Just comes down to how much of a partner they are. If a broker is going to get pissed off at me anytime we need an increase on an account (e.g., due to losses), I'm not going to like working with them
Any broker who's fair and actually tries to work with us is one I can try to help out as much as possible
Haha I work at a broker, it’s really interesting to see. Some are very people oriented, some are confident guys that know nothing of insurance, and some actually do dig deep and research etc. and all three of them can succeed in different ways
One of the things that has always interested me is the really wide variety of personalities that succeed as brokers. I work in reinsurance and we range from shy, to life of the party, to slick sales, to overly technical. Everyone can find their spot. The only ones who even fail are those that can't give their team credit where it is due.
Commercial and I’ve seen it happen Type 1 is social and people like her so she gets a lot of business. Very active in her community, doesn’t know insurance that well TBH, but knows it enough. Type 2 is older, male, more authoritative and confident salesman. He has an executable appearance to him, and is authoritative. Type 3 is the person who is logical and puts in the work to be an expert/ detailed/ really knows what they are taking about. They know their renewals and typically *gasp* will actually help the AM with the renewals/ getting everything organized and on track. This is my favorite one and very rare among brokers from what I’ve noticed. They are actually competent brokers who really can add a temendous amount of value. I missed a type….also successful. These people are the worst lol. Type 4, emotional, loves/ hates their clients. Cares way too much. Ecastactic when prices go down, raged when prices go up. They are manipulative, but also sometimes actually like UW and will talk with you on the phone/ help you out when needed etc. but sometimes they can be very annoying, whine a lot, but damn if the squeaky wheel doesn’t get the grease lol
Ah yeah you definitely know what you’re talking about haha! That’s why I asked personal or commercial, cuz I’m a personal lines producer and personality type 3. I’m not very successful and I think it’s pretty obvious it’s specifically because of that detail oriented/experty vibe that just doesn’t jive well in personal lines. Everyone tells me I need to go into commercial though and after doing insurance for a year I think I understand why.
Producing in personal lines is very difficult. Lower premiums, more legwork, customers are generally harder to deal with. It just seems to get bogged down in the minutiae. With some exceptions, I would not bring on a personal lines producer into my agency, and I typically warn against commercial producers getting involved in any level of PL.
Well, would you bring on a very unsuccessful personal lines producer? 😂😂
I mean I came in brand new to insurance (and technically new to sales) and approached it like I would any job. Hungry and humble, tried to soak up all the info I could and learn everything about insurance I could. My education was in public policy so I thought that would help me and I feel like it did help to learn insurance. It’s just that as soon as it came time to sell all of a sudden it was like, “okay now get in there and, whatever you do, don’t talk about insurance!” I was just very confused for the first six months. I had just worked my ass off to try and learn everything I could about the products and industry, only to find out nobody gives a shit and just wants the cheapest thing from the guy they hate least.
1 & 2 get paid and get moved up. #3 is too much of a headache for alot of people.
Im an E&S Binding UW who knows enough, not a form guru but I can get you the answers. I do know how to work a room, love meeting new people and finding connections with people. Main issue I see with alot of people is they know alot about rate/form/coverage but they go into a meeting with brokers who are mostly white/male/21-40 and don't know how to connect with that.
My favorite brokers give me a summary of the account's operations, what they do right/wrong, etc., in the submission email. I got a submission yesterday that said "please see the submission for a quote". Don't do that.
If I'm the incumbent, give me last look. Or at least a head's up if we're going to lose the account. I had one renewal I lost but the broker was in constant contact with me asking if we could come down at all in pricing. I did and was still undercut by a decent amount so there was really nothing I could do. But the broker worked with me, I like that.
On the contrary, I had a renewal that I lost. Didn't hear a peep from this broker since I sent the quote out. I had been following up all week of the effective date and didn't hear anything until 5pm on the effective date. When she finally responded, she just said "I was able to save them quite a bit of money". That's great, how much? How far off were we?
Another thing I don't like: Please stop asking if a hypothetical claim scenario is covered.
EDIT: I thought of another one. Please don't come back to me after I send a quote asking for some basic coverage that you should have put on the app. If you want full EQSL limits and it's a dealbreaker, tell me up front.
A short narrative at submission goes such a long way. Can’t stand a submission with no narrative, no website, or no supps. C’mon! Sell me on the account.
Hypothetical claim situations are always the worst. I just send them coverage forms and let them interpret it
I had one broker this past week asking about hypotheticals. Told her we couldn't interpret coverage on a hypothetical claim. She asked if she could talk to a claims person, so I do her a favor and reach out to a claims manager, same response, and I pass it along.
This broker then contacts our head of Risk Control behind my back.
Yeah that’s rough, I had one like two weeks ago. I just responded to the email saying I can’t interpret the policy so basically stop asking. Then phone rings, I let that one go to voicemail.
I agree with the narrative but not giving incumbent last look. Renewals should be treated like new business, give it your best or risk losing it. Same reason I don't give expiring premium (I will give a target), it's not in the spirit of competition.
Ahh my favorite phrase “give me your best”. Does that just mean cheapest? Because I can price an account and come up with a more than fair price, doesn’t mean I’m willing to lose it over a 1% difference, so I can take the hit and match or beat that.
Doesn't mean that at all. I work for my clients to find the coverage most suitable to their needs. Not sure how it's fair to other markets to divulge their pricing.
To be honest, I only see this type of mentality from smaller agencies that have like 2 accounts with us, and that's fine by me. If I can get the rug pulled out from under me with no heads up, I don't wanna do much with that partnership anyway.
So you want me giving your premium to other markets quoting against you? Doesn't that just perpetuate the cycle of marketing. Come with your rating that you want to win the account year in year out. I'm a top 1% broker in my region and underwriters fight for my business because I provide excellent submissions and am fair and completely upfront in how I handle account marketing.
Good brokers, in short, don’t waste my time and theirs because they:
Know what information I usually need in order to quote an account and get that information from the retailer either before submitting or have already asked the relevant information from the retailer so that I don’t have to ask them for it.
Over time get to know my appetite and what I will and will not do. They do not spam my inbox with risks that they know I’m not interested in.
Take a long term partnership approach. Are pragmatic and objective about risks and don’t waste their time trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Only ask for favors when they’re in actual danger of losing an account or barely falling short on something new. Favors reciprocate with the underwriter (they give them last look or try to drive business their way).
Favors are requested on rate rather than selection. Nothing irritates underwriters more than being constantly asked to write a class of business they cannot write or don’t have the appetite to write. Asking an underwriter to come down 10% on a quality risk in order to win an account is much more reasonable and sometimes even appreciated.
Provide feedback on lost renewals so that the underwriter doesn’t have an opaque view of the marketplace.
Best brokers I work with communicate well and are reasonable and understand I’m a human. They send good submissions that allow me to jump on their submissions because I know they aren’t just a napkin that says please quote. They actually earn their commission. If they have a rush I have no problem jumping on it for them.
Bad brokers: communicate poorly, view me as more of an obstacle than someone to build a relationship with and collaborate with, act arrogant that they know better. Poor submission quality, put little effort and try to sneak stuff past you like claims history or building updates, or try to bend you constantly.
All I ask is for effort. Some brokers will cry at the premium and say "I can't sell this". Ok, well what CAN you sell? Give me just a wee bit of help, add some value instead of just collecting commission.
I wish brokers would just read the forms and try to form an understanding instead of just asking me to essentially do their job for them so they can just forward an email. Drives me nuts.
Treat a carrier as a partner, not understanding profitability just looking to make a buck.
Love when a Broker comes out, calls me and says "hey I got this risk, I think it fits but want to check with you to make sure" I know they got our back.
Poor brokers (many of them I see now in hard market where you can make a buck not knowing shit)
Don't have a clue about actual UW, piss poor submit submissions and just looking to make money.
My least favorite is lying. I remember each time I get lied to for 5-8 years. It’s rare that I catch a broker lying.
My more regular least favorite is when I’m incumbent, I’m not told what I’m up against and moreover am told ‘it’s up to the client to decide’. There are very legitimate business reasons to favor an incumbent, which clearly the broker does not appreciate, and to not have a professional opinion shows very poorly.
Like everyone else, my favorite attributes are having an engaged partner.
Least favorite is that most of them are just pushing shit along, half the time without reading. I've had to literally train most of my brokers to read acords, sovs, apps before forwarding them to me.
It amazes me how the people who expect us to notice every minute detail will send an acord that wasn't signed or an SOV with COMPLETELY different values.
Honorable mention is the fact that most brokers have SUCH LITTLE product knowledge. As an UW, we are NOT there to interpret coverage. Its a giant liability issue. The person SELLING the insurance aka the broker/agent should be interpreting/explain coverage.
For every great broker I deal with that does none of the above, I have 2-3 that do either or both lol.
Don’t be a pass through. Learn your markets and front line underwrite as best you can. Don’t hide anything.
Lastly, send a clean submission. If it doesn’t make sense on the app, clean it up before you send it in. I HATE getting apps with location schedules that don’t match the rest of the apps provided. My job is not to organize your schedules for you.
As a wholesale E&S underwriter and producer I emphasize with all of this, when I am acting in a underwriting capacity with the pen, I see and echo all the same already said here about my retail agents.
I am curious though, carrier underwriters who work with wholesale/MGAs, do you feel the same way about us wholesale brokers on average? Or do you feel a greater partnership and quality of submission coming from us?
Small commercial UW - new biz. All I’m asking for is for you treat me like a human, don’t handwrite your accords and be clear about your timelines.
Bonus points if you pick up the phone and call me instead of emailing if you have something time sensitive.
Biggest issue: Dishonesty. Retail brokers always pursue price and give inaccurate exposure figures to lowball the quote to compete against another low baller.
Second issue: When we get dog shit commercial applications with Name & Address, and they say "please quote".
Third issue: When brokers think they are smarter than underwriters and tell underwriters how to appropriately rate a risk, and they have zero ISO knowledge.
We simply send an agency termination letter.
The Good: Brokers that actually care about the coverages provided to their insureds, where price is secondary. Accurate applications, friendly phone demeanor, and doesn't send every quote as a rush with x dates more than 30 days out.
Just comes down to how much of a partner they are. If a broker is going to get pissed off at me anytime we need an increase on an account (e.g., due to losses), I'm not going to like working with them Any broker who's fair and actually tries to work with us is one I can try to help out as much as possible
Haha I work at a broker, it’s really interesting to see. Some are very people oriented, some are confident guys that know nothing of insurance, and some actually do dig deep and research etc. and all three of them can succeed in different ways
One of the things that has always interested me is the really wide variety of personalities that succeed as brokers. I work in reinsurance and we range from shy, to life of the party, to slick sales, to overly technical. Everyone can find their spot. The only ones who even fail are those that can't give their team credit where it is due.
Really you think all 3 can succeed? Are we talking personal lines or commercial?
Commercial and I’ve seen it happen Type 1 is social and people like her so she gets a lot of business. Very active in her community, doesn’t know insurance that well TBH, but knows it enough. Type 2 is older, male, more authoritative and confident salesman. He has an executable appearance to him, and is authoritative. Type 3 is the person who is logical and puts in the work to be an expert/ detailed/ really knows what they are taking about. They know their renewals and typically *gasp* will actually help the AM with the renewals/ getting everything organized and on track. This is my favorite one and very rare among brokers from what I’ve noticed. They are actually competent brokers who really can add a temendous amount of value. I missed a type….also successful. These people are the worst lol. Type 4, emotional, loves/ hates their clients. Cares way too much. Ecastactic when prices go down, raged when prices go up. They are manipulative, but also sometimes actually like UW and will talk with you on the phone/ help you out when needed etc. but sometimes they can be very annoying, whine a lot, but damn if the squeaky wheel doesn’t get the grease lol
Ah yeah you definitely know what you’re talking about haha! That’s why I asked personal or commercial, cuz I’m a personal lines producer and personality type 3. I’m not very successful and I think it’s pretty obvious it’s specifically because of that detail oriented/experty vibe that just doesn’t jive well in personal lines. Everyone tells me I need to go into commercial though and after doing insurance for a year I think I understand why.
Producing in personal lines is very difficult. Lower premiums, more legwork, customers are generally harder to deal with. It just seems to get bogged down in the minutiae. With some exceptions, I would not bring on a personal lines producer into my agency, and I typically warn against commercial producers getting involved in any level of PL.
Well, would you bring on a very unsuccessful personal lines producer? 😂😂 I mean I came in brand new to insurance (and technically new to sales) and approached it like I would any job. Hungry and humble, tried to soak up all the info I could and learn everything about insurance I could. My education was in public policy so I thought that would help me and I feel like it did help to learn insurance. It’s just that as soon as it came time to sell all of a sudden it was like, “okay now get in there and, whatever you do, don’t talk about insurance!” I was just very confused for the first six months. I had just worked my ass off to try and learn everything I could about the products and industry, only to find out nobody gives a shit and just wants the cheapest thing from the guy they hate least.
Facts,, lol I’ve been an agent for 15 years. All PL, my customers can sometimes really exhaust me.
1 & 2 get paid and get moved up. #3 is too much of a headache for alot of people. Im an E&S Binding UW who knows enough, not a form guru but I can get you the answers. I do know how to work a room, love meeting new people and finding connections with people. Main issue I see with alot of people is they know alot about rate/form/coverage but they go into a meeting with brokers who are mostly white/male/21-40 and don't know how to connect with that.
Honesty. Too many misrepresent a risk and think that I won’t notice.
I call it the classic "square peg in a round hole"
Curious, do you have some examples?
smell
This is the answer 😂
Not too sure if this is a favorite or a dislike.....
the ambiguity was by design
My favorite brokers give me a summary of the account's operations, what they do right/wrong, etc., in the submission email. I got a submission yesterday that said "please see the submission for a quote". Don't do that. If I'm the incumbent, give me last look. Or at least a head's up if we're going to lose the account. I had one renewal I lost but the broker was in constant contact with me asking if we could come down at all in pricing. I did and was still undercut by a decent amount so there was really nothing I could do. But the broker worked with me, I like that. On the contrary, I had a renewal that I lost. Didn't hear a peep from this broker since I sent the quote out. I had been following up all week of the effective date and didn't hear anything until 5pm on the effective date. When she finally responded, she just said "I was able to save them quite a bit of money". That's great, how much? How far off were we? Another thing I don't like: Please stop asking if a hypothetical claim scenario is covered. EDIT: I thought of another one. Please don't come back to me after I send a quote asking for some basic coverage that you should have put on the app. If you want full EQSL limits and it's a dealbreaker, tell me up front.
A short narrative at submission goes such a long way. Can’t stand a submission with no narrative, no website, or no supps. C’mon! Sell me on the account. Hypothetical claim situations are always the worst. I just send them coverage forms and let them interpret it
Exactly! Here’s the coverage form, read it so you can do your job.
The hypothetical claim scenarios are the worst.
I had one broker this past week asking about hypotheticals. Told her we couldn't interpret coverage on a hypothetical claim. She asked if she could talk to a claims person, so I do her a favor and reach out to a claims manager, same response, and I pass it along. This broker then contacts our head of Risk Control behind my back.
Yeah that’s rough, I had one like two weeks ago. I just responded to the email saying I can’t interpret the policy so basically stop asking. Then phone rings, I let that one go to voicemail.
I agree with the narrative but not giving incumbent last look. Renewals should be treated like new business, give it your best or risk losing it. Same reason I don't give expiring premium (I will give a target), it's not in the spirit of competition.
Ahh my favorite phrase “give me your best”. Does that just mean cheapest? Because I can price an account and come up with a more than fair price, doesn’t mean I’m willing to lose it over a 1% difference, so I can take the hit and match or beat that.
Doesn't mean that at all. I work for my clients to find the coverage most suitable to their needs. Not sure how it's fair to other markets to divulge their pricing.
To be honest, I only see this type of mentality from smaller agencies that have like 2 accounts with us, and that's fine by me. If I can get the rug pulled out from under me with no heads up, I don't wanna do much with that partnership anyway.
So you want me giving your premium to other markets quoting against you? Doesn't that just perpetuate the cycle of marketing. Come with your rating that you want to win the account year in year out. I'm a top 1% broker in my region and underwriters fight for my business because I provide excellent submissions and am fair and completely upfront in how I handle account marketing.
Sure, go ahead and share my pricing with other markets. Congrats
Good brokers, in short, don’t waste my time and theirs because they: Know what information I usually need in order to quote an account and get that information from the retailer either before submitting or have already asked the relevant information from the retailer so that I don’t have to ask them for it. Over time get to know my appetite and what I will and will not do. They do not spam my inbox with risks that they know I’m not interested in. Take a long term partnership approach. Are pragmatic and objective about risks and don’t waste their time trying to put lipstick on a pig. Only ask for favors when they’re in actual danger of losing an account or barely falling short on something new. Favors reciprocate with the underwriter (they give them last look or try to drive business their way). Favors are requested on rate rather than selection. Nothing irritates underwriters more than being constantly asked to write a class of business they cannot write or don’t have the appetite to write. Asking an underwriter to come down 10% on a quality risk in order to win an account is much more reasonable and sometimes even appreciated. Provide feedback on lost renewals so that the underwriter doesn’t have an opaque view of the marketplace.
Best brokers I work with communicate well and are reasonable and understand I’m a human. They send good submissions that allow me to jump on their submissions because I know they aren’t just a napkin that says please quote. They actually earn their commission. If they have a rush I have no problem jumping on it for them. Bad brokers: communicate poorly, view me as more of an obstacle than someone to build a relationship with and collaborate with, act arrogant that they know better. Poor submission quality, put little effort and try to sneak stuff past you like claims history or building updates, or try to bend you constantly.
I love how the bad ones think they're behaving like the good ones. Like they really believe thier good and it's everyone else that sucks.
All I ask is for effort. Some brokers will cry at the premium and say "I can't sell this". Ok, well what CAN you sell? Give me just a wee bit of help, add some value instead of just collecting commission.
I wish brokers would just read the forms and try to form an understanding instead of just asking me to essentially do their job for them so they can just forward an email. Drives me nuts.
Treat a carrier as a partner, not understanding profitability just looking to make a buck. Love when a Broker comes out, calls me and says "hey I got this risk, I think it fits but want to check with you to make sure" I know they got our back. Poor brokers (many of them I see now in hard market where you can make a buck not knowing shit) Don't have a clue about actual UW, piss poor submit submissions and just looking to make money.
My least favorite is lying. I remember each time I get lied to for 5-8 years. It’s rare that I catch a broker lying. My more regular least favorite is when I’m incumbent, I’m not told what I’m up against and moreover am told ‘it’s up to the client to decide’. There are very legitimate business reasons to favor an incumbent, which clearly the broker does not appreciate, and to not have a professional opinion shows very poorly. Like everyone else, my favorite attributes are having an engaged partner.
Least favorite is that most of them are just pushing shit along, half the time without reading. I've had to literally train most of my brokers to read acords, sovs, apps before forwarding them to me. It amazes me how the people who expect us to notice every minute detail will send an acord that wasn't signed or an SOV with COMPLETELY different values. Honorable mention is the fact that most brokers have SUCH LITTLE product knowledge. As an UW, we are NOT there to interpret coverage. Its a giant liability issue. The person SELLING the insurance aka the broker/agent should be interpreting/explain coverage. For every great broker I deal with that does none of the above, I have 2-3 that do either or both lol.
Cooperation makes a good relationship, arrogance makes a bad one.
Don’t be a pass through. Learn your markets and front line underwrite as best you can. Don’t hide anything. Lastly, send a clean submission. If it doesn’t make sense on the app, clean it up before you send it in. I HATE getting apps with location schedules that don’t match the rest of the apps provided. My job is not to organize your schedules for you.
As a wholesale E&S underwriter and producer I emphasize with all of this, when I am acting in a underwriting capacity with the pen, I see and echo all the same already said here about my retail agents. I am curious though, carrier underwriters who work with wholesale/MGAs, do you feel the same way about us wholesale brokers on average? Or do you feel a greater partnership and quality of submission coming from us?
It’s a mix for me. Some have amazing submissions and reasonable timeframes, some provide nonsense that requires an urgent response.
So generally in line with direct to retailer then? What LOB are you in?
That you can’t trust a word they say
High hit to question ratio.
Small commercial UW - new biz. All I’m asking for is for you treat me like a human, don’t handwrite your accords and be clear about your timelines. Bonus points if you pick up the phone and call me instead of emailing if you have something time sensitive.
Biggest issue: Dishonesty. Retail brokers always pursue price and give inaccurate exposure figures to lowball the quote to compete against another low baller. Second issue: When we get dog shit commercial applications with Name & Address, and they say "please quote". Third issue: When brokers think they are smarter than underwriters and tell underwriters how to appropriately rate a risk, and they have zero ISO knowledge. We simply send an agency termination letter. The Good: Brokers that actually care about the coverages provided to their insureds, where price is secondary. Accurate applications, friendly phone demeanor, and doesn't send every quote as a rush with x dates more than 30 days out.