In this first episode of a new multi-part Shoptalk series on the Power Producers Podcast, host David Carothers and co-host Kyle Houck are joined by Zane Goldthorp of ProWriters to kick off a deep dive into the cyber insurance market. Zane brings everyone up to speed on the recent acquisition of ProWriters by Victor, explaining how it will expand their product offerings into E&O and other specialty lines. The main focus of the conversation is a detailed breakdown of the current soft market in cyber. Zane explains the cyclical nature of the market—how the hard market of 2021-22 led to massive profits, which in turn attracted new capacity and drove prices down, creating the current buyer’s market.
Zane Goldthorp discusses the recent acquisition, assuring agents that ProWriters will continue to operate independently while leveraging Victor’s resources to offer a broader suite of products. This partnership will allow agents to access E&O and other specialty coverages for contractors, manufacturers, and A&E firms, creating new cross-selling opportunities.
Zane provides a clear timeline of the recent dramatic shifts in the cyber market. He explains how the influx of inexperienced carriers pre-COVID led to massive losses during the pandemic, triggering the intensely hard market of 2021-22. He then details how the high profitability of that period attracted new entrants, causing the market to rapidly soften again throughout 2023 and into the present.
The conversation centers on the current soft market, which Zane describes as a fantastic buyer’s market. With intense competition among carriers, clients can currently get broader coverage with lower underwriting requirements at the lowest prices seen in years. This makes it an ideal time for agents to proactively round out their books of business with cyber insurance.
With the soft market has come an influx of new carriers. Zane advises agents to look past low prices and vet new players by examining the experience of their leadership teams. He contrasts the philosophy of using technology to replace service versus ProWriters’ approach of using it to enhance the expertise of their brokers.
The commercial insurance world isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s unpredictable, chaotic, and constantly demanding producers to manage competing pressures—client needs, renewal deadlines, life events, prospecting goals, and agency responsibilities. And if you’re a middle-market producer, multiply that by ten.
In the middle market commercial insurance space, the role of the producer has never been more critical—or more misunderstood. Too many producers still view their job as selling policies instead of what it truly is: protecting the assets and livelihoods of the businesses they serve.
The middle market rewards depth, not breadth. Yet many producers still approach it like a volume game, quoting everything that moves, chasing price, and hoping activity turns into production. From the outside, it looks like hustle. From the inside of the underwriting and wholesale world, it looks like noise.
Personal lines has quietly become one of the most competitive segments in the insurance industry. Agencies that once dominated their local markets are now fighting to differentiate themselves against direct writers, digital-first carriers, and large brokers with massive content machines.
The cyber insurance market has always been unpredictable. Over the past decade, we’ve seen it move from an emerging line of coverage to one of the most volatile, swinging rapidly between soft and hard market cycles. But today, cyber has entered one of the softest markets in recent memory—and that presents a rare opportunity for both agents and clients.
For most of my 20-year career, captives felt like something reserved for the insurance elite—the jumbo accounts, the Fortune-level operations, the companies with multimillion-dollar manual premiums and entire departments dedicated to risk management. If you had asked me ten or fifteen years ago whether a $250,000 account was a legitimate captive candidate, I would’ve laughed. I thought captives were reserved for companies so complex and so large that the only rational way to insure them was to build an insurance company around their risk.
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