The best project management software for insurance agencies
An agency lives on renewals and records, and both get examined — by a carrier, a DOI examiner, or an E&O attorney after a claim. So the useful question is not which tool has the prettiest board. It is which one runs a recurring, date-driven renewal cadence you can trust, hands you a clean archive when someone asks, and lets you walk out with your data the day you switch. Smartsheet wins because a renewal register is, underneath, a spreadsheet: one-click Excel export, automated 90/60/30-day reminders, nothing trapped. Asana runs the recurring workflow beautifully but is stickier to leave. monday.com automates renewals best of all — and then holds those automations hostage, because they do not export. And before you buy any of them: if your agency management system already drives renewals, you may not need a PM tool at all.
An agency is judged on renewals hit and records produced, not on board aesthetics, so we weighted portable records and recurring-renewal automation above polish. The tool that runs a date-driven renewal cadence and still hands you a clean, exportable file wins; the tool that automates beautifully but strands those automations on exit does not. We rate recurring-workflow strength higher here than for a firm that mostly logs static records, and heavy enterprise security lower. See the full rubric →
Records export & portability — pull a clean E&O / audit file30%
Audit trail & permission control over client data20%
Runs without a dedicated admin15%
Real cost as the agency grows10%
01
RANK
★ Editor’s Choice
Smartsheet
Best for renewal tracking
A renewal register is one row per policy — which is exactly what Smartsheet is underneath. You get automated reminders firing at 90, 60 and 30 days out for the day-to-day, and a one-click Excel export for the audit, so producing a books-and-records file is a download, not a project. Business-tier permissions lock client data down by row, and you are never trapped: your renewal calendar is rows you can pull out the day you leave. Automation you can live in, data you can walk away with.
The cleanest way to run recurring renewal cadences, new-account onboarding and claims follow-up — rules and repeating tasks handle the 90/60/30-day rhythm without a spreadsheet, and Advanced-tier admin controls put real boundaries around sensitive accounts. The catch is the exit: Asana exports projects to CSV/JSON, but custom fields, rules and dependencies do not all survive, so a future migration means some rebuild. Excellent day-to-day, slightly sticky on the way out.
The best renewal-automation builder in the group — a visual pipeline your producers will actually use, with the richest rules for chasing every policy up for renewal. That is precisely the trap. Boards export to Excel, but the automations, integrations and dashboards that made it worth buying do not travel at all. It bills on a 3-seat minimum, and you should plan a genuine rebuild if you ever leave. It looks like freedom and behaves like lock-in — buy it eyes open.
Generous and cheap, with enough automation and custom statuses to run renewals and service tickets on a budget. But the hierarchy of spaces, folders, lists and statuses is the most to learn and, on export, the most that arrives as a flat mess — and its audit history is thinner than the tools above. Powerful if one person owns and documents it; a tangle to hand to an E&O reviewer or to the next office manager after a producer leaves.
The best security story here — granular roles, audit reports, and on higher tiers data residency and Wrike Lock for your own encryption keys — which is real protection for client PII. But that depth is more than most agencies need, it carries a 5-seat minimum and a learning curve, and the automations and dashboards you build do not export. For a mid-size brokerage with a compliance officer it fits; for a small agency it is heavier machinery than the renewal calendar warrants.
Fine for a solo producer's task list, but there is no real audit trail, no granular permissions, and only light automation — nothing a renewal program or an E&O review can lean on. It does export cleanly to JSON, so at least you are not stuck. For an agency, though, it is the wrong tool, not a cheap version of the right one: you will outgrow it the first time a carrier or examiner asks for a record it cannot produce.
Do I even need a PM tool if I have an agency management system?
Often not. If your AMS — Applied Epic, AMS360, HawkSoft or similar — already drives renewals, activities and suspense, a separate project tool is redundant for the book of business itself. Where PM earns its keep is the work the AMS does not touch: agency projects, marketing campaigns, onboarding a new producer, a systems migration. Do not run half your policy workflow inside a PM tool; that splits your records across two systems and doubles your compliance surface.
What's the best way to track renewals in a PM tool?
A recurring, date-driven grid, not a Kanban board. Smartsheet is strongest here because a renewal register is literally a sheet — one row per policy, automated reminders firing at 90, 60 and 30 days out, and a one-click Excel export you can archive. You get the automation for the day-to-day and a portable file for the audit, which is the combination an agency actually needs.
Can I export my records for an E&O claim or a DOI exam?
From Smartsheet and Trello, yes — a clean file in one click (Excel and JSON). Asana, monday.com, ClickUp and Wrike export tasks, but custom fields, dependencies, automations and dashboards do not fully travel. For errors-and-omissions defense and state recordkeeping, test the export the week you buy, not the week a claim or examiner lands — and keep dated archives on your own storage, because no PM tool is your system of record.
What breaks when I migrate off monday.com?
The renewal automations and dashboards — they do not export. You keep the board data as Excel, but every rule that reminded you a policy was up for renewal, and every dashboard you built for your producers, is rebuilt by hand in the next tool. Budget for that rebuild before you commit your whole renewal calendar to automations that only live inside one vendor.