Most employee benefits agency owners aren’t stuck because of the market, competition, carrier issues, or the economy. They’re stuck because they’ve built an accidental agency that makes staying exactly where they are feel reasonable, and the cost of staying there is too great.
This is the first of a two-part series where we explore how employee benefits agency owners plateau or grow based on their choices.
What does it mean to be an accidental agency?
Nobody’s goal is to build a stagnant agency, and certainly no one starts that way. You likely started your agency because of your ability to sell, and you focused solely on selling, hiring team members, and building your client base. And one day, you looked up and realized you had built a business nobody had ever taught you how to run.
This is the definition of an accidental agency. To be clear, accidental doesn’t equate to failure. Actually, by most measures, it is a success. Accidental agencies usually survive; some even do quite well.
The limitation of being an accidental agency is that it doesn’t scale. When every aspect of the business is built reactively, reaching plateaus earlier than necessary is inevitable. An agency that is built one hire, one client, and one crisis at a time isn’t that different than an amateur juggler trying to keep the balls in the air. This is also why so many agencies are nearly identical. The sales process is nothing more than getting quotes. Marketing is nonexistent. Leadership is reduced to the owner putting out fires. The sole bright spot for most accidental agencies is the reactive support they provide to clients. Every year looks basically like the year before.
If they’re being honest, most owners have known this for a while. But knowing isn’t the same as doing something about it, and that’s where the story comes in.
The agency owner’s story is one of procrastination and avoidance
I’ve heard variations of the same story from countless agency owners. While the details of their circumstances may change, the result on the agency is almost identical. Owners rationalize and convince themselves that their inaction is a strategy.
- Owners won’t push producers who haven’t written significant new business for the last two years because they rationalize that the existing book of business is sufficient.
- They won’t enforce an agency-wide sales process, claiming they want to allow flexibility.
- They won’t correct broken compensation programs purely out of fear of the response.
- And, when pushed to develop and execute a marketing plan, they convince themselves that marketing doesn’t work.
In most cases, none of these are proactive business decisions. They’re usually nothing more than rationalizing and explaining away the things owners haven’t been willing to address. “It’s just not the right time” is how the story is usually told.
I’ve heard the same excuses from agency owners about the same problem, producer, sales process, and compensation plan year after year. They’re waiting for a perfect time that will never arrive.
When a problem exists, now is always the best time to address it. The cost of waiting is just too high.
The “not the right time” explanation is persuasive because it sounds responsible. It sounds like you’re thinking strategically and being cautious. But every month you don’t fix the problem and deal with the issues, you’re paying a huge cost.
When leaders don’t make the difficult decisions, they force their team to deal with the consequences, and there are always consequences.
Culture isn’t what you say it is; it’s the result of what you allow. When a leader doesn’t lead, the culture fills the vacuum. In most accidental agencies, the culture fills in with behaviors that the owner hasn’t been willing to address.
The shift that changes everything
The agencies that break out of stagnation don’t do so by finding a secret strategy. They just finally decide that the cost of staying exactly where they are is too great. They become more uncomfortable with not changing than with changing.
That’s it; that’s the whole shift.
If this sounds a little too familiar, it’s time you stop managing what you have and start building what you want. Intentional will always beat accidental, and it starts with you deciding that good enough is no longer good enough.
What is it costing you to stay where you are?
In part two, we'll look at what it takes to build the team that moves you forward.
Frequently asked questions
Why do insurance agency owners stay stuck even when they know something needs to change?
Because inaction has a story attached to it that makes it feel reasonable. Owners reframe stalled producers as “retention assets,” broken processes as “flexibility,” and delays as strategic decisions. Every month that story runs the business, it’s preventing owners from achieving the results they need.
What’s the difference between an accidental insurance agency and an intentional one?
An accidental agency was built reactively, one hire, one client, and one crisis at a time. It survives, maybe even does well, but it doesn’t scale to its potential because nothing in it was designed. An intentional agency starts with a decision about where it’s going, what the team is accountable for, and what behaviors the culture will and won’t tolerate. The difference lies with leadership.
How do I know if my insurance agency is stuck in a pattern of rationalization?
Ask yourself one question: have you been waiting for the right time to make a specific change for more than six months? If the answer is yes, you are choosing comfort over strategy. The right time doesn’t arrive on its own; it’s created when you decide the cost of staying put finally outweighs the discomfort of changing.
Content originally published by Q4intelligence
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