What’s up, everybody? My question for you today is are you a producer or are you an order-taker? Today, I’m going to give you three things that separates producers and order-takers, and in the end, the good news is if you’re not doing them, you can do them and implement them today and change the way you look at the commercial insurance game. When you’re in the sales game, you can be one of two things. You can be a producer, or you can be an order-taker. In my mind, three things separate the two.
The first thing is that producers produce. Producers go out, and they happen to things. They don’t sit back and wait for something to happen to them. If you’re a producer, you’re going to be out in front of the trends. You’re going to be out in front of your competition. You’re not going to be sitting there waiting for your phone to ring, waiting for an email to come in, waiting for somebody to knock on your door, begging you to sell to them. That’s what order-takers do. There’s a place for them in the sales game, but usually, it’s in call centers or someplace where there are a lot of inbound leads, and there’s just not room for a producer and an order-taker in a commercial insurance operation.
The second thing is producers believe they can, and order-takers talk about why they can’t. A producer’s not going to sit back and let obstacles get in their way and keep them from being able to go out and do what they do, which is produce. An order-taker is going to give you all the reasons why they’re not able to get new business. They’re going to tell you that it’s a problem with the lead mechanisms or a problem with the sales process or a problem with some of the training and development that they’ve got. The difference is a producer goes out, and they take care of themselves. They seek the training. They find the knowledge. They seek the ability to be better today than they were yesterday, but not as good as they’re going to be tomorrow. Don’t let things happen to you, happen to things. And don’t think about why you can’t go figure out how you can.
The most important thing is producers create victims. Order-takers are victims. Producers go out, and they crush the competition on the streets. The competition is their victim because they are happening to things and figuring out why they can. An order-taker sits back waits for things to come in. They tell you how come they can’t get business in the door, and they begin to have a victim mentality. And once that happens, that’s when the death spiral hits. They’ll tell you all the reasons why the organization has failed them as opposed to them going out, doing everything they can for the organization.
In the end as well, as it turns out. The producers are the cream that rises to the top, and the order-takers just sit back and wait for that phone to ring, which may never happen. My challenge to you today is to become a producer. It’s not that hard. Be proactive, do the things you need to do to drive business, have a process, make sure you stick to that process. You buy into that process, and you never abandon your process. Do those things and follow the three tips that separate producers from order-takers, you’re going to kill it in commercial insurance.
For years, commercial insurance producers could survive by being good enough across a wide range of industries. They could write a little construction, a little manufacturing, a little hospitality, and a little habitational business and still build a respectable book.
The commercial insurance industry is in the middle of a quiet evolution.
While most conversations still revolve around premiums, deductibles, limits, and carrier appetite, a different category of risk transfer has been gaining traction beneath the surface—parametric insurance. It is not new, but it is finally becoming accessible, relevant, and actionable for middle market producers who are willing to think differently about risk.
In a recent episode of the Power Producers Podcast, I sat down with Brian Thompson from Descartes Underwriting to unpack what parametric insurance actually is, what it is not, and why producers who ignore it may be leaving their clients—and themselves—exposed.
This article breaks that conversation down into practical, producer-friendly language and shows how parametric insurance fits into modern middle market risk management.
The last several years have reshaped the landscape of property insurance across the country. While most national carriers have retreated from coastal states, wildfire zones, and other catastrophe-exposed regions, a handful of disciplined players have taken the opposite path—leaning into difficult markets with a strategic, data-driven approach.
For most entrepreneurs, the decision to start a business is rooted in the promise of freedom. Freedom from a boss, freedom to control income, and freedom to build something meaningful. Yet for many business owners, particularly in service-based industries and middle-market companies, that freedom slowly erodes. What begins as ownership eventually turns into obligation, where the business demands constant attention and the owner becomes the single point of failure.
The insurance industry is full of shortcuts. Some producers look for ways to streamline the quoting process, others avoid hard conversations with clients, and many rely on endorsements or extensions because they are “easier” than diving into the details. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in the world of cyber insurance.
Too many agents assume that a cyber endorsement on a BOP or commercial package policy is “good enough.” It isn’t. In fact, treating a BOP cyber extension as a replacement for a standalone cyber policy leaves clients dangerously exposed, puts producers at risk of losing accounts, and opens the door to costly errors and omissions (E&O) claims.
Cyber threats evolve faster than any other area of risk, and endorsements simply can’t keep up. If producers want to protect their clients and themselves, it’s time to understand why standalone cyber insurance is non-negotiable.
In the middle market, producers don’t lose because the competition has better pricing.
They lose because the competition understands people better—their motivations, their fears, their priorities, and what makes them say yes.
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