2026 Agency Compensation Trends
Recently Capstone released its 2026 Annual Agency Compensation Trends report, a nine-year review of data we’ve collected for client service, technical, and leadership salaries. We typically prepare it every two years to get a more comprehensive view of what’s happening in the market. I guess we’re on an Olympics schedule.
We ask questions when our process begins. Have some salaries stagnated? What increases surprise us? How does compensation factor into the larger talent acquisition equation? Maybe you’re wondering the same. I think you’ll find some of that information included here.
The fastest way to hire or retain an account manager is to give them a 10% increase or a $10,000 raise. It’s what I call “The Rule of 10.” Our findings show P&C client service salaries have steadily risen at the 10% level or higher, with account executives surpassing this due to the demand for highly specialized knowledge and niche expertise.
Commercial Lines Account Manager Average Salary: 10.8%+
2023: $74,679 | 2024: $76,245 | 2025: $82,764
Commercial Lines Account Executive Average Salary: 18.3%+
2023: $120,226 | 2024: $122,087 | 2025: $142,167
In 2025 I saw more client service professionals with 15-20 years of tenure at one agency change jobs than any year I can recall. Their motivation was often financial.
In a lot of cases money wasn’t the only driver, but at the end of the day, the bigger salaries they were offered after years of 3%-5% merit increases or dry promotions made the decision to leave a lot easier. This is why we see the salary increases above and what you need to take into consideration to retain current employees.
The average annual salary of a benefits analyst increased between 2023-2025 by 52.3%. Why? This is because agencies have redesigned the role.
A few years back this position was administrative, akin to a CSR. Now, most hires require analytics and financial underwriting experience. That shrinks the talent pool but increases the agencies competing for talent, often with candidates who have more years of insurance experience and skilled training.
For the last few years, I’ve seen agencies have disproportionately more staffing needs in P&C than employee benefits. I’ve wondered how that can be when the goal for most full-service agencies is to have a 50/50 revenue split between the two practices.
Our report shows the average salary for a benefits account manager rose 19.7% in the last two years. My theory on why hiring feels unbalanced is that it costs agencies a lot more to staff these departments than P&C. It’s a bit of a “hold on loosely” mentality. You want to grow your EB teams, but it cannot be in headcount because the average benefits account manager salary costs $13,000 more than a commercial lines account manager in 2025.
Our report includes the results of several surveys we conducted to see what employees experience in their jobs and the job market.
One of the most interesting things we probed was about the relationship between remote jobs and compensation. We asked people if they would be open to compensation concessions for a 100% remote job.
Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they were somewhat to very flexible on compensation for work-from-home positions. This highlights the immense amount of value people place on remote positions, with some of those respondents willing to accept a new job at lateral pay, while others would consider a pay cut.
Thirty-three percent of participants had a different take, saying, “I’d still expect a raise.” This indicates that for many professionals, remote work and competitive pay go together rather than making an either/or decision.