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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.
12/27/2023 · 6 min read
Build accountability into a flexible insurance agency by managing outcomes, not hours: clear production and service metrics, a predictable meeting cadence, written decision logs, explicit recognition rituals, and a quarterly in-person team gathering. The accountability is what makes the flexibility work.
12/20/2023 · 6 min read
Rigid insurance agency workplaces lose the talent war because mandatory office hours read as distrust to professionals who proved during 2020-2022 they could produce remotely. Eric Yaverbaum says flexibility paired with real outcome accountability beats compensation as a recruiting differentiator.
12/18/2023 · 6 min read
Build an innovation culture by creating active curiosity (not just psychological safety), running monthly idea sessions, keeping an actively maintained idea pool, inviting outsider perspectives, and asking curious questions before evaluating any undeveloped idea your team brings.
12/13/2023 · 6 min read
Get more breakthroughs in your agency by generating volume of ideas, not quality of ideas. Run a 60-minute team session targeting 30 ideas before any evaluation, track your personal ideaflow for two weeks, and protect one hour weekly for exploratory questions about your business.
12/11/2023 · 7 min read
ADHD-friendly producer systems are stripped down, dopamine-rich, and front-loaded with energy. Build minimum-viable workflows (one task, one action, one decision per session), track leading indicators daily, time-block in short bursts that start with calls and end with admin, and use body-doubling to make hard tasks possible.
12/06/2023 · 6 min read
ADHD-wired insurance producers lose to admin and follow-through, not to selling. Antonia Bowring's fix is structure as freedom: external schedules, pre-ordered task lists, and routines that remove decision fatigue, paired with self-designed accountability built around when and how the producer actually focuses best.
11/20/2023 · 6 min read
Gary Cooper's transformation framework for insurance producers runs on three commitments: honest inventory of self-limiting beliefs, written values clarification, and accountability mirrors who tell you the truth without judgment. Tactics get taught in a weekend. Character built over years is what sustains top performance.
11/15/2023 · 6 min read
Fake it till you make it in insurance sales means acting from the identity of the advisor you're becoming, not performing false credentials. Gary Cooper's path teaches that self-concept drives production: agents who see themselves as advisors deliver advice, agents who see themselves as salespeople deliver pitches.
11/06/2023 · 6 min read
In an insurance agency M&A deal, headline price is rarely what the seller receives. Bill Snow says: negotiate earnouts only when you control the metrics, run parallel due diligence on the acquirer (talk to the last three sellers), demand auditable earnout definitions, and lock down every representation before close.
11/01/2023 · 6 min read
Bill Snow's first M&A question for agency owners isn't valuation, it's personality: do you actually want to work inside someone else's system for the 3-5 year earnout period? Builder or operator? Autonomy or structure? Answer that honestly before you read a multiple. The financial terms are negotiable. Your personality isn't.
10/23/2023 · 5 min read
Outshining your boss, your carrier rep, or your referring client makes them feel diminished, and diminished people quietly remove support. In a P&C agency, the producer who feeds wins back through their manager and the owner who makes the carrier rep look good keep capacity, exceptions, and loyalty.
09/20/2023 · 6 min read
Run conflict in three moves: establish safety before content (acknowledge the experience), separate the problem from the person, and drive toward commitment to future action rather than agreement on interpretation. Same framework works for angry clients, producer disputes, and accountability talks.
09/18/2023 · 6 min read
Communication is a professional competency, not a personality trait. Build it through five-minute daily reps over 90 days, not three-day workshops. At renewal, post-claim, and competitor-quote moments, surface the real driver behind the client's response before defending the position.
09/11/2023 · 5 min read
Micromanagement is the costliest mistake in insurance agency leadership: it drives out your best producers, makes quality dependent on owner bandwidth, and caps the agency at the owner's attention. The fix is consistency: documented standards, trained execution, accountability against the standard instead of constant supervision.
09/06/2023 · 6 min read
Build empathy through three trainable capacities: perspective-taking, emotional recognition, and responsive action. Practice it in coaching debriefs (what was the client feeling at each stage), model it as the leader, and use it in accountability conversations to fix root causes.
08/28/2023 · 5 min read
Clients buy insurance based on emotion and justify rationally. Work with four psychological principles: move them toward certainty, make every coverage relevant to their specific life, use social proof from similar clients, and end with a clear path forward instead of "let me know.
08/02/2023 · 5 min read
Owner ego shows up as control: rejecting team input, overriding the processes you wrote, taking credit for wins while blaming the team for losses, and rewarding loyalty over loyalty to the agency. Hand off one piece of authority for 60 days, then ask what makes their job harder.
06/19/2023 · 5 min read
Working more hours shrinks an agency once the owner becomes the bottleneck. Personal labor has a 168-hour ceiling. Strategic leverage (systems, delegated tasks, producer development) raises the ceiling. Calculate your real hourly rate, then remove yourself from low-leverage work.
