A new bid is a negotiation. A renewal is a relationship with a number attached to it, and that difference changes everything about how the conversation should run.
Renewal price increases carry history that new bids do not. The customer remembers last year’s number, believes the relationship earns them something, and reads any increase as a statement about how you value them. Handling that well is a sequencing problem more than a pricing problem.
New work has its own version of this discipline, covered in how firms pass on price increases without discounting first. Renewals need a different sequence.
The insurance version is not a simple increase
Commercial insurance producers are working a market that split in two directions at once, which makes the renewal conversation genuinely harder than a straight rate hike.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ industry analysis describes property lines entering soft market territory, particularly commercial property, with rapid deceleration of premium growth, while casualty lines remain firm, driven by social inflation and large verdicts. The same report cites Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers survey data showing commercial premiums rose an average of 1.9 percent across all lines in the fourth quarter of 2025, down from 5.4 percent a year earlier, with commercial property rates decreasing 0.7 percent.
Read that from the producer’s chair. A client’s property line may come in flat or down while their liability line climbs, and a competitor is going to quote the property piece aggressively and stay quiet about the rest. The producer who walks in with one blended number is going to lose an argument they did not know they were having. The NAIC’s property and casualty industry analysis is worth reading before renewal season for exactly this reason.
The manufacturing version has the same shape
Reorders behave like renewals. A customer who has bought the same part at the same price for three years has stopped treating it as a purchase and started treating it as a fixed cost. The first increase reopens a decision they thought was closed.
Small and mid-sized manufacturers rarely have anyone whose job is that conversation. Selling is usually the last function in a growing shop to get a documented approach, long after operations and quality have one.
Five questions before the number goes out
Sequence matters here more than wording. These come before the increase, not with it.
“What changed on your side this year?” Volume, mix, and headcount shifts change what the customer can absorb. Asking after you have sent the number sounds like a walk-back.
“Who else signs off on this now?” Approval authority for increases has tightened at a lot of companies. The person who could wave through a three percent bump two years ago may now need a finance sign-off they have not mentioned.
“What would make this an easy yes?” Term length, volume commitment, delivery scheduling, and payment terms are all currency. Most sellers reach for discount first because it is the only lever they have practiced.
“What are you hearing from others?” Gives you the competitive picture before you price, rather than after you lose.
“When do you build next year’s budget?” The single most useful question on the list. An increase that lands before a customer’s budget is set is a planning conversation. The same increase two weeks after is a problem you created.
Where these conversations go wrong
The increase gets delegated to whoever manages the account day to day, which is often a service or estimating person who never signed up to defend a price. They deliver it apologetically, the customer pushes, and the number comes down before anyone above them hears about it.
The other failure is silence. A team avoids renewal price increases for two cycles, absorbs the compression, then tries to recover it all at once. The third-year conversation is the hardest one in selling, and it was avoidable in year one.
For new work rather than renewals, the equivalent discipline is setting a quote validity period before the price goes out.
Make it a process, not a personality
The reason the owner handles every renewal increase personally is that the owner is the only one who has done it enough to be comfortable. That comfort is a sequence and a set of questions, both of which can be written down and taught. Nothing about it requires twenty years of instinct.
Firms this size are not short on operational support. The NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership runs a nationwide network of centers working with small and medium-sized manufacturers on exactly the problems that come with outgrowing owner-run processes. The commercial side of the business rarely gets the same treatment.
Scorecard Sales: B2B Sales Training in York, PA
Scorecard Sales was founded in 2020 by Aaron Jacobs, an MBA with more than 20 years selling. The company works with construction, manufacturing, and insurance teams across South-Central Pennsylvania, turning what top performers do into a process the rest of the team can learn.
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Works Cited
- National Association of Insurance Commissioners. U.S. Property and Casualty and Title Insurance Industries, 2025 Full Year Results. National Association of Insurance Commissioners, 2026, content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2025-annual-property-and-casualty-and-title-insurance-industries-analysis-report.pdf.
- United States, National Institute of Standards and Technology. “Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).” National Institute of Standards and Technology, www.nist.gov/mep. Accessed 17 Aug. 2026.
- This article is general business information and is not legal, financial, or insurance advice. Consult a qualified professional about your specific situation.
