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Last Updated on: February 2, 2026

From Blue Collar to Blockchain: What New Producers Can Learn from Dean Bowen’s Journey Into Middle-Market Insurance

Insurance

Breaking into the commercial insurance industry is never easy—especially when you’re young, new, and entering a hard market where expectations are high and patience is low. But every once in a while, a story comes along that perfectly illustrates what it really takes to survive and succeed as a new producer.

That story belongs to Dean Bowen of Patriotic Insurance.

Dean didn’t grow up in an office or cut his teeth on day-one sales training. In fact, his path to commercial insurance has no resemblance to the traditional route most producers take. But what he has done is something every new producer can learn from—he embraced discomfort, leaned into curiosity, built his own structure, and eventually unlocked one of the most complex emerging niches in the industry: cryptocurrency and high-power computing insurance.

This post breaks down Dean’s journey and translates it into clear lessons every middle-market producer can immediately apply.

A Non-Traditional Path Into Insurance

From Hard Hats to Hard Markets

Before insurance, Dean spent years in hands-on, labor-intensive work—brewing beer, patching roofs, power washing houses, and working in aluminum can manufacturing. He jokes that everything he did required toe protection and eye protection. But in hindsight, that blue-collar experience positioned him perfectly for commercial lines.

Why?

Because he learned how contractors think, what they value, and how they make decisions. When he sits with a general contractor or a small business owner today, he speaks their language. He understands their priorities: practicality, price, and protection they’ll actually use.

For new producers, this is a reminder:
Your past is an asset—if you know how to apply it.

The Learning Curve Hits Harder Than Expected

Dean entered the industry with the misconception that being insured as a consumer meant he understood insurance.

That illusion evaporated instantly.

He quickly discovered:

  • The terminology was foreign
  • Underwriting expectations were far deeper than he realized
  • Understanding forms and coverage triggers took time
  • Advising clients required precision and confidence

Like many new producers, he underestimated the sheer volume he had to learn—and the time it takes to become credible in the marketplace.

The biggest shock?

“I assumed there were more guard rails for the agent than there actually are.”

That realization created a healthy respect for the role and the responsibility producers carry.

The Biggest Challenge for New Producers: Self-Motivation

Insurance Productivity Is Ambiguous—and That’s the Problem

In Dean’s prior jobs, productivity was simple:

  • Move this pile
  • Finish this job
  • Fix this issue

Insurance?
Completely different game.

New producers struggle because there’s no clear scoreboard. Productivity becomes ambiguous, and ambiguity kills momentum.

Dean admitted he wasted time early on—not because he was lazy, but because he didn’t yet know what mattered.

The Industry’s Biggest Surprise: Underwriters Trust You More Than You Think

Most new producers believe the underwriter is doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes—double-checking data, validating building specs, reviewing detailed information.

Not true.

“You’re the one providing the information.”

Underwriters rely heavily on the producer’s accuracy. The producer drives the quote and inputs the data. They the foundation for the carrier’s entire underwriting decision.

That terrified Dean early on.
It terrifies many new producers.

But it also underscores why good agents win:

  • They validate, verify, ask questions and don’t guess.

This is a defining characteristic of a great middle-market agent:
Accuracy protects the client—and protects the producer from E&O exposure.

The Rookie Mistake: Niching Too Early

Insurance

Dean made a mistake that many young producers make—he niched himself too soon.

He positioned himself as a specialist in a specific area before he had the experience to justify it.
And he found out quickly that while niching works in your favor sometimes, it also creates unintended consequences.

For example:

  • Prospects saw his specialized content and assumed he didn’t handle other lines.
  • Digital leads questioned whether he was the right fit for more traditional coverages.

His conclusion?

“I tried to make myself a specialist before I actually was one.”

Niching is powerful—but only when the niche is earned, not forced.

Lesson for new producers:
Let your book tell you what you’re good at.
Don’t force a niche—discover it.

Entering the Most Complex Niche in the Industry: Crypto Mining & High-Power Computing

This is where Dean’s story becomes remarkable.

While still learning the basics of the industry, Dean unexpectedly stumbled into one of the most challenging, misunderstood, high-risk niches in commercial insurance:

Cryptocurrency Mining & HPC (High-Power Computing) Insurance

And he dove in.

It All Started with a Risk Management Conversation

A contact mentioned emerging opportunities in cryptocurrency and hinted that underwriters were struggling to understand it. Dean started digging in, and before long, he found himself serving a community that is:

  • Insular
  • Highly technical
  • Rapidly growing
  • Extremely underserved by the insurance market

But here’s the key:

In a niche where nobody knows everything, the playing field is level.

Dean leaned into curiosity, took time to learn the ecosystem, and became a trusted resource.

Understanding the Crypto Mining Landscape

He breaks the industry into three groups:

  1. Co-host providers – they own the facilities and host other people’s equipment
  2. Self-hosted miners – people who own and operate their own machines
  3. Hosted miners – customers who place equipment in someone else’s facility

Each presents different:

  • Property exposures
  • Liability concerns
  • Inland marine complications
  • Business income questions

Why It’s Almost Entirely an E&S Marketplace

Underwriters see heavy obstacles:

  • New technology
  • Highly combustible environments
  • Remote locations
  • Voltage irregularities
  • Expensive equipment
  • Zero historical loss data
  • Fluctuating income tied to crypto markets

Dean initially faced huge friction finding placement.
Some quotes took weeks, prices made zero sense and brokers didn’t understand the space at all.

But he kept learning—and he kept refining his submission strategy.

Today, he has:

  • A dedicated broker team
  • Streamlined workflows
  • Predictable pricing partners
  • Faster turnaround times

This is what niche mastery looks like.

Why High-Power Computing Will Enter Admitted Markets First

Dean believes HPC will break into the admitted world sooner than crypto mining because HPC equipment:

  • Is more standardized
  • Has fewer fluctuating variables
  • Serves AI and data analysis workloads
  • Crypto mining is still the Wild West—and admitted carriers don’t like volatility.

Especially when business income fluctuates by the minute.

Risk Placement Workflow Lessons for Complex Industry Niches

Insurance

Dean’s progress in this niche created several universal lessons for producers working with hard-to-place risks:

  • Speed matters.
  • Consistency matters.
  • Strong broker relationships matter.
  • Good submissions separate amateurs from professionals.

And for risks like crypto mining or HPC, inland marine EDP forms become mission-critical.

Advice for New Middle-Market Producers

Dean delivers two main pieces of advice every new producer should tattoo on their soul:

  1. “Don’t quit.”

Commercial insurance rewards longevity.
No one wins early.
Everyone struggles.

  1. “Accept that you won’t always know what you’re doing.”

This industry is too big, too complex, and too nuanced to master quickly.
Your job is not to know everything—it’s to ask, learn, and surround yourself with experts.

He also recommends that new producers:

  • Understand their geographic market and carrier appetite
  • Start with commercial real estate to learn valuations, occupancy, and building classifications
  • Explore cyber as a niche, even though it requires education and persistence

These are the foundational building blocks of a strong producer career.

Conclusion – The Blueprint for Modern Producers

Dean Bowen represents the future of the commercial insurance industry.

He didn’t enter through the traditional pipeline, wait for expertise to magically appear, let fear stop him from learning the most complex niche in the industry.

Instead, he:

  • Built discipline
  • Accepted discomfort
  • Learned aggressively
  • Asked questions
  • Took advantage of emerging opportunities
  • Developed a specialty others avoided

His story proves one core truth:

The modern commercial insurance producer isn’t defined by background or tenure.
They’re defined by curiosity, grit, and the courage to lean into hard things.

For every producer reading this—whether you’re six months in or six years in—the takeaway is clear:

Don’t quit, don’t niche too soon, and don’t underestimate what you’re capable of.

Because you may just become the next producer who finds their breakthrough in the most unexpected place.

Captive

Captives Have Moved Downstream: Why Middle-Market Producers Must Master the Conversation—Or Get Left Behind

February 2, 2026 No Comments

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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