In this episode of the Power Producers Podcast, host David Carothers welcomes back Andy Mathisen, Insurance Sales Manager for Homebot. They dive into how agencies can dominate the personal lines market by shifting from transactional relationships to value-driven engagement.
 Andy breaks down how Homebot serves as a “set it and forget it” tool that keeps agents front-and-center with insureds while simultaneously generating leads for loan officers and realtors—flipping the traditional referral food chain on its head.
Andy explains that Homebot is a monthly home digest sent to insureds with a staggering 76% open rate. Unlike standard newsletters, this digest provides homeowners with real-time data on their home value, loan balance, and purchasing power (equity for refinances, HELOCs, or new purchases).
 Historically, insurance agents are at the bottom of the referral food chain (Realtor > Lender > Agent). Andy details how Homebot changes this dynamic by aggregating a “Team of Professionals” on the client’s dashboard. When a homeowner interacts with financial tools on the platform, the insurance agent can pass those leads back to lenders and realtors, creating immense leverage and reciprocity.
David and Andy discuss why dropping off donuts at a loan officer’s office no longer works. To win in today’s market, agents must provide actionable data and tools that help their referral partners grow.
 The duo critiques the mindset of agency owners who claim they are “too busy” for new leads. They discuss the necessity of implementing systems, departmentalization, and proper website content strategies (blogs vs. paid ads) to scale consulting capabilities without drowning in work.
Andy shares his frustration with agencies that rely on complex phone trees or refuse to answer calls, and the growing trend of prospects “ghosting” after good sales calls.
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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