16 posts found
03/13/2026 · 6 min read
Dean Bowen built Patriotic Insurance Group with no warm market, on three pillars: a data-sourced prospect list filtered by industry and size, cold email built on real research into each business, and automated follow-up over four to six weeks. The warm market has an expiration date. Specificity, not seniority, is what gives a young producer commercial credibility.
02/13/2026 · 6 min read
Cat insurance pricing is driven by reinsurance costs, capital requirements, and loss development, not carrier whim. AI helps with data processing and pattern recognition but does not replace underwriting judgment. Agent trust-based distribution remains the mechanism that places complex cat risk effectively.
06/05/2025 · 5 min read
Pick one or two commercial verticals, learn them deeper than competitors will, and build referral pipelines with CPAs, commercial bankers, and attorneys serving that niche. Specialty books renew at higher rates, escape price competition, and compound lifetime value the way personal lines never do.
06/05/2025 · 5 min read
David Carothers built his Tampa commercial agency by hiring baseball coaches, teachers, retail managers, and veterans, never other insurance agents. Screen for character (coachability, persistence, work ethic), then train product knowledge in-house through scripts, role plays, and mentor pairings.
01/03/2024 · 6 min read
The agencies that lead through InsurTech change share three internal practices: active curiosity about trends outside insurance, a discipline of running small contained experiments before big bets, and hiring for learning orientation alongside technical knowledge. The tools keep changing. The mindset that navigates them does not.
01/01/2024 · 7 min read
Stacey Brown's front-row view from InsurTech Hartford shows three shifts hitting independent agencies now: carriers accelerating technology investment, data-driven underwriting changing the agent's role from data collector to risk advisor, and embedded insurance clarifying that the independent channel's future is advice-intensive risk management.
09/30/2021 · 5 min read
Build a small commercial book as a volume play: 200 accounts at $3,500 average premium is a $700K book. Target retail, professional services, light contractors, food service, and personal care for standardized risk profiles. Lean on accountant and banker referrals. Retain with annual coverage education, not price.
09/29/2021 · 5 min read
Talage is a SaaS platform that compresses small commercial quoting from days to minutes through carrier integrations, embedded underwriting rules, and structured upfront data collection, so independent agents can profitably write the small business accounts (landscapers, small contractors, sub-$5K premium risks) the traditional process makes uneconomic.
09/16/2021 · 6 min read
Private flood beats NFIP on higher limits, replacement-cost contents, 24-to-48-hour bind versus the 30-day NFIP wait, and broader coverages like business income. Build flood into every coverage review, get an MGA appointment alongside your NFIP access, and document every client's decision in writing.
09/15/2021 · 5 min read
Most agents assume clients in low-risk zones don't need flood. More than 40% of NFIP claims come from outside high-risk zones. Document the flood conversation, learn NFIP Risk Rating 2.0, and quote private flood for higher limits and replacement-cost settlement before clients find the gap after a loss.
09/03/2021 · 6 min read
Cannabis insurance is a surplus lines market with thin competition, high commissions, and real demand from dispensaries, cultivators, and delivery operators. Most agents avoid it because it feels complicated. A few hours of education and a wholesaler relationship gets you in.
09/03/2021 · 5 min read
Cannabis insurance is an excess and surplus lines opportunity covering GL, property, commercial auto, workers' comp, and crop. Most cannabis operators are underinsured because few agents understand the carriers. Specialize early through a wholesale broker.
09/02/2021 · 5 min read
RiskGenius reads insurance policy language and surfaces the coverage differences that matter, doing in minutes what manual comparison takes hours to finish. Underwriters get scale, agents get fast coverage comparison at renewal, and personal-lines agents get a path into commercial work without years of specialist expertise.
08/11/2021 · 5 min read
Wildfire insurance is in crisis because major carriers built models for a fire environment that no longer exists. Kevin Stein left aerospace, built Inyo around granular risk modeling, and proved there is real margin in pricing individual properties accurately instead of redlining ZIP codes.
11/25/2020 · 7 min read
Build a government entity practice by sourcing public-entity MGAs, wholesale brokers, and state insurance pools, then targeting a small local account (water district, library district) first. Win one, serve it hard, and let public-sector buyers refer you through their associations.
11/23/2020 · 6 min read
Government entity insurance covers cities, counties, school districts, and water districts. Carson Saville built his book in this niche because the accounts are larger, retention is decades long, and most agents won't do the work to learn the procurement process.