Remote Insurance Agent KPI Benchmarks (2026)

Most new remote agents track the wrong things. They watch commission deposits and policy count, then panic when a slow week shows up. The agents who scale a remote book watch the inputs. dials, contacts, sets, closes, and AP per app. because those numbers tell you what's about to happen, not what already did.

This guide lays out the KPIs a remote final expense and life agent should be tracking in 2026, what a healthy range looks like for each, and how to use them to spot a problem before it becomes a slow month.

The five KPIs every remote agent should track

You don't need a dashboard with 30 metrics. Five inputs cover 95% of what matters:

Dials per day. how much activity you're putting out
Contact rate. percent of dials that reach a live person
Set rate. percent of contacts that become a scheduled appointment or quote
Close rate. percent of presentations that become an issued application
AP per app (annual premium). average size of what you're writing

Track these weekly. Most underperformance is one of these five being off, and once you know which one, the fix is usually obvious.

Benchmark: Dials per day

For a full-time remote final expense agent working a 6 to 7 hour dial day:

Below average: under 150 dials
Healthy: 200 to 300 dials
High volume: 350+ dials (usually with a dialer + lead vendor combination)

These numbers assume aged or fresh internet leads with a power dialer. If you're hand-dialing from a list, expect roughly half. Dial count is the easiest lever to pull when results dip. before you blame the script, blame the volume.

Benchmark: Contact rate

Contact rate = live conversations / total dials.

Aged leads (90+ days): 8 to 15%
Fresh internet leads (under 30 days): 15 to 25%
Direct mail / response leads: 20 to 35%

If your contact rate falls below the floor of the range for your lead type, the issue is usually one of three things: time of day (most contacts happen 10am to 2pm and 5pm to 8pm local time), caller ID reputation, or the dialer is burning numbers faster than you're rotating them.

For more on lead types and what to expect, see our breakdown of AI-powered leads vs traditional leads.

Benchmark: Set rate (or quote rate)

Set rate = quoted/booked / contacts.

For final expense telesales, most agents don't "set" in the Medicare sense. they go straight into a quote on the first call. So the analog is: of the people you reach, how many sit through a full presentation?

Below average: under 20%
Healthy: 25 to 40%
Top performer: 40%+

If contact rate is fine but set rate is low, the issue is almost always in the first 30 seconds of the call. The opener isn't earning the next two minutes. This is where script work and tonality coaching pay back fastest. See our final expense scripts and insurance objection handling for the patterns that move this number.

Benchmark: Close rate

Close rate = issued applications / completed presentations.

Below average: under 20%
Healthy: 25 to 35%
Top performer: 35 to 45%

Important nuance: close rate is the most misleading KPI to look at in isolation. A 50% close rate on 4 presentations a week is worse than a 25% close rate on 25 presentations a week. Always pair it with set rate and dial count.

A second nuance for new agents: "issued" is the only close that matters, not "submitted." Applications that don't draft on month 1, or chargeback in month 1 to 3, don't count. Track issued and 90-day-persisting as separate numbers if you can.

Benchmark: AP per app (annual premium)

For final expense, expected ranges in 2026:

Below average: under $600 AP
Healthy: $700 to $900 AP
Top performer: $900 to $1,200+ AP

AP per app is mostly a function of two things: lead demographic and product knowledge. If your average AP is sitting at the bottom of the range, you're either working very price-sensitive leads or you're not positioning whole life and graded plans alongside modified. Working with a mentor who can listen to recorded calls is the fastest way to move this number.

Weekly numbers that tell the real story

Daily KPIs swing wildly. weather, holidays, who picked up the phone. Weekly rollups are what you should actually steer by:

Apps submitted per week: 5 to 10 (healthy full-time), 12+ (top performer)
Apps issued per week: 70 to 85% of submitted, after underwriting
Weekly AP submitted: $4,000 to $9,000 (healthy), $10,000+ (top performer)
Hours dialing: 25 to 35 (full-time dialer)

If your weekly issued ratio is below 70%, the problem is upstream: you're writing apps that won't underwrite, usually because the health questions aren't being asked carefully on the call.

Monthly KPIs to watch

Monthly is where you spot trends the weekly data hides:

Persistency at 90 days: target 80%+
Lead spend as % of commission: healthy at 15 to 30% depending on lead type
Active producer days: how many days in the month you actually dialed for at least 4 hours
Carrier mix: are you concentrated in one carrier, or balanced across 3 to 5?

Persistency is the one most new agents ignore until they get hit with a chargeback. If yours is sitting below 75% at 90 days, you have a sales process problem, not a luck problem. See policy lapses and chargebacks for how to tighten this up.

How agencies use these benchmarks for coaching

When a mentor reviews an agent's week, they're not asking "how did you do?" They're asking five questions in order:

Did you hit dial volume?
Was contact rate in range?
Was set rate in range?
Was close rate in range?
Was AP per app in range?

The first "no" is the root cause. Everything downstream of it is noise. This is why agencies that scale producers track inputs religiously and don't let agents focus on the deposit number until the inputs are healthy.

For a sense of what an actual day looks like behind these numbers, see our insurance agent daily schedule breakdown.

Tools remote agents use to track this

You don't need expensive software. Most TPG agents use one of three setups:

CRM-native dashboards. GoHighLevel, Convoso, or carrier portals. dials, contacts, and submitted apps roll up automatically.
Daily KPI Google Sheet. one row per day, five columns. Takes 90 seconds at end of day.
Weekly mentor scorecard. the agent fills it in, the mentor reviews it on the Friday call.

The setup matters less than the consistency. The agents who write the numbers down every day are the ones who improve. The ones who "kind of know" their numbers are the ones who plateau.

Closing summary

Five inputs. dials, contact rate, set rate, close rate, AP per app. Track them weekly, review them monthly, and let the data tell you where to spend coaching time. A remote book gets built on inputs you can see, not outcomes you hope for.

If you want a mentor reviewing your numbers with you every week, that's how onboarding at TPG, one of the best IMOs for new agents, is structured. nobody is left to figure out their own KPIs from scratch. Ready to plug into the system? Apply to TPG and we'll get you on the scorecard.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good close rate for a remote insurance agent?

For final expense telesales, 25 to 35% close rate on completed presentations is healthy. Top performers run 35 to 45%. Below 20% usually points to a script or product-positioning issue, not a lead-quality issue.

How many dials per day should a remote agent make?

A full-time remote final expense agent on a power dialer typically makes 200 to 300 dials in a 6 to 7 hour day. High-volume producers push 350+ with a tight lead vendor stack.

What's a healthy AP per app in 2026?

For final expense, $700 to $900 AP is a healthy average. Top producers run $900 to $1,200+ by positioning whole life and graded plans alongside modified.

How often should I review my KPIs?

Daily for activity (dials, contacts). Weekly for outcomes (apps submitted, AP). Monthly for trends (persistency, lead spend ratio, carrier mix). Daily-only review leads to overreacting; monthly-only review hides problems too long.

What KPI should I fix first if my income is low?

Go in order: dials, contact rate, set rate, close rate, AP per app. The first one that's below benchmark is your bottleneck. Fixing anything downstream of it won't move income until the upstream number is healthy.