New Independent Agent in Texas

[Trevor Parker]

Hello everyone,
I'm a new agent with an insurance agency that was started somewhat recently. The company I work with is a subsidiary of a financial planning firm. We got appointed with The Woodlands Financial Group and they have been helping us get set up with some carriers.

For Homeowners, we have Foremost, Aegis, and Tower Hill Specialty. For some of the high value clients, we have AIG and Chubb. We are in the process of getting an appointment with American Risk Insurance.

On the auto side, we have Bristol West and Cover, but are waiting to hear back from ClearCover.

Are there any other carriers we should get appointed by? We don't have much experience, and since we're new we can't get appointments with some of the big guys (i.e. Travelers, Progressive, Liberty Mutual).

Would like to get feedback on some other carriers we should look at.

 

[TG-Terry]

There's a ton that you will have to look into, especially for P&C, our agency is appointed with about 40 carriers. Some carriers you can look into are Hippo, Lemonade, Kemper, MetLife,Nationwide, KBIC, Heritage, Foremost, Berkshire Hathaway Guard.....

As for life, depends on your focused market.

 

[marindependent]

It really depends on what your focus is. Sounds like you are more focused on Personal Lines. But what type? Who is your target market?

Confused as to having Chubb and AIG but not Travelers. This seems unusual, unless you just have them through an MGA. From the sound of it, you need a main stream personal lines insurer: Travelers, Safeco, Kemper etc to start off with.

Guard, was suggested and is a gret idea.

I dont think Proressive is all that hard to get appointed with, but things may be different were you are. Honestly a good cluster will solve much of this for you.

Lastly the side personal lines insuers are sometimes the most important: Umbrella, Flood, EQ [maybe not for you], Excess Umbrella, Non Admitted Options, Valuables, Easy Small Business [Hiscox, USLI] are sometimes more important than the regular insurers. But time will assist you in this endevour.

 

[Trevor Parker]

Confused as to having Chubb and AIG but not Travelers. This seems unusual, unless you just have them through an MGA

We are using Chubb and AIG through The Woodlands Financial Group. They are getting us set up on Encompass.

 

[Trevor Parker]

We are in the process of looking for a comparative rating system (we have about 8 carriers and I have to go each one individually). I'm looking at TurboRater and EZLynx. I'm an agent in Texas.