Bind rate is the percentage of quotes an agency issues that convert into active, paid policies. It is also called close rate or the quote-to-bind ratio.
Bind rate = policies bound ÷ quotes issued
Typical ranges
The ranges commonly cited across the channel: personal lines agencies binding 20–35% of quotes. Commercial lines runs higher per quote — often 35–50% — because the quoting effort is larger and producers pre-qualify harder before investing in a submission.
A very high bind rate is not automatically good news. It can mean the agency is only quoting layups and leaving winnable business unquoted.
Where quoted business is actually lost
The instinctive explanation is price. The data usually says otherwise. A large share of quoted-but-unbound business is lost to:
- No follow-up after the first presentation. A meaningful fraction of quotes receive exactly one touch.
- Slow initial response, which cost the agency the deal before the quote was even produced — see lead response time.
- Missing information that stalled the submission until the prospect lost interest.
The cheapest bind-rate improvement available
Quoting is expensive: data gathering, market submission, comparison, presentation. Following up on a quote already produced is nearly free by comparison, and it is the step agencies most reliably skip.
A structured multi-touch follow-up cadence on quoted business — several touches across channels over two to three weeks — routinely produces double-digit relative improvement in bind rate without changing pricing, appetite, or staffing. It is the clearest example in agency operations of a gap that exists purely because the work is boring, not because it is hard.