The Market Is Stabilizing. Are You? - With Mitzi Fox

The hard market forced a lot of agencies into survival mode. We became insurance hostage negotiators for frustrated clients. But as the market begins to stabilize, this is our opportunity to remember who we really are.

We're not order takers, quote machines, or in the business of finding the cheapest policy every six months. We're advisors, educators, and advocates.

And the agencies that thrive in the next chapter won't be the ones chasing the lowest price. They'll be the ones creating the deepest trust.

Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Transcript

0:00

This is IA Forward, your playbook for success as an independent insurance agent. Now, here to help you knock it out of the ballpark are your hosts, Jane Tatum, Mike Basil, and Tanya Leed. Welcome to IA Forward. And we are absolutely so excited to have the fabulous Mitzi Fox joining us today. Welcome. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. It's so much fun that we get to have not Robbie or Mike on the call. I mean, it's you're you're this is gonna be great. You know, two women ganging up on me. It's fun. It's good. This should be fun. This should be fun. Well, Mitzi, a little bit about her, was our first integra partner agent of the year that is female. Um, she has the best shoulders and upper arms of just about any female I've ever met. So before this podcast is over, I want to know her secret workout that makes that happen. Shane, I bet Julie wants to know the same thing. I bet it's not just me. So uh, but yes, Mitzi is a fantastic, fantastic agent. We love her. She's been on board with us about four years now, probably. And yes, five, five. Wow. Okay. I know welcome. Yes. Yeah, there have been a few complimentary comments from my lovely wife. And you know, you don't know what to say. Like, you know, okay, am I is this one of those things like does this, you know, hey, you know, my gosh, I gotta find out, you know, what Mitzi's doing, her arm workout, her arms are amazing. Yeah, you know, and and when your wife is telling you that, like, you know, I'm like, well, okay, um, like uh, babe, your arms are great too. I mean, you got great arms. Like, like, I mean, this is and and my wife has beautiful arms, like, you know, she's I know. And so, you know, and so when you I'm just you know telling you that it's awkward for us guys when you know you're when when you're when your wife is complimenting another woman and it, you know, it's like, hmm, oh yeah, I didn't notice. Oh yeah, that's great. Excellent, you know. What do you think? Well, no, my husband's response was she really does, and she works out like I mean, like he and Daniel's like, you know, that's not casual, that's like an everyday Daniel goes into there's intention here explanation. Oh, really? Well, well, I'm very flattered, but uh Julie did approach me at the conference, and um, she's like Mitzi, and she came up to me so serious, and I thought, oh my gosh, what is she about to tell me? And um, she didn't have anything to tell me, she wanted to know, so I shared with her. Yeah, I mean, it's just a simple, I mean, it's not simple, but 30 minutes a day, and uh Caroline Gervin, so she's on YouTube and she has her own app, but it's just dumbbells, consistency, right? Like that's consistency, right? That's that's pretty much everything, is if you're doing something consistent, right? So that is true, which is most most of the world's problem is we can't do it consistently, so yeah. Me included, me included. So I'm part of that, right? Right. So today's topic actually came from NITSY, and we're going to be discussing this mental transition and also physical transition within our agencies as we come out of you know, day 10,987 of the hard market, and as it begins to soften, since we were in the the hardest market of any of our lifetimes, what does that feel like? How how do we make this transition? Yeah, I I want to hear Mitzi's, I want to hear, I mean, this is something obviously I want to hear Miss Mith Mitsi's take on like kind of where she's at, where she's feeling. And also, we should announce to the to our audience and every all our listeners that this is what you get when you suggest a topic. You get asked to come on to the podcast. And it's like, well, that, you know, well, since you brought it up, why don't you come join us on the podcast? And you know, um, but I do I before I jump in and use all my words and you know, talk too much, like Mitzi, I I do want to know what you're feeling, what you're seeing in your agency that kind of prompted this. So, you know, it's been uh three years in this hard market, and it's been, as you know, tough. It's been hard. And um I feel like our clients have just, you know, they've stopped, they know the rate increases, you know, they've gotten used to that, right? But then I think over the last three years, it's shifted and it's now like they they know the rates are changing and they expect to to be remarketed and to have, you know, their account uh yeah, remarketed and reshopped. And so um, you know, we do the renewal reviews, and I just I'm like, how do we untrain our clients when we've actually kind of set this up? Um, so the first thing I did internally is I pretty much said, We're not we're no longer gonna use the word remarket or reshop. That's no longer part of our vocabulary. We need to approach these meetings as renewal reviews. Um, you know, are you covered? Have you had any life changes? So, you know, I've seen that shift within the agency. So now it's not we're approaching it on price or, you know, it's more of let's have the conversation. Have you, you know, what life changes have happened? Um, do you have a kid that's now driving? Kid, you know, going off to school? Are you now an empty nester? Did you buy a, you know, a new asset, a boat? I mean, just things like of that nature. So that is we've done that inside the agency, but what when I reached out to you guys is I just finished one of your podcasts, and um, I was thinking, gosh, it'd be great if they would just touch on the subject. How do we retrain our clients? No, how do we shift their mindset? You know, yeah. Well, number one, I think you've you've nailed it in the sense that it's an unfortunate byproduct that because there was so much market disruption that you had to do what you had to do to retain clients, which created this expectation, right? You you you you were going one direction, the market shifted, you had to respond, you responded really, really well. Uh many agents responded well. But then the byproduct is you create this new habit. You know, you've you retrained your clients to do something you weren't you weren't doing before, and now you got to retrain them again, right? And so I I think number one, the lowest hanging fruit is what you're doing. You know, unfortunately, there's not a perfect um number one. I think you already doing number one. I think you're already doing the best thing because you are changing the terminology, you're changing, you know, the verbiage. And it's this is about reviewing your risk. This is about reviewing your situation. This is not about price changes, this is not about rate changes, or uh, we're just gonna look for the best option. And you know, the reality of it is that our people are where we have to start. And you've done that, right? That's that's gonna be step one, and you're you're already doing that. And our other agents listening on the podcast, hopefully they can now maybe take that nugget away and go, yeah, that's I need to do that. Because you have to change yourself and you have to change your people before you can change your clients. And I I I know that I know that doing this is very difficult because we get into these habits and um we get into this, well, it's time to remarket you, right? And now all of a sudden, if it goes up 20 bucks, the expectation is, well, if I can save 20 bucks, I can save 20 bucks. Remarket me, you know, but you can't afford to do that as an agency owner. Your people can't afford to do that. We are sales organizations at our core, and that will destroy our new business production. That'll destroy um our ability to to grow our business. And and new business isn't just about growing your business, like you have to be focused on sales because you're going to have that natural attrition, right? Um, even the best of us, 90, 90, somewhere between 90 and 95 percent retention is elite. And so we know that we're gonna lose five to ten percent of our book automatically. Like, so we can't let go of that new business uh opportunity. And we if we spend all of our energy on just retention, right, we know that we're gonna ultimately go backwards. Right. And so I I think that's definitely step one. We can get into more stuff here, but I think changing your verc vocabulary and and getting your people to change the approach is the first agency owner step. Yeah, I agree. Um you know, something we started doing uh in the, I guess, right in the beginning of this hard market, I realized, you know, we needed to uh be proactive instead of reactive. And so with that, um, you know, you have your renewal approach, you know, 60, 45 days prior. But I took it a step further and I was like, okay, I need to give them a market update 90 days prior to renewal. So then, um, and then I have to update it, you know, every quarter because things are changing. Um, but sending that 90-day market outlook, I I found it's been very helpful. Sometimes it raises things too. It's like, well, where are we at? And I'm like, your renewal is not for another 90 days. I'm just letting you know what's going on. And then they're of course talk about, you know, the importance of staying with the carrier and how switching too often can, you know, cost you more in the long run. Um, I do think for for any new clients you're bringing on, um, I think it's really important to have that conversation with them and explain to them how the market works. And um, I think that builds rapport and trust. I mean, I just had a prospect. He was a client referral, and they're building a new home. They're in transition, they sold their home, and the new home's not going to be finished until September, October. And they have a daughter that just graduated college, and um, she's gonna be a teacher. And he's been with Amika for years. He hasn't had an agent in over 12 years, and wanted to switch his auto over to me now. And I told him, I said, you know, honestly, that's not gonna be the best thing for you. You need to stay where you're at, and here's why because I don't know who we're gonna have, who's gonna be the best market for your home come September. And so let's say I move you to Progressive Now, but Progressive's not the best option, and we're gonna now do a package thing with Nat Gen or Travelers. Um, I would be actually doing him a disservice, and I told him Matt, and I said, you know, you need to stay there, you've been with him for years, let's revisit everything. And he was just, you know, appreciated the honesty, and I educated him at the same time. And since then, and this was like two weeks ago, he's already sent like three referrals to us. So um, you know, I think if you educate at the time and now like we've learned from this hard market, you know, a lot of unfortunately, just you know, things that um uh as a result, you know, we're hanging on to clients and trying to keep things um keep our clients on the books and and from leaving and and trying not to do too much switching, but you know, we have to do what we have to do. And um so right now it's re changing the mindset with these renewal meetings, and so that's another thing. So I do the 90-day outlook and then um 60 days we send another email, and then at 45 days, we send an appointment link, you know, schedule your appointment so we can review. And um, I think our approach instead of looking at this as remarketing, we need to look at this. Let's let's get back to the basics. You know, what are your risks? Do you have any exposures? How can we eliminate those? And um, you know, maybe make some changes, but yeah. I I think you know, the theme that I'm hearing from you that I really want to like jump for joy and and do, you know, I'm a celebrate kind of guy. I don't know if you know this, but Tanya, Tanya's kind of like not very celebratory. I'm I'm like all kinds of celebration all the time. You know, not really, but I do. I was about to say I know, I know, I'm not that guy. But I get really excited, like I'm like so excited hearing you talk about the theme that I hear is educating your clients. And I think we get so caught up in sell, sell, sell, right? And we are missing this education opportunity that only the independent agency channel can bring to the table. Like only IA channel experts like yourself can do what you're doing. Like the exclusive channel can't do it, the direct channel can't do it. Um and and that education that's part of your process is is really huge. Like it's it's almost like you think about it, agents who are just focused on churning out quotes and selling, selling, selling, maybe not as focused on retention, they're forgetting the fact that just what you described, you know, this transparency with a prospect, um and and saying, look, I'm actually not the best place for you right now, led you to three more opportunities, right? And we get so locked in on the one opportunity in front of us that we forget about the opportunities that that person might bring to the table for us, right? And and I I don't I was having this conversation with another guy, a non-agency, non non-insurance guy. Um and he was actually asking me the question, like, how does how does a customer find an good independent agency? And it really kind of really kind of frustrated me because I I couldn't really give them a great answer. Like, you know, of course I wanted to say, hey, find an agent that is an integra partner, right? But we're not, you know, we're not 50 states, you know, all over the place, you know. And so I that that's one thing I wanted to say. But what you're doing, what you did in that example with your that prospect is what makes the difference in our channel. And and it it is actually how you change the conversation, it's actually how you elevate yourself above price. And it changes that entire approach because now you're educating, right? And so I I think I think that is tremendous. Um do you onboard how do you have like a formal onboarding of new clients, or is that more of just you know, the communication through into the renewal? So we do have uh an onboarding um automation. Okay, and um, but I'm about to overhaul. I've just redone the whole thing. I just haven't done the um haven't launched it yet. Um tweaks on that, but um, I think there's some improvements we can do there. But yes, um on the onboarding, I actually have it sitting right over there. Uh including some, you know, different pieces and um like what to do, what not to do. Um, you know, we take our approach as like we're a boutique agency. Um, you know, we're not trying to write everything under the sun, but you know, we want to be your full-time agent, not your part-time agent. Um yeah. Uh so but you said we were talking about education, and I think education is so important because I feel like education is retention, you know. Um educating your clients, you know, they're just going off of, and I feel like the carriers, I want to put some blame on them, you know, with the advertising and all the commercials, and you know, it's on right. Exactly. And um, so they're not helping us with that, but um, I think it's just having those conversations and and educating them, you know, insurance is not the way it used to be, um, you know, 20 years ago, it's even 30 years. I mean, it's every 10 years, I feel like it's shifted and shifted. Uh, you know, you you've got to look at insurance is more of a financial catastrophe um to protect you from the unknown, right? And um not not like a maintenance policy, right? So um, yeah, so I think education's important on uh on retention and on the onboarding process too. So I think building that rapport helps, you know, um it will build trust and then you know, trust and loyalty um go hand in hand. So yeah. Mitzi, I love the way you were shifting away from this mindset of damage control. And I feel as though so many people have spent the last four years in an insurance as like kind of an insurance hostage negotiator, right? And we were in this mindset of apology and uh being almost defensive, right? Trying to protect our books, trying to protect our business. And the fact that you have shifted back to that relationship management and and knowing you, you've never shifted away from relationship management, right? That's where you, that's where you stay. But we're shifting as a whole back to this idea of relationship management. And only in looking at things from a more strategic review coverage opportunities, look at things rather than uh a protection mode. Absolutely. You know, when when there's when there is that reality that either some of those clients will not be able to be retrained, right? And because they've shifted, right? But I I have to believe that some significant percentage of your of your clientele are going to listen and shift back with you because that relationship and education has been so consistent and strong. I don't think we can we can enter this this new this new year, this new softening market trend with this idea that we're not gonna lose any of those people that we retained during the difficult years. And that's gonna frustrate agents, I think. Because you spent so much energy retaining them, and now they don't want to move back with you. They want to keep doing what they've been doing. I don't think that's I don't think that's a profitable thing for you, though, right? I mean, that's it just isn't. But there's some there's some situations and there's also some frustrations too with the marketplace, I will say. And you know, we're going to the softer market. So as that happens, you've got carriers that are wanting to get back in the game. Yep. So they're doing some aggressive, you know, rate decreases and rate changes. Yep. Um, but we know how this works. They're taking that that rate now. Is it gonna sustain? Is it gonna stay there? Um, we don't know. Um, you know, I'm worried, you know, if you move somebody this year and then next year they realize they they took on more than they they should have. And so now they're gonna, you know, reel it back. Um, you've just, you know, you've just basically moved one from Peter to Paul, and now you're back in the same boat. So I'm a little tepid with that, but at the end of the day, you've got, you know, you don't want to lose your client. Um, you know, and so I can we talk about can we say carrier names or should we not? Yeah. I mean that's fine. We can always push I'm running into a few times. It's been, I probably have a dozen of them, and it's really frustrating. So uh progressive, you know, on their auto, very aggressive, great rates. Um, and then we have all youth travel travelers. So we have a package account, and they've got youthful drivers, what have you, and their renewal premium came in and it's up or whatnot. And here's a real situation: $13,000 renewal, progressive $7,000. We're talking a savings of six thousand dollars. We don't write that, we don't present that, and we lose them because they went and got progressive a quote from somebody else. Yeah, uh, we have to move them. Yeah, but it's a double wavy because now when you move the auto, you lose five points commission on the home. Yeah, you know, you take a hit there and you've just reduced the auto premium. But you you you want to do what's best for your client, and so that's frustrating. Yeah, um, because it, you know, if you don't, you risk losing the client and then you do, but now you've just taken a hit on you know the the profitability side. So that's right. That's right. Yeah, and and I think those are the things that you know when you're going through a hard market and you're dealing with the frustrations of that hard market, you know, the client, the client running at you constantly, you know, trying to play as a hostage negotiator, as as Tanya said, which I think is a really great, uh, really great term and and thought to think about, right? Is that worse than being presented with a softening market where carriers are now making money, cutting rate, because in the insurance industry, especially in the personal lines area, but as well as commercial, like, you know, the only way to really grow at the carrier level if if the market is not growing, you know, at a fast enough pace, which in most states it's not, right? There's some states growing faster than others, but in a lot of states, there's you know, there's shrinkage, there's there's all kinds of things going on. And so carriers come in and it's like short-term memory, right? They don't, you know, it's like they're they're all main um what was the what was the the finding Nemo? Uh I think Dory, the short-term memory dory, yeah. And so, you know, you you have this situation where the carriers have forgotten at time. They they have this short-term memory and they forget what was happening a couple of years ago because now they see the profitability metrics, they see things happening. And this has been the this has been the cycle, right? For ages. This has been the cycle. Um, and and that's why, you know, you kind of ask the question after you go through a couple of these cycles, like, do I really do I really love the soft market over the hard market, or is the hard market actually better? Like, where where is it, right? Because they both have their their problems, they both have their um their their challenges, which lands me to why everyone keeps saying that the independent insurance agent is is going to you know see its doom, and I keep saying, no, it will never see its doom. People have been trying to kill us off for decades. Uh, AI is not gonna kill us off. I I'll say it, right? It's gonna make us more efficient, you know, in ways and do things for our agencies, and and and even the ones that don't embrace it, you know, in totality are still gonna survive because of relationship and education and exactly what you're talking about. Like this entire disruption is what actually creates the value for the independent agent and what you do every day. Um, and it's a real problem. Like, agents need to hear they're not alone because what you described in that scenario where a carrier is deciding in that zip code or that area they're gonna buy some market share. They put they do some rate decreases. Well, of course, the regulators are gonna approve those rate decreases, right? You know, so here we go, right? We're just gonna be on this sort of race to the bottom away, um, which is why we can't forget about the new business cycle, right? We can't just be, yes, we got to focus on retention and have retention, but we got to also have some uh some equal movement of new business focus as well. Right. Hedge the hedge that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When we entered this hard market, uh, I did some research because this was the first time I'd really heard that idea, right? I I've been with Integra for nine years, and that was the first hard market that we had. And it was so interesting doing that research because agents had the same problems in a really soft market that they were having in a really hard market, but just in a different way. And Shane Sprays of the Year is embrace the chaos, right? Embracing chaos. And a hard market and a soft market are just the same chaos in different clothing, right? No, they are. Yeah, they are. It is. I mean, I think this is a better situation to be in. Um, I mean, absolutely better than what we were in. But it's uh, you know, like the tide has changed, and so you've got to adjust, you know, um, what do you call this? Your oars on the boat, you know. Yeah, your oars, yeah. Your sails, you know, adjust your sails. Gotta adjust. Yeah. And um, so that's kind of where we're at, and um, you know, and navigating through this and being mindful. And I I do take something that uh Jeff uh Brayos um from the conference last year. Yep. Uh something he said, and I think this even still rings true today. Uh, when he purchased his insurance, his independent agent said, Okay, here's the rates. And he said, Wow, that's a lot. He said, Well, you think this is a lot, here's what the competition. And he showed him those rates. He said, So you think this is good or you think it's high, but let me show you where everybody else is at. And so what does that tell you? And he was like, What? And he said, Well, next year, this rate that you, you know, it's gonna go up because this is where everybody else is at. And um, you know, we're still seeing that on the home side, and so I I do take that and you know, run it through um the reader, and so your premiums here, and you know, here's where we everybody else is at. So, I mean, you need to stay put, but let's let's get into the coverage and things. So um, you know, that that helps. Yeah, um, you know, I want to I won't I want to go back to something you had said a little bit because I think carrier our carrier partners need to hear this and in and obviously we we're saying this in in the most professional way that we can because carriers have to run their business to profitability just like agents have to run their business to profitability. And and and that is that you know, when when decisions are made on the product side, on the pricing side, um it can back agents into a little bit of a corner, right? Like just because a market mover decides to go after and buy market share doesn't necessarily make it just the agent's responsibility to retain a price that's double the market, right? I mean, we we talked to to our carrier partners about this um at Integra. Um, and and we have carrier relations team that meets with carriers constantly, gives them feedback, talks to them about what we're seeing across the spectrum of the network. Um and really data and data mining around like a network environment like we have is going to continue to become more and more important to help our agents, our partner agents, not get backed into the corners, you know, hopefully less often than than what what would be happening simply because we're able to say, hey, you know, look, this is the market. Like you're asking, I just we'll just keep going. Well, you're asking Mitzi, you know, carrier A, you're asking Mitzi to retain, you know, at you know, with you at a 80 plus percent rate, and your rates are 40% off the market. Like, how is she going to do that? Now, she can handle five to ten percent, but she can't handle 40, right? She can't handle 50 percent, you know, uh, rate differences between the marketplace. Um, because we're only looking at the spectrum of independent agent carriers. We're not saying in this same discussion what the captive side is deciding to do, because that's all they can do, right? The only thing they can do is drop rate. So things that I think that would help um the independent channel if carriers would take this would be um as far as package discounts, increasing um the percentage of discount uh for having, you know, the home, the auto, the umbrella, the personal articles, uh, that's helpful. And then um, you know, they want us to use telematics on a renewal side, but it's if there's no discount up front on that renewal term, it makes it harder to sell. Sure. You're gonna have to do this for a whole year before you're gonna reap any benefit. As to where if it's a new client, they get a discount for participating from day one. Yeah. And um, you know, they're saying, well, offer that on the renewal, but there's no upfront discount on the renewal for signing up for it. I think that's so if they would if they would include that, that would help. Um it would help on the renewal side. I just want to talk about telematics for a minute. When you explain that to someone from Canada that's going to be driving your car and can't figure out why your car keeps beeping at them, I want to apologize to the people at Progressive or those three days, because apparently people from Canada do not drive the same way that we do. So bless my heart and and bless my bless Amy's heart when this comes through, because I anyway, but but thinking about this, thinking about this transition, um, you know, we've been in this cycle, and yeah, and y'all know everybody that's listening knows that I hate the word cheap. And especially because, especially when it comes to what we do, right? We are we are advisors, we're not people that are here to make things cheap. But for the last three years, that's what we've, you know, kind of sort of have been in this place of how can we make this cheaper so our client can afford it? And we have to be really careful as we transition into this soft market, going from how do we make this cheaper to who's cheapest now? Because either way, that's the same behavior, right? And what that does is it creates transactional clients, which is the antithesis of what we want, right? And one of the things that Mitzi has done a great job of is creating advisory relationships. So how do we, how do we, how do we teach people, Mitzi, how do you teach your staff how to create that advisory relationship going into this softer market as opposed to like a fear-based, almost conservatism that we've been in? Well, one, we're not order takers. Um, you know, we're advisors. And so, like I said, part-time agent, we're not your part-time agent. We're gonna be your full-time agent, and that's it. Um, so uh yes, definitely not be an order taker. Uh, another uh way when you're speaking to a client when you know you're first on the phone or whatnot, besides price, what's important to you? Because we already know price is a concern. It's it's a concern everywhere, not just insurance, but and and everything. So um get that off the table right off the bat, besides price, what's important to you. Uh and then um, you know, asking the questions. We have a uh renewal review checklist that we go through and and ask and you know have those conversations. So booking those appointments ahead of time um allows us to be proactive versus reactive. Yeah. Um, you know, if um there are renewals in a few days and they've already shopped because they didn't hear from you and now they're calling to cancel, that's that's hard to stop. Um it can be done, but it's hard. You'd rather be ahead of that. And um so it's it's I think it's having those conversations and asking the questions and um you know getting personal with them. Um, you know, I think as part of you know the retention and keeping those relationships. It doesn't mean you're shopping every single one, but I definitely think you need to have those um touch points. And um, you know, I think if you do it well enough, then it's you know, like you're not gonna hear from them unless something happens, right? Yeah, and they need you. I I love the I love the the timeline that you've talked about. And um recently had conversations with um software vendor about you know things like um renewal, like download, policy download being triggers for automations. And I really think we need to be ahead of that. Like uh, you know, I I had um one example given to me of, you know, if the download comes out and the customer gets their renewal and they haven't had any communication, they haven't had renewal review, they haven't, you know, whatever your your process is in your agency, then the customer's reaction is not always, you know, depending on the relationship, to pick up the phone and call their agent first, right? A lot of times they're they're already mad, you know. If we can get ahead of that, um and we can we can have some of that appointment setting, advising, because we talk all the time, and I hear agents say this, and I know this has been sort of the this chasm or gap that is being created between the churning, order taking crowd, the high quote volume crowd, and the the advisor risk manager crowd. Like those two things are separating uh more and more, and I love it because I'm gonna fall in that risk manager advisor crowd where you are, Mitzi. What you do in your processes, those are the things that I love to hear about from agents. Because we say, hey, you know, we're trying to, do you do you call your CPA and say, hey, you know, can we can we negotiate a better, you know, hourly rate on on my accounting and tax advising? And you know, do you call your attorney and go, you know, so you know, it says here you charge $350 an hour, you know. I was thinking maybe $250, $275. What do you I mean, no, we don't do that, right? I mean, my CPA and my attorney, um, their rates have increased dramatically over the last several years. And um, I really, you know, this not everybody has this. I know we have a fairly large organization, but uh, you know, there's a an attorney that I met 10 years ago um through the banking industry. Um, and I I I kept finding myself calling this attorney when something, you know, was hitting the fan, so to speak, right? There was a problem. There was a big problem. Big Dallas firm. And um I really liked the guy, and he was very down-to-earth. And I would call him, and then he would be like, you know, I'm not the expert in our firm on that. You know, this is an intellectual property issue, uh, trademark issue. I I'm gonna send you over here to my my colleague that handles that. Um, and I find myself constantly going back to Peter. Peter's the the guy that I knew. And only once out of like 10 times did Peter actually directly handle my need because it fit in his expertise. Now that is a very large law firm, but what I what I figured out was that my action was to pick up the phone and call Peter. Peter trained me, right, as a client, like you're talking about, to be the expert. And the only way that Peter trained me was Peter did not cheapen himself. Like his real name is Peter. He's an attorney. And and so, you know, Peter charges a ridiculous hourly rate. I mean, like straight up ridiculous. I want to say it's like $9.50 an hour. Like it's it's like, oh my gosh. But guess what? Do you know I've never paid for more than two hours from Peter? Because they're really, really good at what they do. And so it's like, okay, I could pay $350 an hour to this other guy and it's gonna take him 10 hours, or I can pay Peter $950 an hour and it's gonna take Peter maybe an hour to solve the problem. And I, you know, it's a little bit of a tangent, but my point is we say we want ourselves to be in that same realm, but if we go down the let's remarket you every time your policy renews, our actions are not backing up that risk management advisor sort of mindset. Well, and you see it too when you know you've got um you you have somebody who's been with um uh say travelers or you know, they're coming from the captive side and they've been with State Farm for 10, 15 years, and you plug that in and they validate, oh man, you see those rates drop because they know. I mean, they are because there's loyalty. And um, so back to the prospect I was talking about earlier. Yes, I could help him now with this auto, but I knew I'd be doing him a disservice, right? Because he's been with Amica all these years, and if I were to write him now, knowing I'm not really I have no way to know what's gonna be the best option for him come September. I mean, that's a whole summer away. So um yeah, it's you know, um, it's also like you take the knowledge you have from the experience of doing this, and you also, and this is what I I knew producer, and I said to him, I said, you know, when you are working with a client, you need to do for that client as though you are in his shoes, right? Yeah, knowing what you know, what would you do if it were you? And then that's what you're gonna offer the client. You're gonna, you know, give them that's right. So that's not always gonna be the least expensive. And I hate the word cheap. Just let's not but take it out of vocabulary. Um, it's it's about giving them the protection and the coverage they need, and that's our job. Yeah, right. And if that means we sell them an extra policy, we didn't sell them an extra policy. We provided them the coverage they needed to bridge that gap. Yeah. And um, I want to talk back about the downloads. Downloads, um, they're you know, they're all different, they all come out at different times from one carrier to another. Uh progressive, I don't know if you probably are aware of this. They actually that the client gets the email on the renewal before it downloads into easy links. I do not like that. So I'm even I'm even training my progressive clients. Hey, listen, you're gonna get your renewal before I do. Yeah, yeah. So um I don't have a magic solution to that. The only thing that I figured out, and some of it's a little early, but I do the 90-day outreach, 60 days, um, and 45 days. Yeah, and most autos don't renew until 30 or 35 days out. So, you know, we're sending that out, and they're like, Well, what is it? I'm like, well, we don't have it yet, you know. So um, and I think there's just uh a little uh well, actually, I just modified that a couple months ago, but um to say, you know, depending on the line. But um you know, I that's working for us right now. But if we figure out, you know, we can get um where we could get the download before the client gets it, that would be great. Um and if um there is some development there, the software being able to trigger when that goes out, I would love that because right now I'm just doing a general as a progressive consumer. I actually had that happen on Friday. Uh I Amy is my agent at Integra, and I could see the automations coming from her, the relationship building. This is what's happening. And then on Friday, I get this um email from Progressive that says, congrats, congrats, not congratulations, journal. It says, congrats, your auto policy went down and has all the happy little blue and white graphics and all of the things. And it struck me that this was not, it was in no way congruent with what Amy and the automation that our retail manager, Tara, had set up, right? And it had a totally different feel to it. And I I kind of sent Amy a note and I'm like, yay, I got the best email ever because especially in Florida, we don't ever have any kind of rate that goes down, everything goes up. And um, so yeah, to get that email in Florida was was fantastic, but Mitzi, like you're saying, it didn't have the same feel to it that any of the other emails that I had been getting from our org had. Now, would the consumer notice that? Probably not. Would a non-marketing person notice that? Probably not, but I definitely could see exactly what yours need. So would you say you think um the organization should change the marketing on that? Or are you saying because you got the good news from progressive and not the agents? I think I I think the issue is is that as an independent agent, you're gonna have multiple carriers and different carriers are gonna approach it differently. And so you you are the stability and the consistency. I I don't think I don't think you change uh as an agency what you're doing. Um I think it all I I do think it kind of shows the rules of the game a little bit. So think about it this way. The carriers are trying to now get ahead, right? Because they know they're at risk of the same thing that you're struggling with that you're talking about with your clients. They know that the clients have been somewhat retrained, uh, unfortunately, uh, due to the necessity of remarkets over the last three years. And so I think that what I would interpret that as a carrier trying to get ahead of even where the agency's messaging is going. So I don't think it's malicious. I'm I'm not trying to say that it's it's in any way like a carrier sort of I think it's just the carrier trying to position themselves in the best way possible to get the consumer to pay their renewal, right? And and maybe, maybe um that actually helps us, right, in some indirect way. Um back to where you're the original question of how do we retrain? What do we do? How do we get our clients to to to move back to, hey, you know, this is not about remarketing every time you're policy renews. Um but I do think there's going to be carrier positioning with their messaging to try to keep the shopping, right? The shopping from happening, um, which maybe helps us. And so kind of back to embracing the chaos, like the rules are changing, and this is an indication of a rule that's changing. And so now if there's a rate stability, a rate, you know, where their price went down, well, they're gonna celebrate that with some messaging. And so maybe that helps us in the end. And that's good. I think that's good, right? Um and I think it would be great if more carriers got on board with that. Yeah you know, and I think maybe we'll start to see that. Yeah. Now, on the download thing, um this is this is just a continuous struggle, uh, in my view. And and it's like, okay, how if the carrier keeps moving their date, you know, does does the you know, Ivans, does all the back end pieces keep moving their date? I mean, that data is supposed to come from the carriers. I've been on carrier chan uh agent councils where there's a huge push and has been a push for a long time. Um sometimes some carriers get on board, others haven't gotten on board, where they should be sending that that download through several days, in my view. It's at least a week ahead, maybe two weeks ahead, um, so that agents can set their automations. I I you know and have their automations work for uh for them uh just like you've got set up. I think the unfortunate scenario is is that at times some carriers, for whatever reason, feel like their messaging needs to happen, right? Or maybe the technology on the carrier's side isn't capable. I I don't know. I don't know the reason behind that. Um, but I do know that um, you know, getting a bunch of different carriers to get on the same page is probably not gonna happen. Yeah. Mitzi, I have a question for you. Uh Shane and I discuss the idea of the plain language movement a great deal. And we try to encourage our agents who listen to use language that makes sense to the client rather than using terminology that only makes sense to us, right? So, what language are you using when discussing that we're going from a hard market to a soft market? Because, you know, like when this first came uh when this first came up four years ago with the hard market, the only the only thing that was coming to my mind every time we said it was a hard-boiled egg versus a soft boiled egg. Um so how are you explaining this to your clients? Um, well, we're starting to see, you know, um capacity opening up. Carriers that weren't writing last year are now writing, so that's a good sign, you know, it's good. Uh, but uh pricing and rate adjustments aren't quite there yet. And this is really on the home side. Um, and so, you know, the the market's still adjusting. And um, you know, they ask, well, when are the rates gonna go down? No, no, no, they're not going down, just so you know. I mean, not drastically, but they're not going down, right? I mean, the the the rates that in general that we're here at right now, this is where it's at. And so um that's pretty much it. Um I haven't really, you know, we break it down. I can pull up and pull up actually what I'm sending. Uh I feel like I feel like the the phrase uh you know pricing is stabilizing. I feel like that phrase is is obviously, you know, using the term soft or hard when it comes to you know the consumers, they don't understand that, you know, the no different than we shouldn't say PIP or UM or B I P D or you know, we shouldn't use those initials. But I think yeah, I I think I think getting making sure that your people internally aren't talking to the customer the same way they're talking to each other, that's really hard for us, uh insurance nerds. Um but like I love the phrase like you know, prices are stabilizing. Um, you know, we're seeing some price decreases or we're seeing some price increases. Like I think, I think those phrases um will will will move you up, you know, in as far as this risk advisor, um, expert is is just to be able to use the same terminology that the consumer can relate to versus I don't know, industry terms. And that's a real challenge for us, I mean, as as an industry. And I think it's one of those things we have to constantly work on ourselves with, right? Um and be aware of. And and I even have to catch myself continuously just not using those terms. And I tend to use those terms because my audience is is basically a group of agents now, right? And so um that's a little different for me, but I gotta watch myself because then people hear me say soft market, hard market, and then they start talking about it the same way. Um, and so I I think to Tanya's point, plain language, pricing stability is a good phrase. Yeah, um definitely. And um, I think just you know, explaining um like roofs, I mean, that was really the big problem. I mean, that was a huge problem here in Texas, and um, that's why we're seeing things stabilize because they finally have gotten a correction there, right? With the wind deductibles, the roof schedules, um, and those things. And so uh, and and you know, um, I had this conversation with a client and he said, Work, you know, I don't even know why I'm paying for all this insurance because, you know, um, when I need this roof, it's not covered. And he paid out of pocket for his roof, just had it replaced. And I said, Well, um, you know, we got him at a three percent deductible. And uh I said, you know, that was a problem here in Texas. So I said, you know, you're basically self-insuring. When you got a three percent wind and held deductible, you're self-insuring. Sure. But you know, what if lightning struck and your house burnt down? Um, and you got a $900,000 house, you're not gonna self-insure. I mean, you shouldn't self-insure for that. So um, I think just explaining things, uh, and you know, that's something I said to him. I said, you know, Don, if you think back 20 years ago, people used to just replace their roots when they got old, they would just replace them. Now, what what do you what do you hear people say, the consumer? Oh, we're gonna wait for the next hill storm. Yeah, yeah, and then we'll get our next replaced. Yeah. So, like, even, you know, just the um the client's mindset has changed, right? And so I think just um, you know, the deductible changes, I know they're they're high, but I think it needed to happen. Um and uh yeah, so I will say, um, and with that, with the replacing the roof, making that update to your home, uh the carriers that have um aggressive, you know, pricing on that, that's very helpful. I mean, it sometimes it can justify the cost of replacing the roof. Sure, sure. Um huge rating factor, at least with most of our carriers, right? So yeah. Um yeah. So tell us a little bit about you. How why are why did you join the insurance business? What what of what about this do you love? Oh my gosh. Okay, I I think everybody's uh nobody's story is ever I I grew up and I wanted to be an insurance agent, right? I think we all fell into this somehow, somehow. Um so you want me to tell the story of how I got into insurance? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So in college, I um was waiter, waited tables, um, bartending waiting tables at TJ Fridays. So if you ever seen the movie Office, you have Flair, yeah. Were you the queen of flair, Mitzi? I was. I had battery pack life on suspenders, you know it. I had everything. Um so uh it was a great job uh at that time. And I there on the weekends, uh, one of the fellow waiters, he was a state farm adjuster. Not that I'm giving anything to State Farm, but he was an adjuster, and uh we worked together for two years. I left, and I was now um a recruiter for a firm downtown in Houston, and my oldest son was a baby, like I think he was nine months old. And I'm making this commute from the woodlands to uh downtown Houston. And a Saturday afternoon, there's a knock at the door, and I looked through the peephole, and it was Tim, um, the state farm chester. And I'm thinking, what is he doing here? So I opened the door and he said, Mitzi, I got my own agency. And I said, Well, that's great. And he's like, I'm so glad I found you. He had to look me up in the phone book, is how he found me. And um he said, Well, I want you to come work for me. And I said, Well, I don't know anything about insurance. And he said, That's okay, I'll teach you everything you need to know. And um, he said, There's a catch though. Um, my expenses are only covered for 12 months, and so there's a chance I may not be able to keep you on after 12 months, but I'll know by month nine or 10. And so it was a leap of faith, but I decided to do it because I trusted him. Um and it was work ethic, you know, working together in the restaurant business. And so I went to work for him, and then he couldn't afford to keep me, so he plugged me in with another scratch agent, startup agent, and I went to work for her. I was there a year and a half, and I said to myself, I hate insurance. This is horrible. Want to get out? I did. Um, and before I did, I decided, okay, let me go to the independent side for six months. And if I still feel the same way, then I'm out. Well, I only found at the time three independent agencies on the woodlands. So I faxed all three of them, my resume. Uh, there was, you know, this is back in the day of fax and rate books and things like that. And so I did that, and I loved it because we had choice. Um, nothing against, you know, the the captive market, but it was really depressing, you know. Uh somebody comes in, they're upset about their rates, and that's the only product you have. You have nothing, you have no other option. And so, um, yeah, and been in it ever since. That's a great story. And wasn't there a 60%? That's a great story, actually. Um I love hearing stories about how people get into the business and get into the channel. So well, let me tell you, they've got a school that they send you to, and it's like drink the Kool-Aid school. Sure. And you come out of there thinking, we're only one that we'll be here when the big storm hits, you know. Right. Um, right, yeah. But uh yeah, so that's awesome. That's the background, and and then you made another leap of faith uh five years ago. Um I did. Yeah, yeah. Why don't you talk about that for a second? I think that's another great story. So, yes, um I so I'm on the independent side and um agency owner, and we've got partners, and two of the partners decide, you know, they're gonna retire and they're out. And you know, wish them all the best. It's all great. But that would leave me and one of the other owners now is a 50-50 ownership. And you know, what happens when you go to make a decision and you don't agree on something? Nothing happens, right? So losing those two partners, they were kind of like the balance to the seesaw, if you will. Yeah. And um, so with that in mind, we're like, well, how do we split apart? What do we do? And um, this is you know, just before the hard market like unfolded. Uh, well, about a year or so, year and a half before it started. And um, so of course I'm reaching out to all of my carrier reps. Hey, do you know of anybody? And I had never heard of Integra. Never. I don't know, maybe I was just under my rock doing my own thing, never heard of it. And Dinah Woolard is the one. Um, she was my encompass rep at the time. Love her, lovely lady. And she said, Integra group, and I was like, Who's Integra? And she's like, Oh, she's like, it's like a family, but it's corporate, but it's like a family. And she said, But they're at the conference this week, and they're not gonna be back until next week. She's like, but I'll get I'll send over something to Robbie and uh, you know, put you in touch with them. And so I was waiting on that. So that was in the works, and then I went to church on Sunday. And the pastor was talking about relationships and how um it's important, you know, like if you're your son is dating someone, you want your son dating a Christian, you know, not an atheist, right? You know, it's important to have your relationships and your um your beliefs aligned. And he said, What about your business partner? And I thought, well, yeah, that's important to you. And um, and then when I found, you know, our face aligned, and it was just the best thing, best, best decision I made. Um, I couldn't imagine I know I wouldn't be where I'm at had I not made that decision and just the support um from the integral group, the agents, um, the corporate office. I mean, you guys are amazing. So um super thankful. Best decision, absolutely. Well, we appreciate that commercial that we're gonna do. But we had that that first conversation with you, Mitzi, um after we all got off the video call. And you, you know, you have the meeting after the meeting to discuss the meeting. Um, and I was like, oh my gosh, I love her, she's amazing, like she is my people. And you you bring such a vibrant energy to the to your agency, and I I really love that. And and and Mitzi knows too, but I love that she's created this environment in her office of things she loves and things that inspire her goals. And she's really created something special for her and and her team members there. And sometimes as agency owners, I think we forget that. We we have our office and it's where we go and we we do our work. But when you take the time to create an environment that reminds you of your life and reminds you of where you are now and where you want to be, it creates uh an environment of excellence that is so incredibly important to inspire yourself and to inspire the people around you. Yep. Yep. I agree. Um, I think everything you do, um, you should always give it your best, you know, um, a hundred percent. Even things you don't enjoy, but you know, let's be real, there's things that you've got to do. And um, you know, um, if you're gonna do it, you know, um you gotta go all the way, like all in or not at all, right? Might as well do it well if you're gonna do it, right? Right. That's right. Yes. Um and that's one of the things I do love about um being in the independent agency uh is you know, we're helping people every day. And um you know, that's that's that's um you know, that's rewarding. And um, you know, I can sleep at night knowing that, you know, my clients have the covers they need, something happens, you know, there's not gonna be any surprises there, right? So um that's important to you. You know, if you look at it, it's it's all perspective, right? And how you look at things. And so um insurance is one of those unnecessary things that we need. And not all insurance is the same. And so I feel like that's like our job is to be that person to advocate for the client, to find the coverage, and you know, again, it goes back to education, right? So um what you've got. I I love to think about what the independent agency channel does is we provide grown-up insurance. Like we you know, not that we're not for the young, you know, young person, but you know, it's like people call direct channel, people go, you know, where the big brand advertising might be, and you know, they they get a policy, but like when stuff gets really complicated or when their world starts to get a little more to it, like you say during your reviews, during what's happening. Do you have do you have a teenager now driving? Do you you know, did you did you build a pool? Did you buy a boat? Whatever. Um very difficult to source all that. And things get very, very complicated unless you have an independent agency, uh, independent agent on your on your side. And uh I don't think we promote that enough. And and uh I think that's you know why we have to continue to to fight the fight and do the things that we do. And so uh you're really good at what you do, Mitzi. Uh and we're excited to have you as a partner. So, Mitzi, Shane and I are voracious readers. So tell us what you're reading right now. Uh right now I am reading Built to Last. Um, great book. Very good book. Um so it's been years, and uh actually I just reread um from good to great and now on the built to last. And actually I think it's like the other way. No. One's like the sequel, right? But anyway, so that's what I'm reading. That's right. Just um take some nuggets away. Like, you know, if you you can take a little nugget and apply that. Um just like with the conference, you know, you get a nugget or two, um, then it's all good. What about you guys? What are y'all reading? You want to go first, Tanya? Um, like a big girl book that I'm reading. A big girl book. A big girl book. Oh my gosh. Let me look real quick. So um, I'm reading um, oh my gosh, I forgot the name of it. I'm trying to read a non-business book right now, and it is torture. Um, because I I guess I just read business books all the time, and that's all I seem to read. Uh, and and I found this uh one series that's kind of Jason Bourne type stuff, but it's not Jason Bourne. And anyway, I don't even remember the name of it, but I I read like a paragraph and fall asleep. And so I don't know why I'm that way, because I know there's a lot of people that can't read a business book without feeling like they're reading a textbook. Um, but I read a business book like a good to grade or built to last, like it's like it's an exciting novel. Like I have this real big weirdness, I guess, about me. But um, I can't even remember the the name of this thing that I'm reading, but it's uh it's it's okay. Um put you to sleep book. It is, but I I'm doing it for Julie. You know, she worries about me and my brain always, you know, thinking about business and thinking about things. And so I do it for her, right? I'm like, I'll promise you I'll read some type of non-business book while I'm reading the three or four business books that I'm reading at the same time. So I've just finished two or three uh uh non-business books, uh, like Shane. I sometimes I try to um to to go beyond the business books. And I just read my 50th book of the year. I finished that last night. So that was exciting. Um, so this morning I was kind of flipping through, okay, what do I want to read next? And I think I'm going to read uh Never Split the Difference, Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss. I I for some reason have never read that. So I think that's gonna be my next um big girl book. Yep. Nice. Yep, it's a good one. I I think it was about two years ago. I haven't read that. Read it a couple of years ago. I actually listened to it uh on audio book, and um I am I did realize remember that in some travel I've been traveling a lot over the last couple of months and I have reread for like the 15th time The Tipping Point um by Malcolm Gladwell. I don't I don't know why I keep going back to that book, but I always go back to the tipping point for some reason. So I can always tell when you've been reading the tipping point because those points start coming out in what you're saying, and I'm like, he's reread that recently. Yeah. So the people that know me well when that one is the people that know me well can almost tell what book I'm reading when before I can, right? So and really the reason I I haven't had a really good big girl book on my mind lately is that Shane hasn't told me to read anything because he's been on this fiction kick and he never suggests fiction books to me. So I'm trying to I'm trying to lay low, but I'm probably about to get going again. So have well, Mr. Thank you so go ahead. I'm sorry. I was just gonna say, have either of you read um Buy Back Your Time with uh by Dan Martel? I just finished that one. I have not uh uh O. Pilgrim suggested that book to me, and I have not jumped into that yet. Um, but I it's really good. I've heard it's very good. Yeah, I did the Audible and then I bought the book and then read the hardback and got the workbook. It's really good. Cool, great. Yes, absolutely. Well, Mitzi, thank you so much for joining us today. You have given us uh so much valuable information and so much to think about. And I always love being in your space, you know that. And thank you for sharing with all of our listeners. Yeah, I absolutely hope we gave you some information. I think you gave way more than you probably got out of this podcast, but uh hopefully you got a little something out of it because I did I think what you shared is extremely valuable to agents out there, and so thank you for sharing what you're doing. I think you're doing a lot of really good things, and sometimes you just need to know that what you're doing is good, right? You just need to am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? And I can tell you what I'm hearing from you, you're doing really good stuff. So well, thank you. So, Mitzi, I'd love for you to leave us today with your favorite quote. Oh, so um thinking about this subject matter, you know, coming in. Um, I picked a quote based off of that. And uh it's by Henry Ford. So if you always do what you've always done, um, you'll always get what you've always got. So that's awesome. I gotta change. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, attitude to choice, so make a great one. Bye, y'all. All right, bye. At the Integra Partner Network, we understand that carrier access is the key to your agency's success. And that's why Integra offers direct access to top-rated personal and commercial carriers, ensuring your agency lives in today's intelligence market, and with our comprehensive resources topic carrying and bonus opportunities to technology and fierce supports.