Listen, if you’re in the sales game, objections? That’s the nature of the beast. We’re going to take the next few articles to talk about common objections all of us face. Today’s one of my all-time favorites, though, “But my agent’s my friend.” How are you going to fix that? How are you going to get past it?
If you’re in the sales game, objections are just part of what we encounter. Let’s face it, gatekeepers are good. So are decision-makers. They know all the right things to say to get you to shut up and leave them alone, don’t they? One of my favorites is when they give me the old, “But my agent’s my friend.” Yeah, is he? Is she? Let’s talk about the results they’re getting for you. Listen, if you do your research before you call on somebody, which is what we talk about doing all the time, there’s never an issue overcoming objections. You should be armed to the gills with the information that you need to get past those objections.
It is not a secret at all that I like to lead with worker’s comp. There’s a reason for that. There’s a myriad of reasons for that, specifically in the state of Florida. One of them is, I can know what the experience mod is before I ever pick up the phone and call somebody. So my advice is, number one, before you even attempt the call, make sure you’ve done your research. Make sure you have something that you can use to drive a wedge and overcome the objection, regardless of who the agent is. We like the experience mod because it’s quantifiable and because it’s their numbers. They earned them and cannot argue that.
So when I call an account that has half a million dollars in workers’ compensation premium, and their experience mod is a 1.5, I get the objection, “But my agent’s my friend,” my response is something along these lines: Listen, I’m not sure how good of friends you are with your agent. You guys might be lifelong buddies. Here’s what I know: right now, you’re paying at least 50% more than the average companies in your peer group for your workers’ compensation on the half-million dollars of premium that you’re paying per year for manual premium in your organization. If you don’t do anything at all to improve, and you continue to rely on your agent’s friendship, as opposed to their qualifications and ability to execute, you’re going to pay a million dollars more than you should for your workers’ comp over the next four years, assuming no changes.
Is this a million-dollar friendship that you have, or is a guy that’ll take you to the country club on a Friday afternoon to hit a bucket of balls, and maybe catch a quick nine. You bending elbows with this person for happy hour, or are they coming in and doing the midyear claims reviews, and things necessary to control your experience modification factor? Are you spending time telling jokes and hanging with the guys with your friendly agent that you’ve known for how long? Or are you taking the time to do a risk management action plan to make sure that the things vital for the success of your organization, both from a risk management standpoint and a financial standpoint, are happening? How good is this friend?
Listen, if this is a million-dollar friendship, and that’s what you’re going to hang your hat on, I commend you. That makes me want you as a client even more because that tells me your loyalty has a price tag of more than a million dollars because that’s what your company is spending that they shouldn’t be. Listen, if the increased premium alone isn’t enough to get them going and salivating, and ready to disband this friendship to hire you, the other thing you can always use is the flawed compensation model in the workers’ comp arena, right? So what I mean by that is for the higher the experience mod goes, the more the agent is making in commission.
So using the example that we’ve used, not only will this person be paying a million dollars more than they should for their workers’ comp, and that’s if we’re getting them back down to 1.0, which is average. The other issue is that over that same four years, their friend has made $100,000 due to their misfortune. People, this is not a friendly game. Sales is a game where you’re going out there in a cutthroat world, and it’s kill or be killed. Paint the picture of the increased premium. And then also make sure they understand their friend is getting a reward for their misfortune. I can assure you that it is going to help you absolutely destroy your competition. You’ll overcome the objection of the agent being their friend. 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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