A recent ACORD report estimated that 75% of mergers and acquisitions by reinsurers and multiline insurers destroy value. The worst performers were motivated to do deals to acquire scale. ​Scale is not a determining factor in this industry. Management intelligence and execution matter far more than scale. Scale enables management teams to hide poor results more easily, and no one should ever doubt that motivation. ​ At the carrier level, I’ve analyzed results of around 80 carr

I read an article in Carrier Management (Dec 18, 2025) about how insurance companies are pairing AI and process engineering to drive subrogation outcomes. The immediate thought that came to mind is that carriers are not culturally or intellectually ready to do this. Most insurance companies and agencies are horrible strategic planners. Sure, they go through the motions, and many pay hundreds of thousands to consultants to build strategic plans. What is missing besides a lot?

Every once in a while, I write an article on trust accounting. Recently, I was searching my archives and came across one I'd written 20+ years ago. Nothing much has changed, so I feel I’m being redundant writing on this subject again and again. But many agencies and their CPAs do not know why or how independent insurance agency accounting is different. The problem is exacerbated by agency management systems that cannot handle insurance agency accounting. QuickBooks, for exam