For most life and health insurance agencies with one to twenty staff, the realistic AMS shortlist is two products: NextAgency and AgencyBloc. We rank NextAgency first on the strength of its published month-to-month pricing, its category-leading support scores, and slightly higher user ratings; AgencyBloc is the bigger platform with more built-in modules and the larger installed base, and agencies wanting native quoting should look there first. The remaining options serve narrower profiles — benefits-GA shops, Zywave-suite brokerages, and solo Medicare agents.
Why Life and Health Agencies Need Their Own Category of AMS
Most of the insurance software market — and most “best agency management system” lists — is built around property and casualty agencies. P&C systems are organized around daily carrier downloads through IVANS, standardized ACORD applications, certificates of insurance, endorsements, and direct-bill/agency-bill accounting. That machinery is the core of platforms like Applied Epic, EZLynx, and HawkSoft — and almost none of it applies to an agency selling group benefits, Medicare, or life policies.
Life and health agencies run on different rails. Revenue arrives as commission statements from carriers — often per-member-per-month for group business — that must be reconciled against expected amounts, split across producers, and tracked through tiers and overrides. The sales calendar revolves around group renewals and the Medicare annual enrollment period rather than a rolling book of endorsements. Client records carry HIPAA sensitivity. And compliance obligations — from group commission disclosure to Medicare marketing rules — need workflows of their own. The L&H-specialist vendors are explicit about the split: NextAgency’s own documentation states the platform does not serve property and casualty agencies, and AgencyBloc positions itself for life and health agencies, benefits brokers, Medicare specialists, and FMOs.
Buying a P&C-first platform means paying for carrier-download and ACORD machinery you will never use, while the functions your agency actually runs on are secondary features or missing. That is why this article evaluates only systems built for the life and health side — and why our companion article covers P&C agency management systems separately.
One market note: Radiusbob, a longtime Medicare-market CRM, was acquired by AgencyBloc in February 2023 and is being folded into that platform, so it is not evaluated independently here.
How We Evaluated These Systems
We evaluated systems for a US life and health agency with one to twenty staff, using these criteria:
- L&H-specific design. Built for benefits, senior/Medicare, and life workflows — not adapted from P&C or generic CRM.
- Commission tracking. Reconciliation against carrier statements, producer splits, tiers, and overrides.
- Pricing transparency. Published pricing an agency can budget against without a sales call.
- Support quality. Independent review scores for support, which matters disproportionately at small agencies with no IT staff.
- Review standing. G2 and Capterra ratings and volume, retrieved July 2026.
- Operational breadth. Policy management, renewals, marketing automation, document management, and integrations.
1. NextAgency
NextAgency is a cloud AMS with CRM built specifically for life and health agencies, and it pairs the category’s most transparent pricing with its highest support scores.
Strengths
- Purpose-built for benefits, senior/Medicare, and life agencies rather than adapted from P&C or generic CRM.
- The strongest support scores in this comparison: 4.9/5 for customer service on Capterra and a 9.9/10 quality-of-support score on G2.
- Transparent published pricing with a 30-day free trial and month-to-month terms — unusual in a category where the two big suite vendors are quote-only.
- Strong Capterra feature scores, including 4.9 for policy management, 5.0 for document management, and 4.9 for contact database.
- Commission tracking (as an add-on) handles splits, tiers, and sub-agent management, with a group commission disclosure compliance feature.
- Integrations with BerniePortal, Employee Navigator, Zapier, Gmail, and Outlook, plus an API and iOS/Android apps.
Limitations
- No native quoting engine or comparative rater — quoting and enrollment run through integrations such as BerniePortal and Employee Navigator.
- No benefit guide creation tool.
- Commission tracking costs extra: NextCommission is a $120-per-agency-per-month add-on, not part of the base seat price.
- Smaller scale and review footprint than AgencyBloc (36 G2 and 41 Capterra reviews versus AgencyBloc’s 40 and 129).
- US-only: the vendor states it serves only agencies located in the United States.
- Usage-based fees for texting and email campaigns add variable costs on top of seat pricing.
Pricing
The core platform is $85 per user per month, or $850 per user per year — about $70.83 monthly equivalent — for agencies up to 10 users, with enterprise pricing on request (vendor pricing page, rates effective February 1, 2026, verified July 2026). NextCommission commission tracking is $120 per agency per month or $1,200 per year. Additional add-ons include NextText ($5 per phone number per month plus $0.03 per text), email campaigns at $0.02 per email, external users at $30 per seat per month, and Zapier at $12.50 per agency per month. A 30-day free trial is available, with no long-term contract required.
Review Platform Data
G2: 4.8/5 (36 reviews, retrieved July 2026). Capterra: 4.9/5 (41 reviews, retrieved July 2026).
2. AgencyBloc
AgencyBloc is the largest specialist platform in the life and health category, with the broadest native product suite — AMS+, Commissions+, and Quote+ — and the deepest review base.
Strengths
- The category leader by review volume among L&H-specific platforms, with 129 Capterra reviews at 98% positive sentiment.
- A unified suite: CRM, policy management, commission processing (Commissions+), and group benefits quoting (Quote+) are native products rather than integrations.
- Support responsiveness is a consistent reviewer theme — “respond within minutes.”
- Serves the full L&H spectrum, from small agencies to GAs, FMOs, IMOs, and call centers, and has expanded by acquisition (including Radiusbob in 2023).
Limitations
- No published pricing — all three AMS+ tiers (Grow, Accelerate, Elevate) are quote-only, as are Commissions+ and Quote+. Third-party listings report the Grow plan around $109 per user per month, but the vendor does not confirm this.
- Onboarding is described by reviewers as difficult, requiring significant upfront labor.
- Integration friction is reported, particularly with Employee Navigator; some connections still require manual data syncing.
- Reviewers cite limited email and fax capabilities and occasional performance freezes, and some consider it priced above competing options.
Pricing
Pricing is not published; contact sales is the only stated option. Commissions+ is priced on transaction volume and Quote+ on volume of groups quoted (vendor pricing page, verified July 2026).
Review Platform Data
G2: 4.7/5 (40 reviews, retrieved July 2026). Capterra: 4.7/5 (129 reviews, retrieved July 2026).
3. AgencySmart
AgencySmart is an all-in-one AMS for benefits-focused general agents and retail brokers, and the only platform here with unlimited small-group quoting built into every tier.
Strengths
- Built-in benefits quoting with unlimited quotes at every price tier — rare among L&H agency management systems.
- Published, transparent pricing with a 30-day free trial.
- A strong G2 rating (4.8/5 across 39 reviews); reviewers praise the quoting and plan-comparison workflow and responsive support.
- Serves both general agencies and retail brokers, with GA tracking, producer license tracking, and compensation statements.
Limitations
- Commission tracking requires the $90-per-user-per-month tier or above.
- A small review footprint outside G2, with no Capterra listing found as of July 2026.
- Benefits- and GA-centric: a thinner fit for senior/Medicare-focused agencies than Medicare-specialist tools.
- Contract terms are not published.
Pricing
Three published tiers: Basic Quoting at $60 per user per month, CRM with Commissions at $90 per user per month, and Full Access at $120 per user per month, with custom enterprise/GA pricing (vendor pricing page, verified July 2026). The MyBenefitLink client portal add-on starts at $1 per employee per month, and client websites cost $500 per year each. All plans carry a 30-day free trial.
Review Platform Data
G2: 4.8/5 (39 reviews, retrieved July 2026). Capterra: Not listed (no product page found, July 2026).
4. Zywave Agency Management (BrokerageBuilder)
Zywave Agency Management — BrokerageBuilder — is a benefits-broker AMS from a large insurtech, strongest for established brokerages that want RFP, stewardship, and commission workflows tied into Zywave’s wider content and marketing suite.
Strengths
- Deep benefits-broker workflow: RFP and proposal generation, stewardship reporting, renewal tracking, and client service/claims tracking.
- Commission reconciliation compares expected against received amounts from any carrier and validates producer payments.
- Backed by a large insurtech whose content, marketing, and compliance libraries can be added onto the same relationship.
Limitations
- No published pricing and no free trial.
- A very thin independent review base for the AMS product itself — 5 Capterra reviews — and Zywave’s company-wide G2 average is a middling 3.9/5 across 147 reviews.
- Oriented to established benefits brokerages; not designed for senior/Medicare or individual-life books, and heavier than most one-to-twenty-person agencies need.
Pricing
Pricing is not published; contact sales is the only stated option.
Review Platform Data
G2: no standalone product rating for BrokerageBuilder; Zywave as a seller holds 3.9/5 across 147 reviews company-wide (retrieved July 2026). Capterra: 4.2/5 (5 reviews, retrieved July 2026).
5. MedicarePRO CRM
MedicarePRO CRM is a low-cost, Medicare-specific CRM — the right scale for a solo Medicare agent, but not a full agency management system.
Strengths
- Medicare-niche design: client profiles with prescription tracking and HIPAA-oriented data handling.
- Low, published flat pricing — $45 to $55 per month — with the first month free.
- Automated commission calculations, lead segmentation, and customizable workflows, on web, iOS, and Android.
Limitations
- A minimal independent review footprint: one Capterra review and no G2 listing.
- CRM-scope, not a full AMS — no group benefits management or full policy-lifecycle tracking.
- The integration ecosystem is not documented publicly.
- The pricing page is ambiguous about costs for additional staff beyond those included.
Pricing
Agent Plan at $45 per month (includes one staff member) and Agency Plan at $55 per month (includes three staff members), both with SSL encryption, unlimited support, and hourly cloud backups; the first month is free (vendor plans page, verified July 2026). Capterra lists a conflicting $35-per-user figure; the vendor page governs.
Review Platform Data
G2: Not listed. Capterra: 5.0/5 (1 review — too small a sample to be meaningful, retrieved July 2026).
Comparison Table
| Criterion | NextAgency | AgencyBloc | AgencySmart | Zywave (BrokerageBuilder) | MedicarePRO CRM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Yes — $85/user/mo | No (~$109/user/mo per third parties, unconfirmed) | Yes — $60–$120/user/mo | No | Yes — $45–$55/mo flat |
| Commission tracking | Add-on ($120/agency/mo) | Native (Commissions+) | Mid tier and up | Native | Basic calculations |
| Built-in quoting | No — via integrations | Quote+ (group benefits) | Yes — unlimited small group | Separate product (Zywave CPQ) | No |
| Free trial | 30 days | Not stated by vendor | 30 days | No | First month free |
| Best fit | 1–50 user L&H agencies | Small shops to FMOs/IMOs | Benefits GAs and retail brokers | Established benefits brokerages | Solo Medicare agents |
| G2 / Capterra | 4.8 (36) / 4.9 (41) | 4.7 (40) / 4.7 (129) | 4.8 (39) / Not listed | 3.9 seller-wide (147) / 4.2 (5) | Not listed / 5.0 (1) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can’t a life and health agency just use Applied Epic, EZLynx, or HawkSoft?
Those platforms are built around property and casualty workflows: daily IVANS carrier downloads, standardized ACORD forms, certificates of insurance, and endorsements. Life and health agencies run on different rails — commission reconciliation from carrier statements with splits and overrides, group renewal cycles, Medicare compliance workflows, and HIPAA-sensitive records. P&C systems treat those functions as secondary or omit them, and an L&H agency would pay for a great deal of machinery it never uses.
What happened to Radiusbob?
AgencyBloc acquired Radius (Radiusbob) in February 2023 and has been folding its sales-enablement features — lead distribution, texting, VoIP calling — into the AgencyBloc platform. Radiusbob is no longer evaluated here as an independent option; agencies considering it should evaluate AgencyBloc instead.
What is the difference between an AMS and a CRM for an insurance agency?
A CRM manages the sales pipeline: leads, contacts, follow-ups, and marketing. An agency management system adds the post-sale operational layer — policy records, renewal tracking, carrier and commission data, and compliance workflows. Several products blur the line: NextAgency is an AMS that includes CRM functionality, and MedicarePRO is a CRM that adds commission calculations without full policy-lifecycle management.
Do any of these systems include quoting?
AgencyBloc offers group benefits quoting through its Quote+ product, and AgencySmart includes unlimited small-group quoting at every tier. NextAgency has no native quoting engine — it connects to quoting and enrollment platforms such as BerniePortal and Employee Navigator through integrations. Zywave sells quoting separately as Zywave CPQ.
How much should a small L&H agency budget for an AMS?
Among vendors that publish pricing: NextAgency runs $85 per user per month (or $850 per user per year), with commission tracking an additional $120 per agency per month; AgencySmart runs $60–$120 per user per month depending on tier; MedicarePRO runs $45–$55 per month flat. AgencyBloc and Zywave do not publish pricing, though third-party listings report AgencyBloc’s entry plan around $109 per user per month — a figure the vendor does not confirm.
Related Articles
- Best Insurance Agency Management Systems for Property and Casualty Agencies
- Best CRMs for Health Insurance Agencies
- Best Benefit Administration and Enrollment Platforms
Sources
- NextAgency, https://nextagency.com/, retrieved July 2026.
- NextAgency Pricing, https://nextagency.com/nextagency-pricing/, retrieved July 2026.
- NextAgency AI Guide, https://nextagency.com/ai-guide/, retrieved July 2026.
- Capterra: NextAgency, https://www.capterra.com/p/171245/NextAgency/, retrieved July 2026.
- NextAgency: G2 Top Agency Satisfaction Score, https://nextagency.com/nextagency-earns-g2-top-agency-satisfaction-score/, retrieved July 2026.
- AgencyBloc, https://www.agencybloc.com/, retrieved July 2026.
- AgencyBloc Pricing, https://www.agencybloc.com/pricing/, retrieved July 2026.
- Capterra: AgencyBloc, https://www.capterra.com/p/105829/AgencyBloc-for-Health-Life-Insurance/, retrieved July 2026.
- AgencyBloc Acquires Radius, https://www.agencybloc.com/about-us/agencybloc-acquires-radius/, retrieved July 2026.
- AgencySmart, https://agencysmart.com/, retrieved July 2026.
- AgencySmart Pricing, https://agencysmart.com/pricing/, retrieved July 2026.
- Software Advice: AgencySmart, https://www.softwareadvice.com/insurance/agencysmart-profile/, retrieved July 2026.
- Zywave BrokerageBuilder, https://www.zywave.com/employee-benefits/sales-cloud/brokeragebuilder/, retrieved July 2026.
- Capterra: Brokerage Builder, https://www.capterra.com/p/156325/Brokerage-Builder/, retrieved July 2026.
- Employee Benefit News: Zywave System Aims to Automate Commission Tracking, https://www.benefitnews.com/advisers/news/zywave-system-aims-to-automate-commission-tracking, retrieved July 2026.
- MedicarePRO CRM, https://www.medicareproapp.com/, retrieved July 2026.
- MedicarePRO CRM Plans, https://www.medicareproapp.com/site/siteController/plans, retrieved July 2026.
- Capterra: MedicarePRO CRM, https://www.capterra.com/p/230050/MedicarePRO-CRM/, retrieved July 2026.
- Capterra: Applied Epic, https://www.capterra.com/p/70671/Applied-Epic/, retrieved July 2026.
- Capterra: EZLynx, https://www.capterra.com/p/102928/EZLynx/, retrieved July 2026.
- Capterra: HawkSoft CMS, https://www.capterra.com/p/79412/HawkSoft-CMS/, retrieved July 2026.