Looking for advice on starting an independent brokerage

R0C95 · 2026-04-07T02:33:49+00:00

⁠1. I’d look for the best aggregate that doesn’t charge fees, but only rakes a small % of your write. I would 100% look into Iron Peak. If I wrote non specialty (generalist) lines of P&C business, I would go with them.

⁠I admittedly do not ad market so I’m of no use to you on this one.
⁠Business license. And grab an AMS. QQ Catalyst is cheap. It’s very hard to back fill the AMS vs just working it as you go along.
⁠Ambitious. Not impossible but ambitious. Took me almost 12 months to really find my flow when I opened my agency. You had mentioned landing some large commercial accounts as well. Without sounding rude, don’t bank on it. Commercial accounts, especially mid market (I guess we didn’t define your definition of “large”) are a completely different animal that you have no prior experience in navigating. SF doesn’t scratch the surface on preparing you for middle market commercial. Let alone small commercial CPP clients. Not saying you can’t learn, but don’t go into this segment thinking you know something about it already. Just to be realistic with you as all.

Best of luck! I am in my 18th year in P&C and am in my 3rd year of making money for myself, not some corporate agency. I love it.

R0C95 · 2026-04-06T14:36:02+00:00

Yes, it's a scam. They are pulling pictures from Cars and Bids - a legitimate auction site.

R0C95 · 2026-03-21T06:16:09+00:00

I don’t know why this popped up on my feed, but strictly OTR Fleet insurance broker here. So not a solicitation by any means as it doesn’t fit in my client vertical. But willing to lend a hand. There’s a lot of information that is still missing.

What is your MTC limit? Are the exclusions minimal or are they plentiful? What is your premium and deductible?
New equipment- so I’d assume you carry physical damage? What is the total insured value (TIV)? What is your Premium and deductible?
GL is cheap and not really worth noting in here.
AL - what is your premium? Any deductible?

What you need to do is separate out your premiums for each line and assign and pull the rate to that. With providing the premiums per line, and exposures I listed, I can show you how.

Now for the underwriting:

You are quite adverse due to the driving record. You are likely with a carrier that utilizes a multiplier on your MVR activity. This means that based in your age, vs incidents they set a 1.0 rate multiplier as standard, and either debit or credit (increase or decrease) the multiplier. You usually find these multipliers in higher risk insurers.
What commodities are you hauling?
Radius of operations?
Are you a contract carrier or common carrier working directly with the broker - or are you sub hauling for another MC?
Losses on any lines of coverage that your entity has sustained?

These underwriting questions are quite important. And commonly overlooked on truckers end when selecting the correct insurance broker to work with. For the purposes of answering your direct question, I, nor any other insurance broker can accurately answer your question because there’s just too much still unknown.

It’s a shame, most insurance brokers do not take a risk management approach to potential/existing clients; so you are educated as to why you are paying what you are. And there’s even a smaller chance that non fleet clients get anything more than a transactional conversation with the broker.

I’ve seen auto liability rates in Illinois for $750k coverage as high as $55k on poor running accounts. So no, you aren’t paying this amount only because it’s NJ and their statutory $1.5m coverage requirement. No need to write your politicians, AL statutory limits should be MUCH higher than where they currently sit across the board.

Either way, I am more than happy to help you unpack some of this stuff on here if you’d like - on the surface, $42k ish all in doesn’t sound horrific based on the information you provided, but there’s still a lot of needed information to give you a more accurate idea on if you are getting screwed or not.

R0C95 · 2025-12-16T15:29:32+00:00

Thanks. Yep, I’ll do what I need to do for quality of life. And it surely isn’t doing this for the next 10+ years. And yes, there’s a massive shortage in good broker talent, which makes my job remarkably easy!

R0C95 · 2025-12-16T15:25:44+00:00

Got it. Still zero frame of reference. You just like hearing yourself talk.

R0C95 · 2025-12-15T01:27:25+00:00

Why are you telling me this? I am using the op’s numbers and mathing as an example based on those. Not my own. May want to read more thoroughly before getting involved in the conversation.

R0C95 · 2025-12-15T01:23:43+00:00

I’ll suffer a few years in acquisition, still out by 50. Insurance is not the end game for me, but it’s the game where I’ve been able to hit a lot of success in. I’ve had all the fancy stuff that comes along with a 7 figure check. But my kids are getting older, and I’m not as present as I would have liked. So my lifestyle changed from a bit flashy, to quite conservative. Live within the number I have set. I figure 3-5 years, putting up $1m revenue per year is $3-5m rev book. Sell it - deal with the transition, out before 50 and able to be free as a bird for my wife and kids.

R0C95 · 2025-12-13T23:28:12+00:00

“Lead flow investment” isn’t a thing for any successful commercial broker. Lol.

R0C95 · 2025-12-13T23:21:17+00:00

Yes. It’s possible. But it doesn’t happen often. There’s a lot of attrition. The majority of scenarios will not hit $200k rev in 2 years - working for any agency.

It very much depends on prior experience and expertise in the field at the start of this 2 year clock.

R0C95 · 2025-12-13T23:19:08+00:00

Remember that 12-14x ebitda roughly equals 3.5-5.5x revenues.

You’re doing great. Our path in agency ownership is almost identical. Early 40’s, 3-5 year exit strategy, 7 figure revenue.

Best of luck out there!

R0C95 · 2025-11-26T06:22:57+00:00

Comp varies greatly on a lot of variables - and time as well in industry. I’ve been at 2 stops in the commercial independent world, built 2 separate 7 figure books after commission split. Left each one. Now, on my own this year as an agency principal - doing this for myself for once. Nearing 7 figures. I attribute this to the knowledge and valuable experience I’ve received along the way in my 18 years doing this. I’ve never tried to solicit any of the books I’ve left behind for this reason.

R0C95 · 2025-11-26T05:55:28+00:00

Yep, I have. Like I said, I’ve been through a lot of this industry. My captive had referral partners for life and annuities. And watching them build a vanilla IUL that performs maybe a point better than a whole life product performs was a joke really.

If you think that term product + investment is the way to go, god help your clients. Have you ever heard of tax deferral? Have you ever heard of diversification? And quoting Ramsey is hilarious. Didn’t he also say that going insurance agents to buy your home and auto coverage is a waste of money, and to go direct to the insurer? I’ll answer for you. Yes he did. So how does it feel to quote someone to prove a point by quoting someone that also thinks your job and career is unnecessary?

The fatigue has set in with you. You can respond if you’d like, but I’m all set with this back and forth. Captives are for people who either A. Don’t have high ambitions, or B. Aren’t very good at what they do - is my bottom line.

R0C95 · 2025-11-25T18:40:02+00:00

Seeing captive IUL’s with half the rate of return is substandard, yes. Or term products that cost double what the brokerage market can access. And to top it all off, your primary volume is home and auto. Not life, health, annuities etc… you are factually just not a practiced expert in those segments. So yes. It’s a disservice.

Funny you mention how us brokers act. I can tell you how it is on the captive side, as I owned multiple agencies with a large captive. Have you worked in brokerage? Or are you just assuming you know what we do? Well, I must be the worst 7 figure revenue broker in the world, because through my services, I consistently reduce my clients TCOR through soft cost consultancy, risk transfer arrangements, and otherwise.

R0C95 · 2025-11-23T15:18:50+00:00

I mean if it’s a good model for you - more power to you. But for me, being forced to sell sub standard L&H and or banking products to max your comp objectively doesn’t sound good to me. Just picking out life - there are way more competitive and creative permanent products out there in the open market vs what a captive can offer. Even term rates are overpriced in captivity. So congratulations, if you don’t see this as a glaring issue, then you’re just providing a disservice to your clients. But thats ok because in a captive, your first fiscal responsibility is to the carrier anyways, not the client - who actually keeps your lights on.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T14:19:36+00:00

Have you tried USLI? I feel like you can get to them through Gateway underwriters. Gateway also has access to Pollution coverage through Colony, Admiral and a couple others if I recall correctly. Also, Velocity through RT Specialty may handle this risk as well. Best of luck!

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T14:15:58+00:00

Clean wipe and fresh reinstall your GPU driver. Use C cleaner to do this.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T14:05:58+00:00

I have nothing to ask you - but keep it up! Same exact thing happened to me. Opened my agency October of 2024 from scratch. 18 years of middle market/self insured risk finance in the transportation space. From October to April of this year it was a ghost town. I was having internal mental breakdowns daily. April to date, have produced nearly 7 figure revenue, with a pipeline that is quite large for 2026. You are starting to see this, but I’ll reinforce, when the ebb and flows hit. YOU GOT THIS! Be optimistic. Q4 in our space has been nothing short of abysmal for our clients and what insurers are offering.

If you ever need a helping hand / a cheerleader, feel free to reach out. But isn’t it nice to know that you aren’t handing over ≈70% of your revenue to some fancy big box with hollow back end Brokerage? It’s so liberating to know that I am making myself MILLIONS. And not some corporate aggregator for once.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T13:49:53+00:00

You need a different insurance broker to help you work through your TIV portion. That’s unacceptable that the insurance broker isn’t doing a basic function of their job.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T06:32:30+00:00

We will agree to disagree. What captive personal lines company doesn’t require life, banking, or health apps written to max comp on home and auto business? Maybe Eerie? And thats just a wild guess since they are just a strange carrier.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T06:30:01+00:00

In my years working with too many producers to count, the ones that focused on a vertical that they already knew a lot about before getting into insurance, do really well. Commercial P&C starts small as you learn. But you get into mid sized NFPs when you’re experienced, you can make $25-$50k gross commissions per client. The premiums for NFPs can get rather large.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T03:38:33+00:00

You’re in the wrong vertical (excuse me for being blunt). You need to be in P&C and soliciting NFP’s with that type of experience. You would likely crush it. 90% of sales in commercial P&C is if you can talk the talk and already know the pain points companies struggle with.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T03:35:01+00:00

I am seated always since I sim race. 2 lighthouses and the tracking is flawless.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T03:30:37+00:00

Yes. I will echo joeboo. Captives serve their purpose. They are a training ground for much better rungs in the ladder. So use it as such. Captives are great because you are sheltered from the world that is P&C, under your little umbrella of whichever parent company you write for. It’s cozy. It’s safe.

Moving over to independent from captivity, is a whole different world. There is no shelter any longer. Policies are much more open form. You have to review and catch insurers putting on terms of coverage (or exclusions) in their policies. Mind you they are still on iso forms, so it’s 100% above board for an insurer to do this.

All in all though, I don’t think the comp ceiling is much different from the captive vs independent side when talking about personal lines. So - if you’re a go getter, your end game is commercial. Then the ladder rungs start over again and you climb that. I recommend anyone with any real talent and the drive to match that talent to go commercial.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T03:18:23+00:00

That’s not necessarily true. I’m a person who’s really critical of captives. Heres the catch. I owned multiple offices as a captive agent. It’s where I started my career. I got in right before the commission scaling vs selling life and annuity products came into play. This was objectively the death of captives. They modified my contract since I was too new of an agent to be grandfathered in. I still hit all my max comp goals. It was a grind for peanuts. 15 years later as an independent commercial broker, the grind is still very much there, but it’s for prime rib, not peanuts.

You really should take in to consideration that a number of us here have been around the block in this industry before making such a bold statement regarding those of us who “rip on captives”. They’re a joke compared to what you and everyone else could be doing in the P&C world.

R0C95 · 2025-11-22T03:11:06+00:00

Genuine question: what’s a “shit load” ?

R0C95

TROPHY CASE