows and digital communication support that idea: better tools do not just speed up work, they reduce the low-grade exhaustion that makes good people start browsing job boards after lunch.

Another practical lesson is that flexibility works best when it is structured, not vague. Agencies that succeed with hybrid arrangements tend to set clear expectations for availability, response times, and collaboration. People do not need perfection; they need predictability. A flexible schedule that is still organized usually beats a rigid schedule that burns people out. That is one reason flexibility keeps showing up in report after report, from Vertafore’s workforce data to IA Magazine’s later coverage of dispersed teams. The market may debate the office, but workers have already voted for autonomy with their calendars.

Mentorship is another area where the gap becomes obvious fast. In many agencies, younger staff members can learn software and workflow rules quickly, but they still need help understanding judgment calls, client tone, coverage nuance, and the thousand tiny habits that make an agency feel reliable. That is why the retirement wave matters so much. When experienced employees leave, the agency does not just lose headcount; it loses memory. Wipfli’s emphasis on knowledge transfer and Aon’s emphasis on growth and inclusion both point to the same fix: agencies need to teach as deliberately as they sell.

There is also a cultural reality that leaders sometimes underestimate. People are more likely to stay where they feel trusted. That trust shows up in obvious ways, like remote access or flexible hours, but it also shows up in less obvious ways: a manager who does not micromanage, a carrier workflow that does not punish every delay, an onboarding plan that does not assume people learn by osmosis, and a compensation structure that is transparent enough to feel fair. Those details do not sound heroic, but they are the difference between an agency that merely hires and an agency that keeps talent long enough to develop it.

Finally, there is a business case for all of this that goes beyond kindness. Vertafore’s 2024 report showed that many agencies were still using remote work and flexible schedules to motivate employees, while the Big “I” and Insurance Journal reporting showed that agencies were generating revenue gains even as they worked through staffing and market pressure. That combination suggests a useful truth: improving the employee experience is not a soft project that distracts from performance. It is part of performance. Agencies that treat people well and streamline work tend to create more capacity, not less.

Conclusion

Vertafore’s workforce study captured a moment when the independent agency world was forced to admit that the old rules had stopped being enough. Pay mattered. Flexibility mattered. Technology mattered. And perhaps most of all, agency leaders had to accept that workers were no longer willing to trade away autonomy for tradition. The agencies that are building the next normal are the ones turning that reality into a working system: better workflows, better retention tools, better training, and a better answer to the question, “Why stay here?” The answer, increasingly, has to be more than “because we have always been here.”

Note: This article synthesizes Vertafore, IA Magazine, Insurance Journal, Big “I,” Aon, Wipfli, PIE Insurance, and Agent for the Future reporting.