Why I started My Independent Insurance Agency

Hey, guys, I'm Hunter with Nelson insurance. I'm going to go over why I started my insurance agency here today and how I did it. Let's get into it. All right. So I started the agency back in May of 22. I graduated from high school in May of 22. So I got licensed in high school. I turned 18 in January of 22. So got licensed probably in March. Started the corporation, got everything ready to go for when I was ready to get out of high school here. Once I got a high school, I had rented a portion of the building. Same building I'm in right now. It's got three, no, four offices in here. The old front desk area. And then, yeah, it was pretty much just me for about the first year.

So. Got an office.

Because this was my father's old office. He goes, you just put your name on the lease. Take her over. And so I did that because that's where he ran his agency out of. My father ran a captive agency for farm bureau from 2011 to about 21. Yeah, no, I'm sorry.

092.

21, I think so. Was in it for some time there. Then he. He wanted to get out of the game, go back into real. Back into real estate. So then I was like, hey, I wanted to originally get into either real estate or trucking out of high school. But with real estate, I realized, you know, you gotta have a lot of money to just. I mean, it's not really. If I'm gonna be a real estate investor, I need a lot of money to really just start buying a place and keeping busy. And so instead I was like, let's just do insurance.

I can do some real estate on.

The side and just buy some. Some homes there. And then trucking was doing really, really well. If you guys are a trucker watching this video, you guys know Covid was hot and heavy for trucking. And then the market started getting started coming down here quite a bit. And I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna. I want to risk it because I don't know exactly where the market's going. So insurance is actually my third option. But I love insurance. I'm so glad I got into it. Still really stressful. Still a lot to go through there. But I love it. I. I got into it because I just love building relationships.

I didn't talk.

I didn't. I don't know if I had quit the social skills I've always got now. So I really wanted to kind of develop that and learn the art of Sales learn or just build relationships with people. I just saw the relationships my dad had. He was always talking to people, fishing and everything that they had going on and visiting clients and it just was. Was great. There's also some freedom with insurance. I don't want to say that you know you're going to get in and you want to get insurance because you want to go hit the golf course every day. It is not the case remotely. I. I work probably about 80 hours a week right now. So I'll get in the office anywhere from 8 to 8:30. It is not uncommon for me to leave the office. Well, I'm typically leaving around 10 or 11 or so. Then I'll work on the weekends. I've learned some long nights. There is. There was one day I got in at 7 and and was done working around 3am because I was working on some marketing. So it. It really is not all right. Well on top of that too, I've been on the phone with a client till 2am trying to get care. Trying to get a trucker taken care of because he. He had some issues and so we had to try to find new option for him and get all the kinks worked out. It just ended up being like, hey, he absolutely needs that. That day he had no coverage starting at midnight. So you know, he needed to keep on the road. So 2am is what we were doing on the phone making sure he was covered. So I won't say it's. It's your hey, I want to go at the golf course. I want to spend a ton of time my kids. It's definitely not, definitely not that type of job. I mean you definitely can I 100. I got. I got some eight. I got. Most of my agents get in at nine and leave at 5:30 or get at eight, leave at 5:30. But you know, as a business owner, definitely not be the case if you want to grow. Now granted, I know a lot of agencies out there who are the same size as us and been around for 25 years and it's slow growth. They're running with minimal employees and keep overhead low. So you can definitely do that. But you know, I want to grow. I want to get to be one of the biggest agencies in South Dakota that is locally owned. Because if you guys are in the insurance space, you know, there is no touch in the marsh McLennans and the Gallaghers and the Hubs and all that type of stuff. Not unless I found some serious venture capitalist money but just started the agency just because I love Building relationships. I love the opportunity presents. You make money based on how well you do, you know. So if you can go out there and build relationships, speak the language of your client, you're not. Insurance is a very, a very complicated space. Almost nobody understands it. And so if you can just dumb that down, you can, you can word it in a way that everybody's gonna understand while still get them a good coverage and under and explain the process to them. You can do very well. It's a lot of cold calls, it's a lot of long nights. It's a lot of problem solving. I get that all the time. I've got accounts where, you know, me and, me and another agent were working on it. We both got the exact same insurance companies. I placed some insurance company they had because I was able to either explain the situation differently to an underwriter, I was able to split up coverages. I was able to say, hey, you know, here's what's really blocking you from getting really good coverage, really good pricing. You know, how important is this aspect.

Of your business to you?

Oh, well, you know, I could, I can get rid of that.

And so you get rid of that. And they didn't realize that one portion.

Was stopping them from getting all these insurance companies to take them or whatever the case is. Right. So, you know, that's kind of how I got into, into this space there. I suppose I didn't really talk about too much, but I got into the space. When I got out of high school. I originally started door with door knocking for home and auto leads. So I'd go on Zillow, find a million dollar home for sale, go door knock that neighborhood and I would door knock. I door knocked all summer, probably walked away with 3, 4, 400 leads or so. I had a little sheet of paper with some basic information. I go quote them at night and then I called them next day with the quotes. And then I called like crazy. Telly told me to quit calling them or, you know, they found some other better option. And then, yeah, did that all, all summer long. Then started getting some referrals, started doing some Google Ad or Google advertisements. Then I was like, well then I started talking to other agents. I started seeing agents on podcasts, on interviews and stuff like that. So I would call those guys, ask them for advice and then they told me really I should find a niche if I want to get into a.

Space or if you want to get.

In the commercial space.

Because that's what I was kind of.

Trying to expand into. Once I found My commercial space. Once I started looking at that I was gonna originally do contractors because I poured concrete all throughout high school and my father was a contractor. So I knew that space very well. And then really I just kind of fell in love with trucking. That was originally what I wanted to outside of high school. Kind of glad I did. Now an 18 year old trying to start trucking company. I realized now that I'd be paying an absolute arm and a leg for insurance. I don't even. Plus you know, I don't. I really don't know how it's gonna work out. But then got into trucking and father owned a trucking company for about two years during you know, the hot market and Covid so I got in the truck. You've been doing that for a bit now. We absolutely love that. Give you guys kind of idea on the employees. I had hired my first employee Becky in June of 23. So I was all by myself until about June of 23. Hired Julian, who's our oldest agent here or agent Benny the longest probably November of 23. Now I've got Morgan, Rob, Tim, a couple other employees, got a couple vas and hired all those guys here either. And well 25 was the two of them there.

224 and so we keep planning to grow like crazy.

Bring on some more employees.

But yeah, I mean I'm just working.

Working hours like no tomorrow just to keep all these. Just to keep the growth going.

You know some of the employees are gonna lose money right at the bat. So I gotta. I gotta produce business, work extra hours to keep it. Kind of keep it afloat there. But I really, I really think insurance.

A good space for you guys.

If anybody's looking at getting into the insurance space, it really depends on the opportunities you have. We offer straight commission. We do not do any salary for producers. If you are going to most other agencies, they're going to offer you a lot less commission than we do. And then they're going to be giving you a salary. So really depends on what your risk tolerance is there. Because they know obviously the higher commission lower the salary. You're going to make a lot more money. If you can sell like, like crazy. But it's also really tough to sell like crazy. There are not many people who do the do numbers that some of my agents do here or some of the agents at the big shops do.

You know those. The.

The really good guys are a lot of times the big shops like Marsh, Gallagher, Hub, all that type of stuff. And I like to think we do pretty well.

But you know, the part of that.

Reason is too is because my guys sick or swim for them and so I'll help them out if need be. But you know, it's, it's, it's a slow game too. So it's, it's pretty tough at first.

Yep. Right.

Business like crazy. When you first get started, you're gonna be working like a dog calling everybody, you know. But insurance is a slow game. What I should say, I should say PNC insurance a slow game. When you're getting into PNC insurance, you know, you're getting your residuals and you're getting your, your new business. So it's, as the years go on, you're building up your book and then after about 10 years, hey, you're sent pretty dang good because you got 10 years of, of business sitting there. Hopefully if you get a good CSR or if you are the account manager, you're keeping most of your clients. And, and really, I mean then, then things are, are you got a lot less pressure, then you can start hitting.

The golf course every day and taking.

Time off with your kids, going on.

Trips, all sorts of stuff.

And then, you know, it really just depends on there. Do you want to make crazy money and keep going or you want to, or you can toner back and kind of get your, kind of get a very good work life balance. So there's that. If you're starting an agency, you know, I would not recommend doing, I did where I got in with no experience. A lot of my stuff has been learning as I go and studying on the weekends. I wouldn't say I've really made much. I mean, everybody makes mistakes. But I've never had like a big time fire or like, holy crap, I'm in trouble moment because I didn't have experience. So it was that if you're on most people. Most people, I mean, but again too, I'm gonna back up here real quick is, you know, I'm 18 at the time, so I'm living my parents, I've got absolutely no expenses pretty much. So I want to, I mean, I'm thankful for that, that they helped me out in that space by just giving me a place to live. And, and I have my car from high school and I really, really didn't have a whole lot for expenses. So it's not like I had to come in here and go from a $60,000 a year salary to nothing because I started nothing and I was still making nothing for about the first year. So doesn't really matter to me because I just reinvested all the money.

So, you know, that's part of the.

Reason why I got that opportunity. So if you guys are going to start it up and you got a family and you know, most people who are thinking about starting agency are not 18 and do have expenses, you definitely want a lot of money set aside. I was listening to the insurance guys podcast. They were saying that some guys out there, you're going to want 100, $200,000 set aside if you're going to join like one of those franchise guys like Goose Head or. I don't even know what they do for captive agencies. I, I never really even considered that. But Goose Head, I want to say, makes you throw down about 50,000 or something.

So you don't want some money set.

Aside because you're going to go months without a paycheck for sure. You know, if you're starting out by yourself and you're four, five, six months in and you start getting some of that service and some claims coming in and stuff like that, you're not gonna be able to sit and hammer the phones all the time. You're gonna have to spend money on marketing to bring in the leads. So that way you're not having to blow up the phones or you're gonna have to figure out something where. Hey, four to seven every night I'm cold calling and throughout the day I'm working on my stuff, I'm cooling, at night I'm doing that type of stuff. Or you get a VA to help you quote and maybe they take care of some of the basic deals for you, like maybe some data entry and quotes. So that's kind of what you do there. But yeah, I mean, insurance is great. My dad always said that there are two industries he's always going to love because people are always going to need it. It's real estate insurance. No matter, no matter what, hard market, soft market, whatever, you're always making money. And insurance. When there's soft market, insurance companies are offering you incentives. They're taking on all sorts of business and it's extremely easy to write. Everybody, clients are happy because there's maybe some rate decreases, all sorts of ST stuff. Hard market, it sucks.

It's a headache.

You're gonna have to deal with a lot more service. But hey, if you're, if you're a client watching this, I may, I mean, you're not gonna like to hear this, but then the insurance agents get a pay race, you know, they get a percentage of the premium, which frankly is kind of stupid, but they get a percentage of the premium. So you guys are gonna get pay rates. If your whole book takes a 2030 increase, you just screw 2030 that year in revenue. If you keep most your clients and.

You know, just the insurance company jacked.

Up the rates, so. And then once you keep going on and on and on and you build.

A book with some good carriers, you're.

Gonna get some profit sharing and you know, it's just a long term game after then, after 5, 10, 15 years, whatever the case is, you're getting profit sharing checks from your age, from your, from your carriers might be getting some contingency bonuses. You got a nice book under you, and that's when things really start to start to even out. And that's when you become a business owner, not a business operator. But that first five years, you're gonna be a business operator. You're gonna be handling calls. I still, I still answer calls all the time. You'll still be doing all the day to day answer questions to your employees like crazy. Because I can't afford people who've got 25 years of experience. So I've got guys who just graduated college and I got to answer every single question for him, you know, so that's, that's what it is. But I absolutely love it. Lot of freedom, a lot of growth, opportunity. But it is just not for the week. You got to be, you got to be able to stay poised. You know, if you get flustered and the claim goes bad, you got to explain that to somebody. Hey, either somebody your office jacked up and maybe forgot to add a coverage or something went wrong there, or you just got people who don't understand how a claim works or just maybe it shouldn't even be denied. But you're gonna have stuff like that come up. I've got somebody who wanted to be towed from Tennessee to South Dakota and he thought his towing coverage on his truck would cover that. I go, hey, I'm sorry to tell you, but it doesn't freaked out at me, hung up on me, you know, and whatever. But you got to stay calm to the situation. Say, hey, I, I want you to be happy. You, I know you bought insurance from me and so I want to make sure you're taken care of. But unfortunately that's just something that nobody I even know of covers. Not let alone just your insurance company. I've never heard of insurance company towing you from across the nation over here. It is meant to put you in the nearest shop that's what towing coverage is for. So that way you can get fixed. But you know, it's just what it, what it is. So you gotta be able to stay, stay poised. Sometimes you write a big account and the account cancels. There was one time I got handed a $36,000 commission check from right into big account. They went, they canceled on me two months later, or I should say the insurance company canceled them and they ended up leaving and I had to write back a thirty thousand dollar account or I had to write back a thirty thousand dollars commission check. Thank, thank God I didn't spend it all. But you know, that was, that was money to keep the lights on and pay my employees. So it definitely could be stressful. But, but you know, those are the.

Those are the worst, those are the worst days.

There's also days where you do write a $36,000 commission account and it stays with you and you get that every single year with some C, there'd be a lot of service. I'm handling that stuff. But you know, that's the good side of things. So, you know, that's why I started the insurance agency. I just want to be a business owner. I don't like working for people. There's a lot of freedom in it. It's a lot of growth opportunity. I love, love being, I love building the relationships. I love talking to my carrier reps. I love getting out there and talking to people, bettering my social skills and just learning something new every single day. I'm reading policy forms. I, I mean it's just an endless industry of knowledge and relationships. Absolutely love it. It's a great deal. So if you guys are curious on more about the insurance industry, feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to help. But appreciate you guys watching. Please, like subscribe if you want to see some more stuff like this.