I recently wrote about a GA case in which, if it stands, agencies’ standard of care will be about as high as possible. The only possible solutions are to complete thorough coverage checklists, which require the proper use of the checklist by the agent, or to use a Scope of Work contract that delineates exactly what the agent will do, which is typically very little when these contracts are employed. There is also the CA case that increased the standard of care there far above

​A year ago, I spoke at a limited membership insurance conference. The organizer introduced me as the best consultant, but the worst consultant ever at branding themselves. Maybe because I’ve lived in cattle country most of my life, I’m a little hesitant about the thought of branding myself. But he was 100% correct that I’ve done a horrible job creating a big brand. I find it frustrating that people with a much better brand get a lot of work because of their brand. However, s

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

Many producers and entire agencies are nervous about competing for larger commercial accounts. Perhaps they believe they’re too small, they don’t have all the services, they don’t have all the carriers, or they don’t have whatever. ​Success, especially in sales, is built on using your strengths rather than focusing on your weaknesses. Sales success is also built upon your competitors’ weaknesses. ​ Focus on your strengths. Whatever your strengths are, build them stronger, adv

This industry uses many confusing terms. Some words have multiple meanings, which, without context, are fairly useless, and some words don't mean what people think they mean. When you’re in the business every day, it is sometimes easy to forget the importance of taking time to explain to clients what these words mean. Here are a few that sometimes cause confusion: Blanket: This is simple. For 99% of humans, this means some kind of warming device, usually placed on a bed. When

Have you ever seen a suspense movie with unexpected twists of who is on whose side? Or a spy movie where two enemy states find some reason to work together to destroy some other third party? Well, that is sort of what happens between plaintiff firms and insurance companies. On the surface, they spend a ton of money convincing the public and courts that they are mortal enemies. However, both achieve greater success when plaintiff firms prevail, provided the wins are not so sig

It seems everyone in the insurance industry is aware of the California regulatory fiasco. If ever there was an insurance regulatory scenario akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burned, this is it. And it has been going on for decades. I strongly recommend everyone read “These are the Plunderers,” by Gretchen Morgenson. This book has a California focus beginning in 1992 and ending in 2025. If you feel your stomach turning while reading this book, you will not be alone. The regula

I’ll be blunt: Most insurance applications stink. I don’t know who designs them, but whoever it is should be fired – unless you are a conspiracy theorist. If so, then you know insurance applications are written poorly on purpose so insurance companies can later deny claims when insureds provide incorrect answers. This is an important point. For example, a large portion of cyber applications are warranty applications, and yet the questions asked are somewhere between nonsensic

Why can’t carriers generate quality loss runs and underwrite appropriately using those loss runs? I know, I know, they’re just waiting on AI to do all this for them. If that is the case, I strongly recommend all underwriters immediately begin looking for new jobs because your employer is not going to give you AI as an underwriting tool. They’re going to replace you even if they shouldn’t. However, AI cannot work effectively with incomplete and inaccurate data. I was reviewing

Around 10 years ago, I told an audience of insurance distributor associations that their lobbying efforts were poor to complete failures. The industry had failed, completely, not partially, to prevent banks from entering the industry (which did nothing but mess up the industry further because of their incompetence in running agencies). They failed to prevent the ACA (which definitely decreased commissions and created a concentration of risk for a large proportion of agencies)

The legal standard of care requiring that insureds read and understand their insurance policy is absurd. The typical standard for written communications with the average consumer is to write at an 8th-grade level or lower. Insurance policies, however, are legal contracts. To read and understand an insurance policy requires more than an 8th-grade level of reading ability. It is unreasonable to place the burden on the average consumer that they must read (i.e., have a duty to r

I saw an item on the news recently regarding medical malpractice rates being approximately 4 times higher than normal, too few doctors as a result, and so on. The story covered the entire litany of bad things that happen when the litigation environment is too favorable for plaintiff attorneys. The reporter then interviewed a plaintiff attorney who made all the same comments plaintiff attorneys always make. “Insurance companies make billions.” “Consumers will be harmed if caps

The insurance industry suffers from a long legal history and a dictionary's worth of terms. This combination is toxic because the industry is scared to improve wording for fear that new wording will not comply with historical case law. The net result is we continue to build a Tower of Babel, more and more words used synonymously that are not synonymous, and terms that are oxymoronic to people outside the industry. For example, how many different kinds of brokers are there, an

Homeowners insurance is a disaster created by many parties, none of whom work together, but whose teamwork is required to fix the issues. The industry has created an insurance product that is not affordable for many consumers. Furthermore, study after study shows a large proportion of homeowners are materially underinsured. What’s the value to a consumer of buying an inadequate policy at a price they cannot afford? On the other side of the equation, carriers are selling an in

I doubt there has ever been a time when more people are pushing, developing, or considering the creation of state-backed FAIR plans. Somehow, in some way, through magic finance, these people are pushing the narrative that they can provide affordable insurance because they don’t have to make a profit, unlike those “greedy” insurance companies. This is not good for the public, who will fund these programs and the resulting losses. Insurance companies are, on average, excluding

Consulting, to varying degrees, involves seeing into the future and advising clients how to best navigate that future. As a consultant and holding myself to a little bit of accountability: were my projections of the future of insurance distribution correct from about 10 years ago? In particular, a decade ago, I opined about which of 10 new insurance Insurtech distributors were likely to succeed. I advised my clients regarding why they should pay special attention to certain o

I read about a lawsuit alleging 25 carriers conspired in California to withdraw from wildfire prone locations simultaneously. I haven’t read this lawsuit, only some articles regarding it, so what follows may be total folly. If so, have some fun with it. My first reaction in reading these articles is that here we go again, more nut jobs suing insurance companies for likely unfounded reasons. A segment of our country appears to think prosperity is built through lawsuits. But th

A recent headline read, “How AI is Redefining Insurance Pricing Strategies,” followed by, “AI in pricing represents a breakthrough, with some insurers already shifting to automated solutions that promise more accurate risk assessment and increased profitability.” If someone is working in an Ivory Tower and not in the real world, AI probably is the solution. Otherwise, this statement and concept fail in light of two realities. The first is simply summed up by the old truism ab

In the March 28, 2025 edition of Carrier Management, the synopsis of a study by the Insurance Research Council stated that 33.4% of drivers were either uninsured or underinsured. A 2022 survey by the American Property Casualty Insurance Association identified that the majority of homeowners have not even considered increasing their values, given building inflation. Another 2022 study by Cape Analytics identified that approximately 67% of homes are underinsured by an average o

It is not rocket science. I read an article about a new MGA using “dynamic” modeling software to identify wildfire exposure and proactively make recommendations to mitigate damage potential. That sounds awesome. It’s also an unnecessary expense. Everyone is so wrapped up in technology that they have forgotten how simple property underwriting really is. I recently wrote an article stating carriers are lazy, and they are. A reader was upset I said this, and went on to say how g