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 while ago, I heard an executive at the IIABA declare that Progressive would soon be losing money because they were spending so much on advertising. I’ll be blunt: this is an ignorant statement. It does not matter if a carrier spends $1 million or $5 billion on advertising. The nominal amount is completely immaterial. What matters is the return on investment for those dollars. If the return on investment is 18% for $5 billion but only 12% for $1 billion, spend the $5 billion

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

Those are the numbers from Brown & Brown’s January 27, 2026, analyst call (as reported in the Insurance Journal on January 28, 2026) regarding the revenues lost to a start-up (likely meaning Howden) in 2025. Per the statements made on the call, most employees were not producers, and most were in benefits. This fascinates me on multiple levels. First, Howden is making waves because of the many employees they’re allegedly taking from other brokers. In some cases, I find it funn

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

I was speaking to a group of agents and offering serious advice requiring hard decisions. These agents represented an organization in trouble. One agent approached me and advised that my recommendations were solid, insightful, and correct. However, her self-awareness enabled her to advise me that my recommendations would not work because neither she nor the other agents possessed the self-discipline required to save the organization, let alone to change course to achieve succ

Hardly a day goes by without the industry press covering an employee lawsuit, usually involving a salesperson, where a competitor has poached key people. “Poaching” typically means that the new employer enticed the employee(s) to leave in violation of the employee’s contract. Sometimes the suit involves entire teams. One recent headline described how one broker poached 140 employees at one time from another broker! That would hurt! Often, the new employer is sued along with t

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’ve read so many business books on how to do this or do that better I’ve become jaded. People don’t change, which is why Socrates and Thucydides remain high quality sources of wisdom and strategy. Ancient Greeks may sound boring, but wise people recognize these are sources of great insight into how to get people to do what you want, though sometimes you must look inward first. Fast forward about 2,500 years to a long-forgotten book, The Force, by David Dorsey, on how high pr

I met a man last week who has a seriously complicated insurance situation. He owns five different businesses that are quite different kinds of businesses, involve travel to multiple continents, share employees and equipment daily, and some employees have their own businesses but may use his equipment. About 10 years ago, his teenage son had an accident and his captive insurer of 25 years nonrenewed him lickety-split. We all know teenage drivers are accidents waiting to happen

I give up! I’ve been talking to walls long enough. I’m flipping my perspective from carriers’ financial strengths being important to not caring at all about carriers’ financial strengths. Why am I changing my perspective? Because most agents, like around 90%, don’t pay any attention to carriers’ financial strengths except to avoid the most toxic. If 90% believe a certain way, the 90% must be right, right? Instead, I will focus hard on suggesting agents have the most carriers

Considerable research, articles, and fodder for politicians’ “business is bad” sound bites have originated from consumer companies shrinking their products while keeping prices the same. The theory is that if prices don’t increase but the product shrinks, consumers won’t notice or won’t be as upset. The price per ounce increases nonetheless, but creative packaging might mitigate the blowback. Just to satisfy my intellectual curiosity, I’d like to see how much this “creative”

My research suggests insurance companies are in far more trouble than is being made public. Just think about these recent actions taken by insurance companies: A $10 million book with a 32% five-year loss ratio “must be moved”. A $7 million book with a 37% loss ratio that was so bad, so horribly bad (satire here), that the carrier could only afford to write it directly (although it did not appear like they wrote it directly because of the hidden ownership of the agency to who

This is the hardest market since 1987-1988 and that was a casualty hard market. I do not have any idea when such a hard property market existed in history. Hard markets are always caused by a shortage of surplus. Hard markets are not caused by one or two years of poor loss ratios. In 2023, insurance companies made record profits. Lack of profits is not the problem, no matter what your carrier is telling you, unless your carrier is especially incompetent. When companies run sh

A lot of entities want to pierce the corporate veil, and none of them have your best interests in mind. Multiple government entities have new, and some old, options for piercing the corporate veil and your clients’ corporate veils. As their broker, you can help protect them, but protect yourself too. A lot of entities want to pierce the corporate veil and none of them have your best interest in mind. Multiple government entities have new, and some old, options for piercing th

Insurance is an awfully old product. Standalone insurance policies not attached to contracts or loans were sold in Italy in the 1300’s. But reference to insurance dates all the way back to the Hammurabi Code from around 1750 B.C.! You might think that after 4,000 years, people selling and buying insurance would know what they’re selling and buying. But they don’t. Not really, only superficially. This is not just my opinion. I’ve surveyed hundreds of people in the insurance wo

“If you waste your time talking to the people who don’t listen to the things that you are saying, who do you think’s gonna hear?” This line was written by Kris Kristofferson, one of the great songwriters of the last several generations. I am fairly confident the context in which I hear him sing this song is not the context he intended. I hear it in the context of a consultant’s advice. And I hear that consultant’s advice from two perspectives. The first is from the perspectiv

“You’ll never accomplish anything if you care who gets the credit.” Gerald Weinberg, The Secrets of Consulting “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Harry S. Truman “A man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.” Father Strickland (1863) When I was young, I remember my grandmother planting seeds, both literally and figuratively. She liked a good garden (best snap beans ever), but she was also pl

In some states, nail technologists (people who do manicures) must complete 600 hours of training and education prior to earning a license. P&C agents only need 40 hours give or take, depending on the state. For perspective, each fingernail gets the equivalent of more education than is required for agents in total! I have lost fingernails in accidents, but so far, the value of a fingernail has never come close to the value of my home. However, agents with only 40 hours of educ

This is a difficult article for me to write for two reasons. The first is that I really love how insurance, when done well, can make peoples' lives so much better. The second is that by writing this article I am taking the chance that some people might consider this article libelous or a violation of the much-outdated anti-disparagement laws. A number of parties within the industry, not always the best players either, take advantage of anti-disparagement and libel laws knowin