Are retention issues really one of the biggest problems of 2026 in Life Insurance?

I saw an article today talking about how carriers and even agents are losing clients simply bc they stopped reaching out to the clients.

One of the biggest takeaways is that nearly 40% of policyholders say they rarely or never hear from their insurer or agent after the policy is issued.

Only 29% of policyholders know they may have flexible premium payment options, and only 22% know about things like grace periods or borrowing against cash value. So many agents are undereducated in this aspect.

The good thing is that 67% of consumers still want a human agent involved when understanding pricing or making a purchase decision, and 85% want an advisor involved somewhere in the process.

It makes me wonder how much of the industry's lapse problem is really a follow-up problem.

A lot of agencies are hyper-focused on production and showing off numbers but why don't we show what is still active after 1 year.

Why don't we train more agents on retention as much as objection or even building more from someone's current book of business.