Halftime Adjustments: Winning the Second Half of 2026

As rates begin to stabilize, competition heats back up, and carriers return to growth mode, agency owners face a new challenge: balancing retention and new business, without losing momentum.  If you're ready to finish 2026 stronger than you started it, this episode is your halftime strategy session. 

Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is IA Forward, your playbook for six cents 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 IAFal Word.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

And welcome to Q3, the second half of 2026.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

This is, I mean, a little behind the curtain. We took last week off. There'll be no gap in what in our Tuesdays, but we took last week off, and we are a dumpster fire so far here. Like we are just not getting to it.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Well, thanks, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Shane's mouth is moving, no words are coming out. Then there's a string of words, and his mouth is moving. I mean, it's it's a kung fin movie.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

It is being on the Huntington, Texas Kung Fu movie.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

We're working on our Kung Fu movie, uh, you know, look-alike thing going on, little Bruce Lee, maybe. I don't know. These are those growing pains.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

You get that seconds, stop light, you know, the population is booming, internet people up.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

AI AI data centered, you know, uh debate going on. And I mean, you know, they're they're taking our water, they're taking our obviously they're taking our bandwidth because I'm having the internet problem today. Like it's all kinds of problems going on here with all the growth of small town America.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Do y'all have y'all are getting a data center there?

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Uh they're they're trying to. Yeah. It's a staples. Yeah. No, it's not a staples. There's an old um there's an old uh paper mill that is uh being considered for uh an AI data center. And uh we have a lot of water, and I don't even know what is real anymore about all that. Like it's just I can't tell. Like people some people are just mad because they're just mad, they want to be mad about it, and then some people like are for it, and then I I don't actually know where the source of truth is, quite honestly, or where to get the source of truth for stuff like that. So I thought we were sticking these suckers in space.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Well, I think that was part of the I think that was part of the SpaceX Elon plan, right? Just we're just gonna we're just gonna put dock all these on the moon or something, you know, let them float around Space Huntington, yeah, space Huntington.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I don't know, but they're trying to create a law here um because they were saying that they were looking at putting one ear, and so now they're trying to create uh local ordinances to keep that from happening for um a specific data center and that specific data center company's like we're not even looking at a skewed me accounting. We don't even know where the where the rumor came from, yeah. But yeah, y'all can pass the ordinance, but we're not even looking at y'all. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

I'm with I'm with Shane on the source. This is probably not the topic of our podcast, I know, and and we don't need to go too long, but I this is the thing. Like I have experience here locally where there was a situation about 40 years ago, maybe fifty, maybe even longer, where there was industry that came in to uh within two miles of uh our local school district. And we had the opportunity for that industry, that plant to be built within the borders of our school district, which would have been a huge property uh base, tax base for our local economy, our local school district. And we allowed for some annexation from another community, which is eight miles away from that industrial site. And that because people thought it was a bad idea, right? People thought, well, ooh, they're gonna they're gonna do something to us. Uh it's near a creek, right? So it became this environmental concern. But the thing got built anyway, and the other school district benefited from it. The other local school district benefited from it. So I think there's just a lot of things out there that are just, you know, we've got to figure out how to get to our source of truth and not not get into this social media game where, you know, we take everything posted on social media as the the truth gospel. I mean, you know, we gotta we gotta do some more research. So I'm done for that. That's it. That's all for me. No more, no more preaching. Done.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

It's in third Hezekiah's. It's amazing what all is in third Hezekiah. Okay, so second half of the year. Uh, we've had a really interesting first half from uh industry perspective as a whole. We have one of the the biggest main brand uh exclusive carriers turn things upside down. Uh the market has started to shift from being the hardest market in generations to starting to soften, um, which has starting to turn our independent agencies upside down. So, what shifts are we looking at making bear with our retail agency Shane uh going into the second half of the year? And then what shifts are you seeing under the crystal ball of the the Shane world or what this what what changes what changes are you seeing in the Shane crystal ball for the second half of the year that we need to be making?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, these these are such dangerous questions. I you know, when you're in the hot seat type topic like this, it what happens is is you you you say things, and then a year from now people are like, you know, I thought you said this was gonna happen. And so um no, there's no, there's no I think. Now there's evidence. That's that's that's gonna happen, right? Um, but I think there's uh enough historical information to say, you know, whether it happens in the same time frame or whether it takes a little longer, that that's you know, to be determined. But what we're seeing and the trends we're seeing is that um, you know, they're actually we're actually losing business that at a rate that we weren't losing business at during the hard market, right? I mean, that's not exactly true. Like the trend was headed down, right? Our trend was was was going down in the sense of of cancellation rate, and now it's kind of it's kind of trickling back up. And I think that's an interesting thing, um, because that is actually a normal thing coming out of a hard market. Our uh our our customers, our a you know, the agency customers are exhausted from the last several years. And so now, uh just like we talked about on a previous podcast uh with Mitzi Fox, now we we have exhaustion at the client level, and even the smallest rate increase, price increase is is now getting their attention, right? And so I think the thing that's really interesting is you can do one of two things. You can play really, really good defense, which is not going to actually save all of your clients because you're gonna lose some clients coming into this new market shift. Um, or you can balance and you can continue to play offense, or you can begin to play offense on a more aggressive basis if you haven't been. That's what we're doing. We are um we are working really, really hard to make sure that our new business engine does not stall out, that we keep the new business engine moving forward, because what we know is that as we come out of these last three years and get into this softening market, everybody's after business again. Well, what that means is that means more clients are going to be uh approached, that the the the client base is going to see an opportunity to maybe uh save a little bit of money. And after spending three years with no options, that sounds pretty good to people right now. You know, if I can save a little bit of money, you know, forget the fact that you salvaged and saved them three years in a row and worked your tail off for them. Right now, they're worried about groceries, they're worried about the gas bill, they're worried about everything that's going up in the marketplace. Insurance is a target right now, right? Uh insurance premiums have become a very uh highlighted target for uh the political space, especially coming into you know election season. Um and so you've got to continue to press the gas on the new business to make sure that some of that natural churn doesn't leave you high and dry.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

So you presented that in a you know black and white a little bit there, but but if if we got into it a little more, because you know we have 50 more minutes, like you know, you can't just go new business full steam and say whatever happens over here on the other stuff happens. This isn't you know, this isn't a captive environment where you're getting almost nothing on your retention, but everything you make is on that new business. You you you do have to spend some time and energy on trying to retain as much as is retainable within a reasonable amount of effort.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yeah, I I think balance is the word that I, if I didn't say it, uh should be inserted in there, right? There's gotta be there's gotta be a balance. And the reason I say that about new business and kind of say, hey, don't let your new business engine stall out, is when you have something, like agents that I'm talking to are not the agents that are under two or three years old in terms of the agency lifecycle, the independent agents that started just in the last few years. I'm talking about those that are three years and older, right? They've built something, they've got to book a business. When you have something to lose, you tend to emotionally react a little bit differently to that, right? And what I see happen more times than not is I see a panic. And, you know, oh my goodness, I'm losing business. My 3%, 5% rate increase that was basically a joy to see over the last several years. I mean, 15 to 20% was a joy to see. Well, now my 5% rate increase is walking up to me and going, you know, you got to do something. And you, you know, you're you're having to remarket constantly and you're having to play all this defense on what you believe as an agent is this nominal rate increase or just you know, loss cost increase. I think that's true. What I'm saying is consumer mindset is seeing it different and going to see it different. And if you panic and you go over here and say, Well, my gosh, we've got to spend all of our energy on retention and your new business engine stalls out, the truth of it is you're still gonna lose 10% of your business, no matter what you do. You might maybe the great ones, elite, you lose 5%. Some are gonna lose 15% of their business, right? And so where I'm going with that is if you lose that type of you know business, then you've got to have new business to stay even or grow, right? And so that's what I see is the typical behavior from agents is when you go into a market cycle like this, is sometimes there's panic. And yes, I agree. You can't ignore retention. I'm not saying that. Balance, you know, 50-50, something. Do something that is uh not allowing your team to stall out your new business.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

So you mentioned remarketing there. How should someone be balancing remarketing versus concerns about you know, end of your bonusing? You can't just keep shifting business around in a perpetual way.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Yeah. Remarketing an account doesn't make an agent any money, right? I mean, it retains revenue, but it costs a lot of money to remarket the account in time, you know, in terms of time and energy, time is money. And so uh that's time that may be being pulled away from the new business opportunity. And so, no, you can't be in that. And that's, I mean, you're saying exactly what I'm maybe trying to say. Um, is if you go down that path where you're constantly remarketing, then you're actually digging a hole. And you can't do that. You can't be in this constant re-market cycle. You have to be okay with some business loss, is is where I'm at. Is that's what we're seeing within our our retail operation. That's what we're coaching our agents to think about, is it's going to happen. Like it, that's the crystal ball. Like, there's it's not that it's even a crystal ball. It's like we're seeing it. That's the trend. And no matter what you do with it, aggressive growth efforts by carriers who have been on the sidelines for three years are going to create disruptions in the enforce book because they're throwing new business discounts on there. They're doing all kinds of aggressive marketing and tactics from the captive channel, from the direct channel, from other independents. Um, and so there's going to be some um, I hate to use the word churn, but there's gonna be some dislocation within the enforced books.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

From a homeowner's perspective, you know, the the hard market for us down in Florida has been absolutely atrocious, right? When you when you look at um insurance rates that went up $600 a month, that is substantial from a from a budget perspective. And uh the cute boy and I were driving to the gym this morning and and talking about um insurance and and escrow and how our how crazy our our property taxes have gone up in the last year along with those insurance, um, along with those insurance rates. And so I understand why people are are trying to find places uh that they can pull back some and and wanting those remarkets. Um but it makes me think of Aunt Mitzi and Mike, you haven't been on an Aunt Mitzi podcast with us. I I have this this friend who lives in rural Alabama, um, who is from Mississippi, and Aunt Mitzi is uh very unique and very fun, and she likes to do things her way, and um, she was looking for for cheaper homeowners insurance and and went through the home remarketing process and um ended up in a big hot mess and actually ended up spending more money. But watching her go through the the process of of getting new quotes on her home and what all it took to do that, I'm just like, oh my gosh, like I mean, as long as I can afford my insurance, I really don't want to have to go through that, right? I mean, it was it was crazy how all of the things that she had to do from her end. And I think people don't always realize that yes, it's it's pretty easy to to to reshop um or get a lower quote on your um on your vehicles, on your toys. But when people are asking for that on their homes, people don't have any idea what all it can take to get that.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah, it's exhausting, right? And and I I try to put myself in in the shoes of that customer. And one of our core values at Integra is make it personal. And that means like sit in their seat, like understand, try to, try to understand what this feels like. And as in independent agencies, as advocates, as risk managers and advisors, this is kind of one of those things where we got to make sure we're doing that plain English, you know, plain language movement where we're speaking, not in two of a technical term, uh, where we're, you know, not talking down to people, but we're talking to them in that plain language way, uh, making it easier. I mean, I think that is an example of why I am so bullish and such a long-term advocate of the independent agent, is because I do not think AI, I do not think the latest thing of whatever's next, whether that's you know, AI or uh um the you know, I I've lost the adaptive AI. Uh there's so many different different things that are happening that are like, oh, it's you know, gloom and doom. No, no, it's not, because people want to talk to people. And people do not want to talk to an AI robot, and you just think about her example of going through that and actually ending up in a worse spot, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Like that's that's the that's the crazy thing, is what I know we talk about this a lot, but I think it's important to keep bringing up is just answer the phone because I actually had this happen. Excuse me, sorry. Um, I just had this come up last week. Someone was actually stunned that I answered the phone. Like they didn't say I said, Hello, this is Mike, and they were like, Hello? I was like, hi, like, and they they did like they called me and they were having trouble getting started because really they just had their voicemail message queued up in their head, and now they had to deviate.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah, it's amazing, it's absolutely amazing that it's that simple, but that's where we are.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Now, not to get hung up on the remarketing for too long, but I'd I'd love to get your take on this because this is obviously something I don't really have any involvement in, so I don't know. When we talk about remarketing, obviously, if you're going to remarket someone, you're going to get quotes from whatever, two, three places, and they're never going to be exactly apples to apples. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Yeah, I mean, you're going to do your best to match coverages best you can. Yeah, it's rarely is it going to be just exactly the same.

unknown 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

So then it's obviously your job to explain the differences between the different policies, and this is, you know, here's my recommendation, but these are the options. Now, how does that work if there's a different if there's another agency involved? Do you ever see that quote? Or is it just you give what you have and it's kind of just in their hands and you go from there? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah, I I think unless that client shares that information with you, you probably won't see that uh that other offer. Uh, that's where you see things like if it's too good to be true, it probably is. So you see situations where it really happens a lot coming out of the exclusive channel. Um, in in a situation where you're trying to retain a client and all of a sudden they got a they got a quote from XYZ, you know, exclusive company. And you know that there's no way because it's you know 30% cheaper than where you're at, and you're like, okay, something's wrong. Like there's missing coverage, there's there's something. Maybe you're providing full replacement cost on the roof. Uh, maybe you got the underwriter to approve the roof because it's in good condition and it's 15 years old, and they're getting a roof schedule. You know, there's no replacement cost, there's maybe it's all ACV, whatever. There might be some drastic difference on the actual coverage side that's leading to that significant difference in premium. Unfortunately, the customer, you know, is in a position of potentially getting duped there. Uh, nothing necessarily bad, right? You can't really blame the exclusive channel agent for offering what they can offer, right? They may just they're offering their product, which is the only thing they can offer. And it just so happens that the customer has uh a Cadillac and you're offering on, you know, a pinto to age myself a little bit, right? And so um, you know, so it's like, okay, there's a reason that it's a lot cheaper, right? And you know, much like the pinto, if there's a problem, there's gonna be an explosion, right? It's not good, and so um this is kind of the reality of where the market cycle is moving to, and it's a great example of the challenge of the enforced book and the challenge with the client and why we need to continue to answer the phone, to your point.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Um it's it's something that um by the way, the Ford Pinto Ned production in 1980. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Okay, yeah, but but what makes me like feel so much better, I think, is the fact that I made a Ford Pinto reference last week and everybody just leaked at me, like, I don't even know what you're talking about. And so the fact that Shane Tatum, our CEO, just made a Ford Pinto reference just kind of well, just kind of warmed my heart.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

I know. I was seven. I mean, but I do remember the whole thing with the Ford Pinto, and you know, that was a whole big deal, and you know, something about where they put the gas tank and it wasn't very smart engineering. So um, but it's it's a great analogy. I mean, I know we don't always reference Cadillacs anymore, um, but you know, Cadillac and Pinto's are really good, you know, you got this policy, and it's it's a really rich, coverage-rich policy, but they're paying for it, right? I think that's the next phase that we're in too. Is hey, what's your risk tolerance? You know, hey, I can get you that less expensive policy, but do you have the risk tolerance to self-insure for the things you're gonna lose from the policy I currently have you with? Um, I don't know that we're doing enough of that. You know, I we talk about that internally here. Uh, what does that look like? How do we how do we message that? Um, because to Tanya's point with Aunt Mitzi, some really high percentage, um 80, 75, 80 percent, are they don't want to mess with it. So that's kind of back to no, you don't ignore retention, but you don't spend all of your energy on retention because not everybody's gonna call, right? No, not ever half of them are just gonna continue to pay, right? And so if you put so much panic energy into retention and and that that that jump and cancellation trend, then you end up shutting down your new business engine. And I'm telling you, we've I mean, there's carriers out there right now uh on the direct side. Um, Geico's in the news right now on the direct side talking about they're having trouble spinning back up their their engine, right? Because they did some, they did some things, right? I'm not talking about moving into the independent channel. I'm talking about on their direct side, they did some slowdown for market condition reasons, and they're having trouble getting their engine back off the ground. That's their that's their CEO, that's their comments in the news. Getting your new business engine unstalled once it stalls out is really, really hard and costly. And so we are sales organizations at our core, and we can't forget that we have to keep our new business engine primed up all times.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Not all business is good business in real life, and sometimes we have those clients that are just a pain in the booty honey. And when we are looking at retention, we're saying, okay, we've got to keep all of these people, I've got to keep all of this, and we're so focused on sometimes keeping clients that we really don't want. I mean, that really cause us some major issues, and those clients take up this much of our capacity and this much time. Is this a good time to let go and let God and then take this capacity and fill it with new people that are really people that we want to work with?

SPEAKER_03 27:49

It's an opportunity cost, right? I mean, to me, it comes down to this. If you can, for me, boiling it down to its easiest point is this that person, if they're that much of a problem, they're always gonna complain about you. So their friend is gonna come and say, Hey, should I use your insurance agents agency? And they're gonna say no, and here's all the reasons. Or you they could leave and they're gonna give the exact same answer. So you're never gonna get ahead on that one. That it that is one you let go, you get that time back, and you can probably service three or four other people that are gonna be happy with you and refer you, and you're gonna perpetuate improvement, right? You're gonna perpetuate those leads coming in and be in a much better place.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Yeah. Yeah, we I call them PETAs, right? Not like the animal protection, you know, acronym, uh, but the pain in the you know, A. Um, you know, that those clients are absolutely there. And we a real example just in the last couple of months on the commercial side in our retail operation. Um, and I think this is a natural sales producer mindset. We take it personal, right? Like when we lose a client, like we take it personal. And that is a real thing and a good thing. That's a great trait. It's what makes us super competitive, I think. Um, but we lost a we mu we lost a PETA client uh a couple of months ago. Um we we and uh my brother-in-law, who was on this account as a commercial producer, um uh he was he was very frustrated and rights rightly so. But um within uh six weeks, because his new business engine had kept firing, because he never stops prospecting, uh, he had replaced that PETA client plus some. Okay. And so, you know, what what was he to do differently? Like he was not going to keep that client. There was nothing he could do to keep the client that he lost. He was ahead of it, he he had everything where it needed to be. Like there was no extra, like in hindsight, I should have done X. That's my point. In hind you you can't stop your engine because in his case, he replaced it, right? And we're gonna be better off for it, he's gonna be better off for it in the end, because he replaced it with you know clients that are better clients to work with, actually. Um, and their accounts that somebody else lost because he's the disruptor, right? In that case. And those clients were frustrated, not because they're, you know, a pain in the butt, because but because they are they just weren't getting attention from their existing agent. And we had been after those accounts for a couple of years, and we hung with it, we kept our engine going, and we picked up those accounts, right? And so I think those are the success stories that I'm thinking about of why we have to keep that balance.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

How else do you see our retail agency shifting um between now and December that might help someone listening with making adjustments with their agency?

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yeah, we're uh we're getting out even earlier on some messaging. Uh, we're automating a lot of things from a messaging standpoint. Um, we're we're reviewing our messaging. Um, and you know, we're trying to make sure that uh we're telling our clients, hey, we are watching, we are looking at it, we are um we are as concerned as anybody about you know the rate of of inflation, of price increases over the last several years. Um, we're here if you want to talk about it. So for us, it's about communication. Um, we have lowered our proactive threshold. Uh so during the hard market, our system, our automation piece, uh, we had to raise the threshold of an account that we considered high risk because of just how everything was going up at such a rate. We couldn't, you know, if we didn't raise that threshold, if we would have kept that threshold at say 10%, well, we would have been looking at every single renewal, which was not cost effective as an organization. Um, and so we at one point, in the worst points of the hard market, our our high risk threshold was 30%. So it had to be over 30% rate increase for us, price increase for us to uh to actually proactively pull it out. Uh, we've lowered that. Uh, we're proactively looking at uh a lower threshold that we're considering high risk. But again, we're not taking that down to 5%. You know, I think it's around 15 now. Uh, we're looking at maybe watching that, see what happens. Do we take that down to 12? Like, where is the floor? Uh, you know, we're gonna we're looking for where the floor is. Uh, we think it's somewhere between probably 6 and 12, but we don't know what it is yet. Um and we're proactively messaging and automating through all of that. Uh, that's to protect our people as much as anything, so that our people don't get beat up, they don't become exhausted. Um, that's a big part of what we're doing through the second half of this year.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

So, with the market loosening, there may be new opportunity with carriers that had maybe tightened up a little bit with new appointments. So, how should people be handling bringing new carriers on, moving business to that new carrier? Do you just put new business with that new carrier? How should people be handling that?

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah, great, great question. Uh, yes, the answer is yes. Uh, appointments are opening up. Uh carriers are interested in uh finding new growth opportunities, not only within their existing uh contracted agents, but but new contracts for probably the first time in at least three years, maybe four even, uh, where there's there's a loosening there with the appointments. Uh, I think the question is, can you feed them, right? Like, can you continue to serve the the relationships that have been with you? You got to take care of the one that brought you to the dance, right? You got to dance with the one that brought you. Because here's the side of that. You've built some books of business. You probably are in profit sharing opportunity with some of those books of business. The last thing you want to do is start Rob and Peter to pay Paul, shoot yourself in the foot, and take away your profit sharing opportunities just because there's a market available to you now, right? Like, what is the strategy for that market to fit into your overall book of business? Uh, I do like the, you know, the new business strategy. Um, you know, unless you're having a problem with a carrier, but again, you don't need to shrink with a carrier. And since we're already kind of battling the reality that we're gonna have a little bit of uh dislocation in the existing books, you got to write new business with those books, with those the same carriers that brought you to the dance so that you don't shrink with those carriers because a lot of profit sharing dollars are affected by shrinkage, right? So you got to be careful there. The the the uh the agreements don't allow you to shrink. And so uh I think it's just a case-by-case strategic view of can you afford to feed you know this carrier? Can you afford to do that? Now, shameless plug, agent network environment, um, got a little bit more flexibility around that because you know the volume can maybe be handled aggregately and allow you to maybe pull up uh pull in an extra carrier or two that you've been really thinking it would help you grow at another level.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

So, but really the bottom line is can you create enough new business to support the new relationship? It doesn't all have to be there, right? It can be some getting moved to there and you replacing that business with the with the original carrier, but there's got to be enough new business coming in.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

There does. There does. And you know, the question is is do you have the lead sources? Are you, you know, would with this new carrier or two new carriers that you brought in, would they increase your hit ratio on your existing leads? Would there be some kind of lift that kept you from just shifting business from one carrier to another? That's a bad strategy, and that's a that's a game that would ultimately uh cause you pain with though with those existing relationships.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

And one thing I would love to know is has this podcast ever sounded older? In the in this podcast alone, we've referenced the Pinto robbing Peter to PayPal, dancing with who brung you. Did you did you ever get a splinter from your wooden shoes walking to school uphillball for ease?

SPEAKER_01 38:14

No, this is a lot of uh lot of cliche, old cliches being thrown out today. I don't know. I'm I'm turning into one big, one big one-line cliche, I'm afraid. I'm showing my age.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

I don't know, but it's it's getting time for supper over here.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

So I'm just we just lost all of Gen Z. Um you know, we're we're hanging on to a little bit of the millennial crowd, but Gen Z checked out like 20 minutes ago.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

So we have had such a focus uh in the last year, year and a half on things having to move to ENS markets. What does that look like as the market is softening and carriers are uh wanting to write more business?

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah, I I think um that's kind of you know, there's a handful of cat-focused, catastrophe focused, uh speaking of plain language, I gotta speak some plain language here. Um, you know, catastrophe focused coastal carriers who have had it really good, right? And they've almost had monopolistic environments in some cases, some some states. And as you see some of the mainline carriers start to say, well, you know, we've had really good results. Um, carriers, 10 product managers, you know, uh investment, you know, executive levels at the companies where investments are up and their investment opportunities returns are up, uh, and they see opportunity here, you know, they're looking to pump premiums so they can invest that money. You know, there's so much that goes into the insurance company business model that when things start softening up, short-term memory loss starts to come into play, is what I call it. Like people forget that, you know, what those claims looked like and those losses looked like a few years ago. And all of a sudden, they want to start writing some business and opening up some zip codes that maybe they weren't willing to do business in a few years ago. Um, and so I think, yeah, there's there's that reality. We could see uh we could see a little bit of a shift from that surplus environment back to uh the standard preferred admitted market. I think though there's going to be less of that this time than there was in previous cycles. I mean, we have so much economic development in the line of fire. Uh housing uh that is in the line of fire, to use some more cliches, Mike, um, and one-liners, make sure I get another one in there. Um, you know, because so much has been built over the last 30 years within a hundred miles of the coastline. Um at some point, you know, we're we're playing roulette here, right? Like we've got a big bad cat five hitting somebody, and it's gonna do some damage. And so everybody's trying to mitigate that risk, and everybody's trying to prepare for that future gigantic hit by just understanding what they need to do or don't need to do. And so I think I think that protects the surplus lines growth that we've seen, and those surplus lines riders continue to kind of maintain where they are. But I do think the rate of surplus lines growth is gonna slow way, way down. Um, I think that mainline carriers are going to jump back into certain areas because they're looking for premium. They're looking to grow their premium, and they need to. They need to grow their premium. And some of the stuff that was done over the last three years probably went too far and needs to needs to kind of come back to center, so to speak. Uh they they just swung that pendulum way too far. There's another one, swung that pendulum.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

So while we're on these cliches, I I I would since you I you know, I kind of consider you the Nick Saban of the independent insurance world. Okay. And um, you know, we all know that Coach Saban was the best in the locker room at halftime, right? And he could take honest evaluation, he made smart adjustments, he encouraged players to to play harder than before. Um, so I I need the I need the coach Saban version, rah-rah-ish of Shane Tatum on what adjustments that we're gonna make going into the second half of the game, the second half of the year.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

So you want the Nick Saban, not the Newt Rockney. Uh uh really, you know, to go back to um uh the what was the movie? Um Notre Dame. Um Rudy. Rudy, you know, to to show my age some more, Rudy. Um y'all like Rudy, right? You've seen Rudy. Come on, everybody's seen Rudy Mike. No, I've seen that one. Okay, so we've got a three for three on who's seen the movie today. That's strong, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Well, I mean, usually you come up with these weird obscure things that I mean it's Rudy.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Yeah, what was that? What's that nonsense, that Western movie that we've talked about a few times? What was that?

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Something Sadie Wells or something. Josie Wells. Yes, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

One of those Wells.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

People haven't even seen Dazed and Confused. So that's a whole nother thing, too. So I'm a little bothered.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

No.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Dazed and Confused is that's the nine years. No, no, no, the other one. Oh, uh Outlaw Josie Wells? Yeah. That's from late 60s, early 70s. Yeah, my time. No, no, I think it was like 76 or something like that. I think I was two.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

So yeah, we're gonna get a lot of prospect calls from people in their 30s after this episode.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Go ahead. You know, I man, again, we're sales organizations, right? Like your new business engine has to stay primed and running. And let this be a lesson. If you slowed your new business engine, you can't that never, ever slow your new business engine, right? Um, it's never like, okay, let's stop this piece and let's start this piece, right? It's no, we keep doing what we're doing over here, and if we need to add a little protection on the back side with um with our retention strategy, then we we add that in. We don't we don't slow the new business engine in order to protect the the retention side, right? Um, I that that's my best locker room effort for mid-year right now is if that happened to you, get it primed back up, get it going, put energy into the new business. Don't freak out. Like, don't panic. Um, if there's ever a ever a time to hear me say be even killed, it's now because if you start panicking and you start focusing on retention, your new business engine is gonna stall out before you know it, and that's gonna actually cause you a lot of trouble.

SPEAKER_03 46:18

I think the bottom line is you've you referred to it as the new business engine. So that new business engine has limitless possibilities, if you think about it. You don't know what could come of that, but retention has a cap to what it can produce for you.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

That's right. Statistically, that's right, you're not losing 100% of your business. If you if you just ignored retention, all right, you're gonna have some carriers knocking on your door. But if you just said, I'm not gonna touch it, I'm just gonna automate some things, I'm gonna react to some phone calls, but I'm not gonna proactively do anything with my retention, you're still keeping 80 85% of your business. This is the beauty of our industry, it's the beauty of our business model. So, okay, we're talking about putting some energy into the retention to get a 5% lift on your retention. That is a big deal because that means you have to grow less, you have to write less new business in order to grow because those things work together. I'm doing math in my head, I'm sorry. Sometimes I do that to my wonderful wife, and she gets mad at me and she's like, You're doing math in your head, I'm not following you, right?

SPEAKER_03 47:45

I love that you do math in your head for someone who does math for a living. That's outstanding.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Yeah. So, you know, it's like don't you can't put so much energy over here that you stall out. It just it's just a bad idea, and it never works that way. Um, and again, the people who just put it on autopilot with some automation on the retention side, there their retention's not gonna be that bad.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

We had we had our we had our company-wide Integra Partner Network call earlier today, and some of our agents were asking about uh profit sharing for the year. What were we looking like and coming out of second quarter and going into to third quarter? And um kind of reminded me of that quote of nobody remembers who led at halftime and they remember who finished, and the some of the challenges that you've had over the last four years watching uh ImmK play at Kansas and how great they would be coming out of the fifth, but not being able to finish those games, right? So that's kind of where I'm thinking on this is okay, this is what the first half of my year looked like. What can I do to turn it around and really focus on the second half to make my agency profitable, to make my agency better, to be looking at those profit sharing dollars, which I know you say we can't fix this year. You're you're starting toward next year, right?

SPEAKER_03 49:25

I mean that's what I was just gonna say. I know what he's gonna say. You shouldn't do it in 2025.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Right, right. But but there are things that we can do in the next six months that can make a huge difference for us. Yes, you know, if what you know, you can tell us we've got to keep our um our new business business engine going. How do you see how do you see uh the how do you see agencies doing that when we're having this huge shift in um in the market? Because everyone's focused on the way it has been. How do we get that shift to this is the new way of doing things?

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Yeah. Uh one, it's natural for insurance agents to think about sales, right? They just have to room, they just have to make sure they don't get bored. Like I I really uh I want to give a little shout out, nothing to do with us. I don't even know the guys. Uh, been listening to uh a little bit of a newer podcast, Scratch Agent Podcast, um, some guys out of New York, uh up around Mike's area. And uh they I I think I think this is something they've realized and um it reminded me is insurance agents are really bad at continuing to do what they do well and can and double down and triple down on that. We're really bad. We have squirrel syndrome really, really bad. We have shiny object syndrome really, really bad. And when we hear somebody else talk about some cool new thing, some cool new strategy, we will drop everything we're doing, even if it's really good and successful, and we will go try to chase that thing. And I I am begging, I am, you know, the older Shane here talking to the younger Shane. Um, I did this too. I I made these mistakes. If you will just double down on what's working well and triple down on what's working well, you will win. And and I think that's the thing that needs to happen through the rest of 2026. And I'm gonna say it might actually impact your 2026 profit sharing contingency results. You might can actually do that because uh yes, the market's shifting, but the market's shifting for everyone, right? And so you can be a disruptor by putting on your uh your natural sales hat and doing what works. This is if you're a personal lines agent, this is not the time to shift a commercial, it's the time to double up or triple up on personal lines. If you're a commercial lines agent, double up on that. It's not the time to shift over, right? Um, this is a time to take huge advantage of the fact that you have a lot of carriers coming back into the market who want to grow. So you got here by doing something really good, so keep doing that. Stop getting bored and stop worrying about some really cool idea that you heard, you know, some other guy talk about. That's great for them. Let them double down on that really cool idea, but you need to double down on what brought you to what brought you here, what got you to this place.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

Man, Tiny, when you take us out, I hope it is some super old 70s or 80s reference.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Do not let me down on this. I never thought the day would come where I would get made fun of for being old. I was always the young guy.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Y'all realize that? I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from Paul Bear Bryant. So, you know, we've gone through saving and then we're gonna go back to to uh to the bear. Halftime isn't for celebrating what you've done, it's for adjusting what you haven't.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

That's great. Attitudes. A choice, make a great one.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

Bye, y'all. At the Integra Partner Network, we understand that carrier access is the key to your agency's excess. That's why Integra offers direct access to top-rated personal and commercial carriers, ensuring your agency thrives in today's challenging market. And with our comprehensive resources, profit sharing, and bonus opportunities, technology, and peer support, all of our viewers to make 100% of your book with no families to exit. Integra is ready to empower you and your agency to find sustained growth. Find your way to Integra. Visit IntegraPartner Network.com today. That's integrapartner network.com.