5 Insurance Renewal Questions Brokers Can Ask to Build Stronger Relationships

A simple conversation can identify risks, strengthen defenses, and build client trust.

What questions should you ask during an insurance renewal?

The answer goes beyond policy details. Insurance brokers and agents are encouraged to ask questions that uncover changes in operations, staffing, contracts, services, emerging risks, and regulatory requirements—while also reviewing whether existing coverage still fits the client’s current needs.

The goal is not simply to identify opportunities for additional coverage, but to make sure the entire insurance program reflects the organization today.

That matters because insureds aren’t expected to see every risk coming—which is why they have you.

Instead of asking, “has anything changed?” and getting the inevitable “no,” try asking questions that give clients something specific to consider that can give you better insight and results.

By asking thoughtful questions, you can also build stronger relationships with your insureds, boosting satisfaction and retention rates.

The top 5 questions you can ask your clients at renewal:

1. What’s changed in how your organization operates this year?

Clients may see these examples as normal business changes. As their trusted broker, you can help connect the dots to identify potential exposures.

• Ministries: Are you planning a new location or campus expansion? Are any new activities or youth programs expected to see a significant increase in staff or volunteers?

• Fire & EMS: Have you added apparatus or expanded emergency services offerings?

• Senior Living, Hospice & Home Healthcare: Have new services been added or deleted? Has home-based care evolved? Any changes with how you collect, store, or share sensitive, protected health information (PHI)?

• Public Entities: Are there changes to roads, dams, water, or sewer treatment infrastructure? Are any in need of repair?

• Education: How is state and federal funding impacting your school’s operations, staffing, and enrollment? Do you anticipate staff reduction or growth? Adding or deleting programs offered to students?

THE TAKEAWAY: The insured doesn’t have to identify the risk. Ask what changed, then use your expertise to determine what it means.

2. Have you added any employees, volunteers, contractors, or other people working on your behalf?

Changes in who does the work can create new liability considerations.

• Ministries: Are you looking to use volunteers to take on more responsibilities? Will there be any offerings cut due to lack of people power?

• Fire & EMS: Have staffing or volunteer roles changed? Have new people stepped into management roles?

• Senior Living, Hospice & Home Healthcare: Are you using traveling clinicians or contract workers? Have you created new positions?

• Public Entities: Have you added subcontractors, or are your subcontractors using additional subs? How are you verifying that required coverage remains current?

• Education: Have budget cuts forced the use of more volunteers? Has occasional student transport become an issue due to those cuts?

THE TAKEAWAY: The question isn’t simply, “Do you have more people?” It’s, “Has the way people work for you changed?”

3. Are you doing anything today that you weren’t doing when we last reviewed your coverage—or have you stopped doing anything?

This question works in both directions: uncovering new exposures and identifying coverage that may no longer fit.

• Ministries: Have any outreach programs or other activities ended or changed?

• Fire & EMS: Have you retired equipment? Changed the use of a facility or retired a service?

• Senior Living, Hospice & Home Healthcare: Has the type of service or location of care expanded or changed?

• Public Entities: Has there been a merger or acquisition? A sale of any of your systems?

• Education: Have you discontinued a program or changed how a facility is used?

THE TAKEAWAY: A good renewal review isn’t just about asking what needs to be added. It’s also about asking whether what the client has already still makes sense.

4. Have any of your contracts, vendors, or subcontractor arrangements changed?

Third-party relationships can quietly introduce new responsibilities and exposures.

• Ministries: Is the ministry constructing new worship spaces?

• Fire & EMS: Have there been changes to 911 call center agreements?

• Senior Living, Hospice & Home Healthcare: Have new vendors gained access to sensitive information?

• Public Entities: Have you closed, repurposed, or transferred a facility or service?

• Education: Are any major renovation or construction projects underway? Are contractors using subs—and are you verifying their coverage?

THE TAKEAWAY: A certificate of insurance is important, but it doesn’t answer every question about a changing third-party relationship. The renewal conversation is an opportunity to ask questions before they become a problem. You can invite your insured to lean on you to review third-party contracts to ensure consistency and compliance.

5. Are there evolving scenarios unique to your market that we should review?

This may be the most important question of all. It gives clients permission to mention changes they may not consider “insurance-related.”

• Ministries: Are staff and volunteers acting in a security or safety capacity receiving up to date education surrounding changes in legislature?

• Fire & EMS: Had an unusual incident, near miss, or change in how you used the station or equipment?

• Senior Living, Hospice & Home Healthcare: Have regulatory changes affected staffing or quality of care?

• Public Entities: Have services offered to the public changed, such as adding a park and recreation department or expanding activities? Have you entered into any new MOUs with other municipalities?

• Education: Are facility expansions, new buildings, or building renovations in your near future planning?

THE TAKEAWAY: Don’t overlook changes the client may not know to mention—including new regulatory requirements, contract provisions, or industry standards that could affect how they operate. Your insured may not know that a regulation changed. They might not even know to ask. That’s okay. They don’t need to be the insurance specialist—you do. 

Look in both directions.

A strong renewal isn’t about finding more things to insure. It’s about making sure the client has the right protection for the risks they are facing today.

That means looking in both directions.

Where might there be a gap? Where has the insured's exposure changed? And where might existing coverage no longer be necessary or appropriate? Sometimes the right answer is more coverage. Sometimes it’s a different approach. And sometimes the best advice is to scale something back.

That’s how you build trust.

Insureds should know you’re willing to tell them when they need more, when something needs to change—and even when they may need less. When they know you’re looking at the whole picture rather than simply looking for the next sale, renewal becomes more than a transaction.

It becomes another opportunity to strengthen the relationship.