How to Get Appointed with Insurance Companies: You Need 3 Things

Before I worked with Firefly, I tried to get carrier appointments on my own. While I knew Firefly was a great company, I also thought that if I could get the carriers on my own, I might make more money.

I quickly learned that getting appointed with independent P&C carriers was harder than I expected.

⬇️ Every carrier is different, but below are three key ideas of what most carriers will ask when going through the appointment process entirely on your own.

🤔 Alternatively, you could take a shortcut to getting direct carrier appointments with ALL of Firefly’s carriers in your state without any per-carrier production requirements. (Some details about that are at the end of this article.)

1. A Track Record of Growth and Profitability

Insurance carriers want premium growth that is profitable. That’s why they’ll usually ask to see at least three years of reports from your current carriers. They want to verify that you can deliver both growth and profitability.

A common problem is that you can’t show profitable growth if you don’t have production and claims reports. If you have worked with at least one carrier for enough time and have the records to show for it, they will want to see that your book generated an underwriting profit for that period.

Note that your growth and profit over time can have an impact on the way a carrier views you. A $1 million book after three years makes a better impression than a $1 million book after 15 years.

2. A Business and Growth Plan

Even if you can demonstrate a solid, profitable experience, adding a carrier will change the dynamics of your agency. Carriers know this, and they want to see how you’ll generate more business overall with them.

For example, if you have a $500,000 book of business with two carriers—$250,000 per year, per carrier—this makes a good impression. But new carriers want to be sure you have a plan to grow beyond that $500,000 total if they appoint you. They’re not looking for stagnant agencies that just shuffle customers from one carrier to another.

And be careful, because once you make that commitment to them, you must follow through and grow. Because if you don’t deliver, most carriers will cancel your appointment. ☹️

3. A Production Commitment

If a carrier likes your growth plan, you will then have to agree to a production requirement with them. It will usually be a 1-to-3 year goal.

Be aware of these two things, up front:

1️⃣ Many companies have separate production requirements for commercial vs personal insurance.

2️⃣ Getting a carrier does not necessarily mean that you will get every line of business that they offer.

Production requirements are typically universal, and they effectively limit the number of carriers you can get appointed with. That’s simply because there’s a practical limit to the premium growth you can generate in any one year.

New production requirements can also increase stress in your agency because you have to balance your customers’ best interests against your carriers’ requirements for more premium. For this reason, be cautious when getting appointments with multiple insurance carriers.

Without Firefly behind you, adding more insurance companies before you reach your production goals with current carriers will jeopardize your existing or future appointments.

Two Additional Considerations:

As you learn how to get appointed with insurance carriers, don’t forget these two important items:

1. You’ll need your own E&O insurance

You will need to have errors and omissions insurance. E&O insurance is designed to protect professionals against claims of negligence or inadequate work in their services. This isn’t necessarily difficult to do, but it takes precious time.

Some E&O policies have much better coverage than others. You’ll need to review them carefully. This process can slow you down.

✅ Note that Firefly has a special arrangement with Utica for a discount on their high-quality E&O coverage, which can be issued for you in 48 hours.

2. Having a book of business to roll could help you get appointed with a carrier

A book roll is a process where an insurance agent transfers multiple policies from one carrier to another. If you have the ability to do a book roll, you’re likely to get more attention from carriers.

In some cases, a carrier might insist you roll a book to them in order to get their appointment.

Make sure that the book you want to roll will need to have a history of profitability. Otherwise, no carrier will want it.

Getting Insurance Company Appointments: The Bottom Line

In short, to get appointed with insurance carriers you need to know what they want, and you have to be sure you can deliver on some big commitments to them.

With most insurance clusters or aggregators, the principles are the same, but a little more flexible. The bar for experience will be lower, and the production requirements will probably be lower, too. But, the limiting principle of production requirements vs the number of carriers you get still applies.

Also, note that commercial and personal lines requirements will still be separate with most networks.