Remote vs In-Office Insurance Agents: Which Model Works Best for Your Agency

If you've been in this business for more than a year, you already know this in your gut. But knowing it and doing something about it are two very different things — and that gap is where most agencies lose.

The average insurance agency spends $7,500 and 4 months replacing a single producer. And most of them end up right back where they started — short-staffed and frustrated.

On this episode, Craig and Jason tackle a topic that most insurance podcasts avoid because it's uncomfortable. That's exactly why it matters.

The conversation gets real about 10 minutes in, when they stop talking theory and start sharing what actually happened in their own agencies. That's where the actionable stuff lives — in the mess, not the framework.

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.

"If you can be clear on the expectation of daily activity, and you monitor just the daily activity, then you don't have to be so worried about what somebody's doing remote." — Craig

What Top Agencies Screen For Instead

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.

What's interesting is how this connects to retention, too. Agents who nail this area of their business tend to see a 5-8% bump in client retention within 12 months. Not because retention is directly related, but because the discipline and intentionality spill over into every client interaction.

"If you're all in office now, you're really running into problems in the future because you can hire from anywhere in the nation." — Jason

We've written about this in more depth — check out [INTERNAL: insurance-agency-hiring-guide] for the full breakdown.

Building a Pipeline That Doesn't Dry Up

The producers who last aren't the ones with the most industry knowledge. They're the ones with the right temperament for commission-only work: self-directed, rejection-resilient, and genuinely curious about people's lives. You can teach someone coverages. You can't teach them to handle 47 'no's in a row without spiraling.

"People will take less pay if you give them the option to work from home. It becomes a huge benefit." — Craig

This is the kind of episode that's worth listening to twice. Not because it's complex, but because the second time through, you'll catch the details you missed when you were busy agreeing with the big ideas. The details are where the execution lives. And that brings up something agents often overlook: the connection between daily habits and long-term results. It's tempting to think in terms of quarterly goals and annual targets. But the agencies that hit those targets consistently are the ones where the daily cadence is locked in — the calls happen, the follow-ups happen, the reviews happen. Not because of motivation, but because of structure. Motivation fades. Systems persist.

Put This to Work

Here's the move: Define clear daily activity expectations based on math - work backward from desired sales to required activities

Don't try to overhaul everything at once. Pick one insight from this episode and implement it this week. Track the result for 30 days. Then move to the next one. That's how agencies that grow actually grow. For related strategies, see [INTERNAL: commission-split-new-agents], [INTERNAL: insurance-producer-onboarding].

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🎙️ Listen to the full episode: Remote Agents VS In Office Agents Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

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

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