Leaving Captivity

This book didn’t exist when I needed it most, so I wrote it. Personal experience is the most expensive and time-consuming way to learn. So, these pages will candidly share the insights I’ve acquired, good ideas I’ve implemented and the landmines I’ve stepped on. Leaving Captivity is designed for two specific profiles of reader: 1. An agency principal currently in the captive or exclusive agency distribution channel (State Farm, Allstate, Farmers, AmFam, Farm Bureau, etc.). If you are feeling stuck, disillusioned, burnt out, capped out, unable to compete or ill-equipped…this book may alter the course of your career. 2. An accomplished producer who wants to better understand what it takes to launch and run a successful insurance agency. 3. (BONUS) The many friends, colleagues, peers and clients who are here with a bowl of popcorn ready to enjoy the show. Howdy, folks. The mission of this book is to provide you an actionable blueprint for designing, building and scaling a successful independent insurance agency. As you will see in these pages, “successful” is defined as an agency that is achieving high marks in the fifteen concept areas we will tackle together. These principles are not a litmus test for success. But you will find that, almost without exception, every “best in class” office in the insurance industry is solid in these fifteen areas. Let’s get into some useful context on my perspective and share the ground rules I will follow as your guide here. My Freedom Jump SIDEBAR: I coined the term “Freedom Jump” to describe the move from the captive or exclusive channel to the independent side of the insurance industry. Anyone making that move is a “Freedom Jumper.” My wife, Alison, and I launched a scratch exclusive agency with a national carrier in December 2012. We did it in about the hardest way possible: new industry, new city, no community, no seed money, no natural market, no channel partners… I could go on. It was a steep uphill climb from the beginning. In six years working in the exclusive channel, I compiled an impressive list of mistakes made, opportunities squandered, carrier employees and underwriters annoyed, and many lessons learned. In 2016, I began studying for the Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) professional designation with the National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research (called “The National Alliance” in industry circles.) In those live classes, you are in a hotel conference room with the instructor and 100+ industry peers. That first class, I wasn’t just the only person from my carrier in the room. I was the only person from the exclusive agent distribution channel in the room. I talked at length with my independent agent classmates. Those conversations with my IA peers left me feeling like someone looking over their backyard fence and gawking at their neighbor’s perfectly green lawn for the first time. This book isn’t going to get bogged down in the dichotomy of exclusive VS independent agents or try to convince you of the superiority of the IA channel. There are plenty of exclusive agents who are running successful agencies and are very good at serving their clients and writing business. That said, if you are reading this book, you’ve likely already begun to come to the realization yourself that selling only one flavor of ice cream is a hard way to make a living. Over the course of almost three years, I became increasingly disillusioned about my current career. I was increasingly aware of how big a gap there was between my agency and those of my high-performance IA peers in my local market. I was self-conscious and insecure about my lack of financial, strategic, and business acumen. I was an above average exclusive agent, but I was as generic and forgettable as a plain vanilla ice cream cone. I reached my breaking point in the spring of 2018. I began investigating what the next chapter of my career might look like and met with just about every flavor of independent agency opportunity. Once I learned about this “other side” in detail, my days as an exclusive agency owner were officially numbered.