5 Tips for Working with an Underwriter to Build a Successful Niche Practice

• November 1, 2025

By Bobbie Williams and Logan Floyd

In today’s competitive insurance landscape, being a generalist isn’t always a viable long-term strategy for success. Clients increasingly demand specialized expertise and tailored coverage, expecting their advisors to have a deep understanding of their industry’s specific risks. For agents, this shift presents an opportunity to build a unique book of business in a niche market, especially if they can align with underwriters in a collaborative, strategic way.

Insurance is an incredibly competitive industry, particularly at the agency level. Niche markets offer agents a pathway to differentiate themselves, the potential for higher retention and a more profitable book of business when specializing in a growing, healthy or underserved sector.

Working in a niche market builds on the basics of property & casualty. While nearly every business requires some level of general liability, commercial property or other general coverage, developing a successful niche-based practice demands agents invest the time and energy to ensure they fully understand that niche’s nuances and how it can be insured effectively.

Partnering with an underwriter gives an agent crucial insight into the commercial realities of that targeted market, while delivering a competitive advantage for themselves and their clients.

Here are five ways agents and underwriters can work together to build a niche that’s profitable and sustainable:

1) Start from where you are. The first step is to look at your own organization and relationships. Do you work for an agency with a wholesale subsidiary? Or do you work closely with one for your own book of business already?

Underwriters are often looking to build their own business and are open to making new connections with agents and brokers in related areas. Keep an eye out for underwriters whose book overlaps with your current clients’ industries or who are working in sectors you’d like to expand into in the future.

Action step: Reach out to underwriters and set up calls or lunches to assess the potential for a mutually beneficial relationship.

2) Shared market intelligence. Often, agents are the first to identify a local or underserved opportunity and can bring new business to an underwriter. Other times, underwriters are already working in an established niche and need new, more or better agent partners. Regardless, both the agent and underwriter bring something to the table. However, they must be able to communicate effectively and listen carefully to each other to fully understand the niche and establish how they can partner to bring something unique and valuable to clients and profitable to insurers.

Action step: Share client pain points and feedback with underwriters. Underwriters can give context through data, trend analysis and insurer tolerances. Together, underwriters and agents can assess whether a new niche is viable or how to grow an established market.

3) Develop specialized products together. When a new niche is identified, all parties must work in tandem to build coverage. Both agents and underwriters should meet directly with clients, or potential clients, to hear firsthand about that market’s specific challenges and to ask questions. This helps the underwriter understand what issues are truly unique to that market and find solutions that fit within the risk tolerance of insurers. It also effectively communicates to clients that the agent is actively searching for the best solutions to their problems.

Action step: Go to where the clients are, together, whenever possible. This should include conferences, webinars and one-on-one meetings, both in person and virtually. Direct contact opens lines of communication that can offer much more detailed information for underwriting and keep both partners on the same page.

4) Ongoing communication. A good partnership doesn’t end once the coverage is written. Few markets stay static, and insurance coverage needs evolve constantly. So, making sure to keep in touch and communicate what is happening with clients and coverage is essential.

This active communication allows for better consistency in the face of market shifts. Underwriters can proactively address new risks and challenges by working with their insurer partners to identify where adjustments, in terms of coverage and costs, are needed. That enables agents to prepare and educate clients about coverage changes effectively.

Action step: Set up regular check-ins—monthly or quarterly—to review new business, discuss successes and losses, and share feedback. This helps all parties stay ready for any market changes for clients or insurers.

5) Invest in the product and the partnership. Agents may be the face of the coverage for clients, but clients and prospects must understand the massive amount of thought and consideration that goes into underwriting coverage. Including your underwriting partner in talks at conferences, co-authoring white papers or participating in co-sponsored Q&A webinars keeps them connected to your niche market and showcases the deep expertise you have accrued.

Action step: Underwriters can provide agents with underwriting guidelines, data and educational materials, while agents can share client-facing opportunities with niche conferences or publications.

At the end of the day, niche coverage, like any coverage or any business, must be profitable. Building a successful partnership between an agent and underwriter creates the best foundation for a sustainable, flexible and profitable market opportunity. It’s an everybody-wins scenario built on connections, communication and a proper understanding of the unique needs of the niche.

In an industry that’s all about people, connections and problem-solving, partnering with an underwriter is simply leveling up.

Bobbie Williams is Allied Healthcare program underwriting director at Novatae Risk Group, and Logan Floyd is a commercial insurance broker at World Insurance Associates.