How Insurance Agencies Can Improve Employee Retention in Remote Work Environments

The irony is that most agents already have the skills to fix this. They just don't see the problem clearly enough to know where to point them. That's what this episode is about.

You've interviewed 12 candidates in 6 weeks. Three made it past the first call. One showed up on day one. None lasted 90 days. Sound familiar?

Think about the last time you lost a client. Not the reason they gave you — the real reason. In most cases, it wasn't price. It wasn't coverage. It was a feeling. They didn't feel valued, or they didn't feel confident you had their back. Every operational improvement you make, every system you build, every process you document — it all feeds into that feeling. Operations and client experience aren't separate categories. They're the same thing viewed from different angles.

In this episode, Craig and Jason sit down with Kathleen Quinn Votaw — and what comes out of this conversation is something every agency owner needs to hear.

One thing that stands out in this conversation is how honest they are about what didn't work before they found what did. That's rare in this industry, where everybody wants to look like they had it figured out from day one.

Why Your Hiring Process Is Broken

The non-compete conversation needs to happen on day one, not day 365. Be upfront about ownership of the book, what happens if they leave, and what the path to partnership looks like (if one exists). The agents who leave and take clients rarely do it because they're bad people — they do it because expectations were never set.

"KATHLEEN’S TAKE ON RETENTION AND REMOTE WORK IN INSURANCE! PART 1" "Insurance dudes are on a mission to escape be hit by our agents," — Kathleen Quinn Votaw

What Top Agencies Screen For Instead

Here's what a solid first 90 days looks like: Week 1-2 is licensing and shadowing. Week 3-4 is call listening with a scorecard. Week 5-8 is live quoting with a safety net. Week 9-12 is solo production with daily check-ins. If you don't have this mapped out before they start, you're setting them up to fail — and yourself up to re-hire in six months.

We've written about this in more depth — check out [INTERNAL: commission-split-new-agents] for the full breakdown.

Building a Pipeline That Doesn't Dry Up

Most agency owners hire reactively — someone quits, they panic, they post a job ad, they take the first warm body who can spell 'deductible.' It's how 71% of bad hires happen in this industry. The fix isn't hiring slower (though that helps). It's building a pipeline before you need one, the same way you'd build a referral pipeline before your book needs it.

If you take one thing from this episode, let it be this: the gap between knowing and doing is where all the money lives. Every agent we've interviewed who broke through — $1M, $3M, $5M — points to the moment they stopped consuming advice and started implementing it.

Put This to Work

Here's the move: • Why? Why do you think that that, I guess maybe it's everybody is so resistant to change, right? Because that's what it is, right? We're having a resistance to change. • Yeah, I call that the Darth...

Start small, but start today. The agents who wait for the 'right time' to implement new strategies are the ones who are still waiting three years later. For more tactical frameworks, check out [INTERNAL: commission-split-new-agents], [INTERNAL: insurance-producer-onboarding].

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🎙️ Listen to the full episode: Kathleen’s Take On Retention and Remote Work In Insurance! PART 1 Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

The Insurance Dudes — Separating the real from the BS in insurance sales since 2019.

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