Rob Jacomen

Most "Producers" in this industry struggle (to actually "produce" new business)... When you solve this problem first, everything else downstream takes care of itself: lead generation, building a prospect list, full sales pipeline, getting BOR's and growing your commercial book👇

If you're a retail P&C or benefits broker, I'd spend 80% of my time learning and mastering the skill sets of how to sell, build relationships, forge strategic partnerships...and about 20% of my time on AI. The AI "you'll miss out" thumpers have you convinced to do the opposite.

Take a look at tonight's 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐗𝐈 🌟 #TULvPHX

MGA founders, leaders, & investors... insider intel: When you see Ads for "Industry Guides and Reports" that have other insurtech 'influencers' giving their perspectives and insights inside... there's a 99.9% chance those 'influencers' are PAID. Objective? You decide.

A hard or soft market should never dictate your distribution strategy as an MGA. If you pay attention to the noise in the market… You lose total control over your business model… and the market controls you. All of your competitors are dealing with the same market as you are.

Between the sticks 🥅 Dane Jacomen is a Scissortail 🕊️

@Zrayrayallday Ahh, now I get what you meant by “access”, you weren’t talking about access to UW talent…access to talk about submission/each risk. I agree 100%. Funny how UWs complain about brokers submissions and brokers complain about UWs not getting quotes fast enough. It’s all about comm

@robjacomen Sure, but U/W doesn’t with leadership. Most MGAs underestimate how much brokers wanna talk to someone about their submission + the fact that a portal only eats 60% of vanilla risk. Need U/Ws to touch that everything else within 24hrs to get traction on risk.

Why do so many smart MGA founders still struggle to scale distribution?

@Zrayrayallday Possible…but a majority of them are former UWs or also UW for their MGA. I’d argue most MGA founders don’t know how to scale either the generalist or specialist broker channel, nor how to sell, market or create content. Relationships aren’t enough anymore.

@robjacomen Access to underwriters

@bluehose35 Interesting take for sure. I do feel like the more they removed the 'human' touch points, sacrificing quality (customer service) for speed (quoting), negated the net gain or perceived gain from that speed to quote to bind aspiration. Broker behavior is the real constraint, IMO.

@robjacomen I’d argue it was quicker easier before with less tech bc they’ve all sacrificed customer service for a product that’s subpar to what we need, and what they claim it delivers

Carriers, wholesalers, and MGAs are patting themselves on the backs “going all-in” on AI & tech to make it easier for brokers to submit-quote-bind… Shouldn’t that have been that way all along for the last century? They’re focused on solving the wrong problem.

I’m convinced the only way to overcome AI democratizing virtually all content in the next 2-3 years…insurance pros who master “live streaming”. No one will trust AI generated content anymore (including AI clone videos), but raw, real “live” content? Whole different ball game.

@Beetthemarket I think it should be a requirement for every underwriter to craft the most perfect, expletive-filled reply back to these producer types...for 80% of them, it's not their fault TBH, it's the culture of the agency and sh*t training in being an 'advisor' vs used car salesman.

@robjacomen Producers to underwriting: “Hey man, cornerstone client here, need to requote and shave off 15% all lines. End of day please so I can get it on their desk”

I almost get the impression the terms “proactive risk management” and “risk control” are foreign to most producers today. “Speed to quote” and commoditization has replaced good ‘ole insurance advisory (what producers should be trained to do).

If you can overcome your fears… Your opponent becomes totally bankrupt

2026. No risk. No story. No reward.

The problem with all these new start-up MGAs who think they're the next 'big thing' in the specialty markets... Someone still has to educate insureds and SELL the "product". None of them talk about HOW they're going to get brokers to send them quality submissions, convert those submissions to bind orders and commission revenue (or help them sell). All we hear about is how amazing their "new" AI solution and tech is, fast turn-arounds on quotes, "seamless" underwriting decisions, streamlined and efficient integrations...yadda...yadda Here's one I read recently..."XYZ MGA delivers speed, precision, and expansive coverage – empowering our brokers to present impactful, bindable quotes with confidence." And?

When partnerships are architected as a system, growth becomes predictable.

Most ‘generalist’ insurance agencies, brokers and producers I talk to struggle because they’re not clearly known for one thing… so every part of growth feels harder than it should.

So long as churn holds steady at current rates (retention), we’re saying the $6.9M estimate (not earned YET), increases the agency’s “enterprise value”. If an investor or buyer comes along at any point in the future, documenting and showing this ‘could’ theoretically add to their valuation, among other factors, of course. Not all accounts are created equal in the P&C world, referrals are traditionally more ‘valuable’ too, i.e. lower churn, refer more, better clients (typically), and don’t shop around as much when they’re with a specialist insurance agency.

Yes, we built a formal, systematized referral machine and partnership strategy, implemented it across the agency (and with each producer)… it resulted in around $600k in new revenue. We estimated total LTV around $6.9M, 10-12 yr. per account avg churn for niche focused agency, accounting ONLY for the actual referrals gained, NOT the estimated # of referrals that should be gained from those new referrals. I did a whole workshop step by step how we did it with actual numbers. Doing another one in Jan. 2026 with another client and case study.

I have a client who paid my firm $73,080 in 2025 and we added just shy of $6.9M in enterprise value to his specialty insurance agency. That’s the ROI math so many miss when investing in their businesses and developing talent.