51% of independent insurance agency staff report feeling burned out, according to the 2025 Independent Agents at Work Study from Agent for the Future (Liberty Mutual and Safeco). The single biggest driver: 87% say their workload increased over the past year, without a matching increase in staff.
That single number explains a lot about why agencies are rethinking how work gets done. Here’s what the data actually shows, and what it means for an agency deciding where to spend its next hire.
The numbers behind agent burnout
The 2025 Independent Agents at Work Study surveyed frontline agency staff directly, not agency owners guessing at morale. The results were stark:
- 87% say their workload increased in the last year
- 50% feel overwhelmed by their current workload
- 65% say they often feel stressed at work
- 57% say they feel mentally and physically exhausted
- 51% describe themselves as burned out
These aren’t small percentages. More than half the people answering phones, processing renewals, and handling client service at independent agencies are telling researchers they’re running on empty.
Why the workload keeps climbing
Three forces are compounding at once for independent agencies right now.
The industry is short-staffed at the source. Roughly 400,000 insurance industry positions are projected to go unfilled over the next decade as experienced staff retire, according to figures cited by the US Chamber of Commerce and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Agencies aren’t just busy, many are running with fewer people than the work actually requires.
Client expectations have moved faster than staffing has. First Connect’s 2026 State of the Industry Report found that while agent-carrier friction has eased year over year, rising pressure from direct-to-consumer competition and digital-first client expectations is reshaping what independent agents are expected to deliver, often with the same headcount.
The agency count itself is shrinking while the work isn’t. There are approximately 39,000 independent insurance agencies in the US, down from around 40,000 in 2022, driven by M&A consolidation and succession challenges, per industry analysis from OPTIS Partners and Big “I” research. Fewer agencies are absorbing a market that grew: the US independent insurance agency industry brought in $92.4 billion in revenue in 2023, up 4.2% from the year before.
What burnout actually costs an agency
Burnout isn’t just a morale problem. It shows up in the numbers agency owners already track.
Staff who are stressed and exhausted miss renewal windows, delay certificate turnaround, and give clients a worse experience, all of which show up later as retention loss. Independent agencies already hold a strong position in commercial P&C, capturing 87% of that market in 2022, up from 85% in 2020. Protecting that position gets harder when the people running day-to-day service are stretched thin enough to make mistakes or leave.
Replacing a burned-out staff member costs more than most owners budget for: recruiting time, training time, and months of reduced productivity while a new hire ramps up, on top of whatever business slipped through the cracks during the transition.
What agencies are doing to close the gap
The agencies pulling ahead of this trend generally aren’t just hiring more full-time local staff. A $50,000 to $60,000 a year in-house administrative hire, once payroll taxes, benefits, and office overhead are added, is a heavy commitment for work that doesn’t require a license and doesn’t need to happen in an office.
Some agencies are shifting the highest-volume, lowest-license-requirement work, policy tracking, renewal reminders, COI processing, CRM updates, to a dedicated insurance-trained virtual assistant. It doesn’t fix every driver of burnout on this list, direct-to-consumer competition and industry-wide staffing shortages are bigger than any one agency can solve alone, but it does remove a meaningful share of the repetitive workload that’s driving the 87% figure at the top of this article. Agencies that want to test the model without a full-time commitment can start with a part-time package before scaling up.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of insurance agents experience burnout?
51% of independent insurance agency staff report feeling burned out, according to the 2025 Independent Agents at Work Study from Liberty Mutual and Safeco.
What’s driving insurance agent burnout in 2026?
Rising workload without matching staff increases is the top driver (87% report increased workload), compounded by an industry-wide staffing shortage and rising digital-first client expectations.
How can insurance agencies reduce staff burnout?
Delegating high-volume, non-licensed administrative work, like policy tracking, renewal reminders, and CRM updates, to a dedicated virtual assistant is one way agencies are reducing the workload driving burnout, without the cost of a full-time in-house hire.
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