The 15 KPIs Every Insurance Call Center Manager Should Track Daily

At a Glance: Insurance Call Center Benchmarks

Widely cited industry benchmarks suggest the following targets:

1. Answer Rate

Answer rate is the single most important leading indicator of call center health. In insurance, every missed call is a missed enrollment opportunity—and unlike retail, that prospect is unlikely to call back. They'll call the next number on their list. During AEP and OEP, where call volume spikes 3–5x, tracking answer rate hourly can mean the difference between capturing enrollment volume and hemorrhaging it.

If your answer rate drops below 80%, you need to diagnose immediately: are agents unavailable, is the routing strategy misaligned, or are you simply understaffed for the volume? AgentTech's real-time dashboards surface answer rate by queue and by publisher, so you can isolate the problem in seconds rather than hours.

2. Abandonment Rate

Abandonment rate is the mirror image of answer rate, but it tells a different story. High abandonment means callers are trying to reach you and giving up—which is worse than calls that never ring in the first place. In insurance call centers, abandonment above 5% during enrollment periods signals a capacity problem that is actively costing you revenue.

3. Average Speed of Answer (ASA)

Speed of answer directly impacts conversion rates in insurance. A Medicare prospect who waits 90 seconds is already mentally disengaging. Research shows that connection within 20 seconds produces the highest enrollment conversion rates, and every additional 10 seconds degrades conversion by roughly 1–2%.

The best insurance call centers target ASA under 20 seconds during normal volume and under 30 seconds during peak AEP hours. If you're consistently above 30 seconds, consider adding overflow queues or adjusting your publisher routing architecture to throttle volume to match agent capacity.

4. Average Handle Time (AHT)

Insurance calls are longer than calls in most industries—an 8-minute Medicare enrollment discussion is normal, and complex plan comparisons can run 20+ minutes. The goal is not to minimize AHT, but to understand it in context. An agent with a 6-minute AHT and a 3% conversion rate is rushing through calls. An agent with a 14-minute AHT and an 18% conversion rate is taking their time and closing.

5. First Call Resolution (FCR)

In insurance, "resolution" can mean enrollment completion, a definitive plan recommendation, or answering all of the prospect's coverage questions. FCR below 70% usually indicates one of three problems: agents lack product knowledge, the IVR is routing callers to the wrong department, or agents don't have the tools to complete enrollments in real time.

Every call that requires a callback costs you twice—once for the original call and again for the follow-up. Worse, industry research suggests insurance prospects who don't get resolution on the first call are an estimated 40% less likely to complete enrollment at all. Track FCR by agent and by product line to identify training gaps.

6. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the KPI that connects your call center to revenue. In insurance, it varies dramatically by line of business: Medicare Advantage inbound calls typically convert at 10–15%, while final expense outbound calls may sit at 2–4%. The key is benchmarking against your own historical data and segmenting by source.

AgentTech tracks conversions via disposition codes, so you can break conversion rate down by agent, queue, publisher source, time of day, and even by state. This granularity is what turns conversion rate from a vanity number into an actionable lever.

7. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

CPA is the ultimate efficiency metric. In Medicare, CPAs range from $30 for high-quality inbound calls from organic sources to $85+ for paid media. The problem most call centers face is that they can't calculate CPA accurately because their dialer doesn't track publisher costs alongside conversion data.

AgentTech's Publisher Queue billing makes this automatic. Each publisher has its own cost-per-call rate, billable thresholds, and answer-only billing settings. Combined with disposition-based conversion tracking, you get real-time CPA per publisher without touching a spreadsheet. For a deeper dive on publisher-level cost tracking, see our guide on publisher performance metrics.

8. Agent Utilization Rate

Agent utilization tells you whether your staffing matches your call volume. Below 70% means agents are sitting idle—you're overstaffed or calls aren't routing efficiently. Above 90% and agents are burning out, which in insurance means compliance shortcuts and higher attrition.

The sweet spot for insurance is 75–85%. This gives agents enough breathing room between calls to complete after-call work (disposition entry, notes, CRM updates) without long idle stretches that kill momentum. Track this daily by shift to spot scheduling mismatches.

9. Occupancy Rate

Sustained occupancy above 90% in an insurance call center leads to fatigue, shortened calls, and missed compliance steps. The industry standard of 80–88% gives agents just enough idle time between calls to decompress, review notes, and stay sharp for the next conversation.

10. Schedule Adherence

Schedule adherence is your staffing plan in reality. You can have the perfect workforce plan, but if agents log in late, take extended breaks, or go offline early, your forecasted capacity evaporates. During AEP, even 10 minutes of unscheduled offline time per agent across a 50-agent floor means over 8 hours of lost capacity per day.

Track adherence daily at the individual agent level. Agents consistently below 90% need coaching. Those below 85% are creating coverage gaps that directly impact your answer rate and abandonment rate—the KPIs at the top of this list.

11. Quality & Compliance Score

In most industries, quality scores are nice-to-have. In insurance, they're existential. A failed CMS audit can shut down your Medicare enrollment authority. A TCPA violation can cost $500–$1,500 per call. Quality and compliance scoring isn't optional—it's the guardrail that keeps your operation running.

AgentTech's AI transcription engine scores every single call for compliance automatically, checking for proper disclosures, scope of appointment verification, and prohibited language. Supervisors can use listen, whisper, and barge tools to intervene in real time when compliance issues are detected, rather than discovering them in a post-call audit.

12. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

Insurance CSAT has a unique dynamic: callers are often confused, anxious about coverage decisions, and comparing multiple options simultaneously. A satisfied caller doesn't just mean a sale today—it means referrals, renewals, and cross-sell opportunities tomorrow. In Medicare specifically, CMS Star Ratings incorporate member satisfaction, making CSAT a regulatory metric as well as a business one.

Modern AI-powered sentiment analysis can score caller satisfaction on every call without surveys, analyzing tone, language patterns, and conversation flow. This gives you 100% coverage rather than the 5–10% response rate typical of post-call surveys.

13. Revenue Per Agent

Revenue per agent is the clearest measure of individual productivity. In an insurance call center, top performers often generate 3–5x the revenue of bottom-quartile agents. Tracking this daily (not monthly) lets you identify struggling agents early and pair them with coaching before the enrollment window closes.

The daily view is especially critical during AEP and OEP. An agent generating $2,000/day in week one of AEP who drops to $800/day in week three needs immediate attention. By the time you see this in a monthly report, you've lost three weeks of optimization.

14. Call Volume by Source

Total call volume is a blunt instrument. Volume by source is a scalpel. Knowing that you received 500 calls yesterday is marginally useful. Knowing that Publisher A sent 200 (converting at 12%), Publisher B sent 180 (converting at 4%), and your organic traffic generated 120 (converting at 18%) is actionable.

AgentTech's Publisher Queue architecture makes source-level tracking automatic. Every publisher gets a dedicated entry point, so call volume, quality, and cost are tracked per source without any manual tagging. For detailed guidance on setting up publisher tracking, see our publisher performance metrics guide.

15. Agent Attrition Rate

Insurance call center attrition runs 30–45% annually—and that's considered normal. It's also enormously expensive. Replacing an agent costs $5,000–$10,000 when you factor in recruiting, licensing, training, and the ramp-up period before they're productive. A 50-agent center with 40% attrition is spending $100,000–$200,000 per year just replacing departed agents.

While attrition can't be tracked in real-time the same way as call metrics, you should track leading indicators daily: declining schedule adherence, dropping quality scores, reduced conversion rates, and increased after-call work time. These are the early warning signs that an agent is disengaging. For a comprehensive approach to retention, see our guide on reducing agent attrition.

Building Your Daily KPI Dashboard

Tracking 15 KPIs sounds overwhelming—until you organize them into tiers. Not every metric needs the same level of attention every day.

Key Takeaways

The difference between insurance call centers that hit their enrollment targets and those that don't usually isn't the product or the market—it's visibility. Managers who see these 15 KPIs daily can intervene when a metric slides. Managers who see them monthly can only do a post-mortem.