How Sales Competitions and Activity-Based Incentives Transform P&C Insurance Agency Performance
Hosts of The Insurance Dudes Podcast — 1,000+ episodes helping insurance agents build elite agencies
Every agency has a ceiling, a production level that feels like the team's maximum and somehow never gets surpassed. Most owners respond to that ceiling by hiring more people or running more training. Craig Pretzinger and Jason Feltman discovered something more effective: the right competition structure creates a breakthrough that more headcount and training never could. One producer on their team was approaching $50,000 in production, a number that had seemed unreachable, because of a precisely designed incentive system built around activity rather than outcome.
When the Game Changes How People Play
The story behind the $50,000 breakthrough starts not with the producer but with the competition architecture. Craig and Jason had been experimenting with short-term, activity-based competitions, contests that ran for a week or two and rewarded specific behaviors rather than just final production numbers. The logic is grounded in behavioral science: when you can't directly control outcomes (whether a prospect buys), you can control the inputs (how many quality conversations you have), and inputs drive outcomes over time.
The traditional sales competition, biggest premium written this month wins, has a well-documented flaw: it's immediately demoralizing for everyone who can see they're not going to win. The top producer locks up the leaderboard by day five, and the rest of the team stops competing for the prize and starts coasting until the next month. You've accidentally run a motivation exercise that only motivated one person.
Activity-based competitions solve this in two ways. First, everyone has a genuine chance to win because the inputs are within every producer's control. A newer agent can out-dials a veteran. A consistent follow-up performer can out-contact someone who relies on hot leads. The leveling effect of activity-based scoring keeps more of the team engaged longer.
Second, and more importantly, the right activity inputs create the outcome you want as a natural consequence. If your top conversion challenge is insufficient first-contact attempts, run a competition for speed-to-contact. If your retention problem starts with insufficient renewal conversations, compete on outbound renewal calls made. The incentive structure teaches people what matters, which is often the real training opportunity hiding inside the competition design.
The Architecture of an Effective Agency Competition
Craig and Jason walk through the specific elements that separate a competition that creates breakthrough from one that creates resentment and gaming. The design decisions matter more than most agency owners realize.
Duration is critical. Two-week competitions outperform month-long ones for most activities because the urgency is real and the feedback loop is tight. Producers can see how their activity today affects their standing tomorrow, which creates genuine daily motivation rather than the end-of-month sprint that characterizes most traditional structures.
The activity metric has to be measurable without relying on individual reporting. If producers self-report their activity, you've created a competition that rewards optimistic record-keeping. The metrics that work are the ones that live in your CRM or phone system, dials made, conversations completed, scheduled appointments, policies quoted. Anything that gets recorded automatically is a valid competition metric; anything that depends on a producer's daily honesty is a risk.
Prizes should be meaningful but not so large they incentivize shortcuts. A producer who's close to winning a $5,000 prize will start cutting corners in ways that a producer chasing a $500 prize won't. The prize calibration is a risk management decision as much as a motivation decision.
The public leaderboard is non-negotiable. If nobody knows where they stand, the competition is just a private metrics exercise. The social dynamics of a visible leaderboard, the mild competitive discomfort, the public recognition of leaders, the daily reminder of the gap, are essential to the motivational effect. Display it where everyone can see it, update it daily or in real time if possible.
Finally, celebrate the winner publicly and specifically. Not just "Jennifer won" but "Jennifer made 47 conversations in two weeks, which is the most this team has ever done in that time period. Here's what that looks like in actual appointments and what it means for her production this quarter." Specific, data-driven celebration teaches the whole team what winning looks like.
What This Means for Your Agency
Design one two-week activity competition before the end of this month. Pick a single metric that directly addresses your current biggest production constraint. If your problem is too few conversations, compete on dials and live contacts. If your problem is quote-to-application conversion, compete on follow-up call completions. Keep the metric simple, the tracking automatic, and the prize visible.
Before you launch it, spend 30 minutes thinking about gaming risk. What's the behavior you don't want that might get rewarded by this competition? Build one guardrail into the design to prevent it, maybe a minimum quality threshold, maybe a team component that requires collaboration, maybe a manager verification step for the top numbers.
After the competition, run a brief retrospective with the team. What worked? What was frustrating? What would they change? The best competition designs come from iterating based on producer feedback, not from management-only optimization.
The Bottom Line
The $50,000 breakthrough didn't happen because a producer suddenly became more talented. It happened because the competition structure made the right daily activities feel urgent, visible, and worth the effort. Activity-based incentives, properly designed, are among the highest-leverage tools available to an agency owner who wants to move the whole team's production rather than just celebrate one star. Design the game right, and watch what your team is actually capable of.
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