Employee benefits agency owners who want to remain independent often find themselves searching for resources to support their independence. Through their research, they come to a common question: Is it better to join an insurance agency network or invest in a business coaching program?
It’s a good question, and the answers will point in similar directions.
- Join a network for carrier access and bigger bonuses
- Hire a coach to work on your skills
- If money is tight, start with the network
Now, before you make a decision, I’d like to invite you to ask a better question:
What is the solution built to optimize for, and is that the same thing you are trying to build?
What is an insurance agency network built to optimize?
Revenue.
Most of what’s referred to as an agency network is rooted in carrier aggregation. Agencies pool their volume with other agencies to unlock appointments, higher commission tiers, and contingency bonuses. If your gap is market access, that can be exactly what you need.
This model helps pull more revenue out of the book you already have, mostly through carrier relationships. It makes you better at distributing someone else's product.
We’ve always felt that building a business dependent on someone else’s product puts you in a precarious position. Which is why we strongly encourage agencies to develop a healthy consulting practice so you can weather the carrier changes over the years that are guaranteed to happen.
Be wary of the dependency model
The carrier-first model is under pressure from every direction. Conservatively, employer health costs were projected to rise 6.5% in 2026, the steepest jump since 2010, according to Mercer, and more than a third of small-firm workers are already in level-funded plans, per KFF's 2025 survey. Carriers are redesigning plans to keep pace with a changing sentiment, and on the Medicare side, they're trimming broker commissions, some to zero.
Kevin and I have argued for years that a lot of agencies claim independence, but act as a captive with their carrier dependencies. Strip away the carrier relationships and the commissions, and the business would close up shop pretty quickly. If you can’t survive without your suppliers, your business is dependent.
To stay relevant, you have to deliver value that your clients can't get from a product, which takes us back to the advisory relationship. If you’re choosing the commission aggregation route, you’re pushing yourself deeper into dependency on the carriers.
What is coaching built to optimize?
General business coaching is readily available, and you can make great progress with a coach and some accountability. One-on-one guidance changes how an owner works.
However, most business coaches don’t know employee benefits. Coaching from someone who has lived inside benefits agencies and has seen your situation dozens of times moves you faster and keeps you out of potholes you didn't know were there.
When considering a coaching program, run it through the same questions you ran the network through. What is the coaching program built to optimize? Is it built around generic business skills, or around the work of running a benefits agency?
How does a room full of peers change the evaluation?
Peer networks rarely come up in responses to questions about the benefits of joining an insurance agency network or investing in a business coaching program, but they should.
With a peer network, you get a group of agency owners and their teams working on the same problems at the same time. In Goose, our professional development platform, we lean heavily on the peer network through community-wide learning discussions and small-group cohorts where people bring their challenges and think them through together.
There’s no substitute for bringing a problem you have been stressing about on your own and having a room full of people ready to jump in and help you solve it. It’s priceless.
And I’d like to take a minute and brag on our Goose community, which is filled with good people who want to do good work. We have a strict no-assholes rule because you can't do your best thinking surrounded by people you don't trust.
The agency owners in our community are the ones who will have your back, take your phone call, answer your texts, and share their best secrets. Growth was never a solo project, and be picky about who you choose to do it with.
A coach and a peer network amplify each other
You don't have to choose between a coach and a network when the two are better together.
- A coach who knows the industry gives you direction.
- A peer group gives you a dozen people who will weigh in, brainstorm, and keep you moving.
Put these two in the same place, with everyone speaking the same language about concepts and strategies, and each one makes the other more useful.
We built Goose around this combination, and it's entirely different from a carrier aggregation network and a generic coaching program.
The question to ask before you buy anything
Before you sign a network agreement or a coaching contract, run everything you are considering through one question. What is this built to optimize for?
We encourage you to find an answer that helps build your own capabilities and drives your independence and business valuation in the long term.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it better to join an insurance agency network or invest in a business coaching program?
It depends on what each is built to do and what you need. A carrier aggregation network helps if your gap is market access. Coaching helps if you need one-on-one guidance. The strongest move for most owners is a peer network paired with industry-specific coaching, so you get guidance and a room full of people solving the same problems.
What's the difference between a carrier aggregation network and a peer network?
A carrier aggregation network pools your production to improve carrier appointments, commission tiers, and bonuses. A peer network connects you with other agency owners and their teams to share what's working and think through problems together. One is built around your carrier economics; the other, around your capabilities and relevance.
Can I get coaching and a peer network in one place?
Yes. In Goose, we offer industry-specific coaching built on our MORE System sales training for producers and account managers, which runs alongside community-wide discussions and small-group cohorts. A coach points you in the right direction, and the peer community helps you strategize and flesh out ideas.
Content originally published by Q4intelligence
Photo by Ayu