The Employee Benefits Agency Reimagined 

Summary

The benefits industry has hit a breaking point. Margins are thinning, commissions are shrinking, and client expectations are rising fast. Agencies that continue to operate on old habits will slide into irrelevance, not because of outside forces, but because they don't control what they sell or how they get paid. The path forward is taking ownership of the business, redefining value, and building the systems, skills, and leadership needed to operate like a true advisory firm. The next era belongs to agencies willing to rethink their model, get intentional, and rebuild their relevance from the inside out.

Every agency owner and producer knows there is nothing easy about the employee benefits industry. Whether it’s prospecting, marketing, selling, or leading a team, many of us constantly feel that we’re in a little over our heads. And that’s in the good times!  

Then there are the more challenging times. There comes a time for every business, every industry, when it is make-or-break time. You either reach deep and commit to making difficult adjustments, embracing change, and reinventing yourself, or give in to a path that leads to unavoidable irrelevance.  

For this industry, that time is already here. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve come to a fork in the road. Some of you may recall the panic caused by a start-up company called Zenefits. You all deal with the effects of the ACA every day. More recently, compensation transparency scared the crap out of many. And there have been others that either proved not to be the threat first thought or that we’ve learned to live with.  

However, this time around is different. And, by different, I mean much more of a threat than you’ve ever experienced. The reason it’s different, if I can summarize it in one familiar metaphor, is that this industry is facing death by a thousand cuts. 

Many will deny it, some will ignore it, but the truth is unavoidable: we’re facing a defining moment. How you respond will determine whether you remain relevant, become another cautionary tale, or, on the positive side, become more essential than ever.

An industry at a crossroads 

It’s been a good ride. For decades, before the threats mentioned above, the benefits world remained relatively static. Although there were minor shifts and changes, nothing significantly threatened the industry model.  Agencies operated on “autopilot” and received generous financial compensation for doing so. But those days are over. 

Growth is more challenging than ever, margins are shrinking, and traditional commission models are eroding faster than most are willing to admit. As a result, consolidation is accelerating, and with every acquisition, we lose another independent voice. 

Industry data consistently shows that broker commissions have declined year over year since 2020. At the same time, more employers are questioning the value they receive from their advisor relationship. That combination of reduced compensation and greater client expectations represents a dire situation for many. 

What worries me most is how few agencies have an actionable plan for how they will respond. Too many are simply hoping the storm passes. But instead of a storm, what we are experiencing is a shifting of the landscape on which our industry sits.  

The brutal truth 

Ours is one of the business world’s most rewarding professions. You have the opportunity to make an impact on your clients’ organizations strategically, financially, operationally, and, because of your access to their employees, emotionally. No other advisor has a reach or impact that broad or significant.   

I’ve also seen how our success has bred complacency. For years, benefits agencies allowed their business model and survival to exist at the mercy of the insurance carriers.  

The two things every business must control, what they sell and how they get paid, have been controlled unilaterally by the carriers. That isn’t the business partnership we pretend it to be; it’s an organizational dependency and has left agencies dangerously exposed. 

When the carrier designs the product, determines the price, and dictates commissions, advisors become an interchangeable pawn in a game whose rules are controlled by others.  

This is a role you can no longer afford to play.  

Everything is at stake 

This is much bigger than declining revenue. This is about becoming an irrelevant player in the system. 

We’re experiencing a slow but steady erosion of agency control. Carriers are tightening distribution, technology firms are automating low-value services, and new advisory models are emerging that speak the language of business, not just benefits.  

If all an advisor does is place coverage and help reactively fix problems, they’re being overpaid. And, as the market tends to do, that imbalance is being corrected. If those advisors don’t evolve fast, they’ll be watching from the sidelines as others redefine what “advisory” means in this new era of employee benefits. 

The agencies that survive and thrive in this new era will be those that take control of their business and its future and redefine the value they deliver. They will find that they have not only retained their relevance but also become more essential to the success of their clients than ever. 

The enemy within 

Many agency leaders realize the game is changing, but are focused on the wrong drivers. They believe their biggest threats are larger competitors, compliance issues, healthcare reform, or new technologies. Those are real, but they’re not the root issue. 

Their most threatening problems are much closer to home. How many of the following statements describe your agency? 

• We lack a unique sales process and still compete with spreadsheets, capabilities presentations, and promises of better service. 

• Our growth is overly dependent on one or two owner-producers. 

• Our service and sales teams operate in silos instead of as a unified, cohesive system. 

• Our compensation plans reward service over new sales. 

• Our leadership team focuses more on tactical activities than on strategy. 

• Our prospect pipelines are anemic, and we rarely achieve organic growth rates above single digits. 

• We lack clear differentiation in an increasingly crowded market. 

If more than a couple of these statements can be applied to you, you’re operating at a level of mediocrity. While the financial reward for mediocrity in this industry has been excessively high in the past, those days are over.  

The cost of doing nothing 

Transformation requires an investment of time, money, and, most of all, courage. But the cost of doing nothing is far greater. 

Agencies that stay the course will see already shrinking margins continue to erode, growth become increasingly elusive, and eventually slip into obsolescence. It’s not a matter of if this happens; it’s only a matter of how quickly.  

The pace of change is faster than it’s ever been before, but it’s also slower than it will ever be again. 

You’ll either sit back and become a passive victim, or you’ll leverage the evolution and embrace the market’s demand for clarity, leadership, and value. 

Taking back control 

At Q4intelligence, we work with agencies every day, helping them shift from being policy vendors at the mercy of the carriers into strategic business advisors in control of their business. We witness daily confirmation that taking control is about working with intention, feeding an insatiable curiosity, allowing ourselves to both challenge and be challenged, and collaborating with a community of like-minded professionals. 

It starts with clarity of vision: 

• Who do you want to be as an agency? 

• What value will you deliver to clients that makes them more successful? 

• How will you release your dependence on commission schedules and start getting paid for that value you deliver? 

With this clarity, it’s about accessing and aligning the systems that make your business scalable and sustainable. 

And that’s where Goose comes in. Goose is a platform and community of like-minded agencies that share similar visions for their future. Goose is a potent combination of peers, training, tools, resources, and guidance that breathes new life into its member agencies. It turns your dream into a pathway toward reality. 

The agency model reimagined 

The future agency won’t look like the one in which we grew up. It will: 

• Lead with insights, not spreadsheets 

• Charge for value, not placement 

• Deliver measurable business impact, not just renewals 

• Build leadership teams that drive strategy, not just production 

• Operate from documented systems and processes, not legacy habits 

This is how we take back control, not by waiting for someone else to fix the system, but by reimagining and rebuilding it ourselves. Agencies that do the hard work of transforming to this new model will no longer be included in the “brokers are alike” stereotype. 

A call to action 

Change isn’t easy, and it’s uncomfortable. But every meaningful transformation starts with discomfort. What’s even more painful, over the long term, is fighting change. 

You can’t afford to sit back and hope this wave passes. The agencies that act decisively over the next 12 to 24 months will define what this industry looks like for the next decade. 

If you’re ready to reimagine your agency, then it’s time to make intentional moves. Whether that’s rethinking your revenue model, redesigning your client experience, or aligning with partners who can accelerate your progress, do it now. 

This is your defining moment.  

The question isn’t whether change is coming; it’s happening every day. The real question is, “Are you going to take control of your destiny or allow it to be determined by someone else?”