7 Unwritten Rules for Running an Independent Insurance Agency

• By: AnneMarie McPherson Spears
• January 1, 2026

Every agency has its own “unwritten rules”: those lessons, bits of wisdom or do’s and don’ts that may not show up in trainings or be written down anywhere but make all the difference in running a successful business.

When Jana Foster, owner and chief operating officer of Nevada Insurance Agency Company in Carson City, Nevada, and her brothers bought the agency from their father in 2018, one of the most valuable assets their father passed along was an unwritten rule: Make time for meaningful connections and build them with actions, not just words.

“Even before he retired, my father’s advice was to build strong relationships with clients, employees, our community, other independent agents, even other captive agents,” Foster recalls. “It was the best piece of advice we could ever have gotten.”

Whether passed down through multigenerational experience or won through hard experience, here are seven unwritten rules shared by seasoned agency leaders that you might not find in a manual but can take your agency to the next level.

1) Clear Communication Is Crucial

Whether interacting with agency staff, customers or underwriters, clear communication “is the foundation of any successful relationship,” says Jenna Rogers, founder and CEO of Career Civility. “However, communication in the workplace, specifically as agency leaders, can be challenging because it’s not taught to us.”

The Nevada Insurance Agency Company lived out a case study in clear communication when it changed its agency management system (AMS). When it comes to change management, “our unwritten rule is solid communication,” Foster says. “From day one, we knew communication was going to be a pivotal part of the process.”

Any agency that’s undergone an AMS transition knows it’s a massive undertaking. “It was certainly necessary but also brought up a lot of stress and anxiety,” Foster says. Throughout the entire process, “you have to provide that direct, personal communication about these changes. That included us communicating the why. Why are we doing this? What are the great benefits?”

“And, of course, it’s not a one-time conversation,” she says. The agency finalized its switch in 2023 and has spent the last two years acclimating. Throughout the process, “we continually talked about the benefits, the process, the issues and the frustrations,” she says.

Communication goes both ways, too. “It’s like I tell my kids: ‘I don’t know there’s an issue until you tell me,’” Foster says. “We always encourage our employees to give feedback, but solid communication with change management is crucial.”

When it comes to setting up a workplace culture of clear communication, the two biggest mistakes Rogers sees are “lack of expectation setting and lack of understanding different communication styles,” she says. “The undercurrent of both of those is assuming—assuming people know what your expectations are and assuming people communicate the same way you communicate.”

Assumptions and insurance are not a good combination either, especially when it comes to client interactions. “When you deal with insurance on a day-to-day basis, it’s elementary to you, but to a client it could be daunting,” Rogers says. “Being able to break concepts down, set expectations, articulate policies related to their needs and their goals, is an underrated skill.”

Rogers encourages agency leaders to follow three steps to minimize assumptions and promote clear communication:

Gain awareness. Leaders should take a step back and ask, “Where am I potentially falling short? Where are we struggling?” Rogers says. “Audit and observe where misaligned expectations occur.”

Gather data. “Start documenting not only your own experience, but other people’s as well,” she says. “I’ve seen many times where a leader has a hypothesis about what’s happening but then their team has some different perspectives.”

Actually communicate. “You have to broker the conversation and lead by example,” she says. “Have the courage to start the conversation around, ‘Hey, this isn’t working, how do we create a path for our agency moving forward’?”

2) Keep Your Data Clean

Clean data is the lifeblood of the agency. “Having consistent, accurate data ensures your team is informed at every touchpoint. In today’s world, customers expect that if they’ve shared something once, everyone at your agency already knows it,” says Kasey Connors, executive director of the Big “I” Agents Council for Technology (ACT). “When data is incomplete or inconsistent, it creates bottlenecks across your systems, which can lead to missed sales opportunities and poor client experiences.”

“Our biggest asset besides our people is our book of business,” says Kim Connolly, executive vice president and partner at Smith Brothers Insurance in Glastonbury, Connecticut. “We need to be able to run an AMS report that shows us exactly what our ‘inventory’ contains.”

“Our AMS is our single source of truth—if that’s not accurate, then nothing is going to be accurate,” Connolly says.

From checking which clients are impacted by an insurance carrier rating downgrade to monitoring policies that are coming up for expiration, Connolly emphasizes the importance of having accurate data available at an instant’s notice.

“We have a plethora of dashboards that we have set up for managers to review,” she says. One example is a dashboard that shows all direct bill policies that have been renewed but for which the agency has not received commission from the carrier. “We catch errors every month from carriers having system issues, many times resulting in five-digit commissions that would have been lost,” she says.

Connolly, who has co-owned the agency with her brother for the past 35 years, has overseen around 40 acquisitions. She often finds that, in some agencies, data is so disorganized it’s unusable, leading her to find a workaround.

“I do not do an import of data because I can’t find an acquisition that has clean data and I’m not going to import dirty data—expired policies, incorrect carriers, incorrect producers,” she says. “We now just import a shell of the policies, and then we take the agency ACORD download or items download and that updates our system automatically.”

At Smith Brothers, “we have a written procedure for just about everything, and we update our procedures every couple of years,” Connolly says. “We have a training matrix that new hires go through, and we also rehab the folks that aren’t doing things right.”

Casey Nelson, director of consulting at Catalyit, encourages agencies to think of their standing operating procedures as their skeleton. “If they don’t have documented processes that they’re not holding their team accountable to, it doesn’t matter what tech they put over the skeleton because implementation will ultimately fail,” he says.

“No matter who is executing a process, we have to go through the same door,” Nelson says. “We cannot have a process where one person adds a new lead to the CRM and another adds it to the AMS. It’s causing problems for a lot of agencies that duct tape things together and hope for the best.”

Ultimately, clean data is an issue for everyone in an agency, not just IT. “Data stewardship is a shared responsibility, because it affects everybody’s job if it’s not done well,” Connors says. “It’s one of those things that if you don’t deal with it, it’s going to come back and be a problem.”

ACT recently released “Bad Data, Big Impact: A Quick Guide for Independent Agencies,” which includes common data red flags, a clean-up checklist, and other resources.

3) Be Slow to Hire

When Shavonne Glanton, owner of Concord Insurance Agency in Ontario, New York, attended a local chapter of Women Presidents Organization (WPO), another leader’s advice stood out to her: “Be slow to hire, quick to fire,” Glanton recalls. “It was a reminder that hiring should be a thoughtful, mutual decision.”

This unwritten rule represents a shift in workplace dynamics. “It used to always be, ‘Just put a warm body in the seat, someone to answer the phone,’” she says. “But we want to put a lot of thought into who we hire. We want to make sure it’s someone who aligns with our values and complements our team.”

Further, Connolly warns about hiring friends or family unless they earn it. “We have seen many situations where an agency owner hires their children and compensates them excessively,” she says. “Employees see this favoritism and it’s disheartening. We’ve always been cognizant of this, and all family members have had to work twice as hard and been more than qualified for every role they have held in our agency.”

To hire selectively, Concord Insurance Agency defines the role “well beyond the tasks,” Glanton says. “We not only assess skills, but values, communication style, team fit and soft skills.”

Glanton also involves key team members in the hiring process. “We have the prospective employee sit with a team member for half an hour to learn what they do, and we also benefit from the diverse perspectives of what each team member thinks,” she says.

When someone is hired at Smith Brothers, “we have employee development plans, which are personalized for each employee and updated at least annually,” Connolly says. “It’s the opportunity for the employee to express their desire for their future role in the agency and for us to outline what they need to do to get there.”

4) Don’t Write Every Risk That
Comes Through the Door

Especially when first starting, it can be tempting to view clients with a scarcity mindset. “Small independent agencies sometimes feel like they have to write every risk that comes through the door, but not every piece of business is created equal,” says Victoria Vetter Bains, owner of Vetter Insurance Agency in Rochester, New York. “The accounts where you can build on what you already know are the ones that will be most beneficial to your business in the long run.”

“Saying ‘yes’ to every opportunity builds good experience, but it can also dilute your energy and your brand,” Glanton agrees. “If you define your ideal client—the one who aligns with your values—they will appreciate your expertise and truly benefit from your approach. It allows you to build trust and give a better customer experience.”

To identify ideal risks, “we ask a lot of questions to understand what they think about risk, service and partnership,” Glanton says. “We’re also very attuned to the underwriting guidelines of our carriers. Our underwriters tell us, ‘We jump right on your submissions because we know they’re complete and we’re going to have a good chance at writing it.’”

Bains has also learned there are some key behavioral red flags to look for in potential customers. “If a potential client has unreasonable expectations about timelines despite the fact that you set clear ones, they’re not going to improve once they become a customer,” she says. “If they’re suspicious of you and hesitant to give up information, that will only continue to be a problem.”

“Another huge red flag is a customer who asks, ‘What answer will get me the lowest rate?’” Bains warns. “Don’t write them.”

Additionally, “5% of your customers will take up 90% of your time,” Bains says. “While we would like everyone to be on an auto bill, some people resist that.” Those customers are much harder to vet, and Bains’ strategy comes down to communication.

“It’s a matter of taking the time to make sure a customer understands how to log on to the company website or how to access the information they’re always calling us about,” she says.

5) Everyone Is Responsible for Sales

Establishing a healthy sales culture requires intentionality—and everyone’s buy-in.

From the receptionist to the producer, “a team is dependent on every single member contributing to its success,” says Angelyn Treutel Zeringue, vice president and board member of SouthGroup Insurance Services in Ridgeland, Mississippi. “Everyone in the agency plays an integral part in the sales process, from intake to quoting to explaining coverages to closing the sale and then servicing and cross-selling additional policies on the account.”

“After being in this business for almost 20 years, I feel really blessed for those moments of failure and the many lessons I learned from them.”

SouthGroup holds a sales meeting every Monday morning and “everyone is involved—all 15 members of our agency,” Treutel Zeringue says. “All team members share their prior week’s successes for their prospecting, quoting and issuing. We’re talking about policies we’ve remarketed for the betterment of our clients, about how many calls came in and how many customers we served.”

“We reward success with bonuses,” she continues. “Not only do we reward sales, we reward productivity and retention.”

Here are three components to building a healthy sales culture:

Clear vision. A healthy sales culture requires “a clear vision, not just numbers and transactions, but where, ultimately, the entire organization is trying to have impact,” says Casey Cunningham, founder and CEO of XINNIX. “People want to have purpose when they come to work, and they want to know what they’re trying to achieve.”

Personal responsibility. At XINNIX, “we have the mantra, ‘I am responsible,’” Cunningham says. “Unfortunately, a lot of organizations allow their people to have a victim mindset versus an empowerment mindset. If the market shifts or something happens, I’m responsible for how I respond to it, and how my team responds to it.”

Recognition. “Critique in private, praise in public,” she says. “Recognition creates a standard. Everybody wants to get recognition, and now they know what to do.”

However, avoiding critique can set a standard too—a bad one. “I just talked to an executive who said, ‘I can’t get my people to use my customer relationship manager tool (CRM)—I’ve begged, I’ve told them they have to, but they won’t do it,’” Cunningham says. “He was missing the opportunity to have the tough conversations with the ones who weren’t adopting it, and by doing that, he was setting a standard. You get what you allow.”

6) Failure Is a Learning Opportunity

“For most, maybe even all, of successful leaders, failure has played a big part in their growth and experience,” says Brett Carter, managing director, vice president, at The Jacobson Group. “Failure is one of the greatest teachers we can have.”

“Gone is the notion that leaders are always right and never make mistakes,” Carter says. “For independent agency leaders—or people on the path to starting their own agencies—if they can embrace that there will be some challenges and failures, they can learn from it.”

“What sets good leaders apart is their ability to harness failure as an opportunity,” he says.

“After being in this business for almost 20 years, I feel really blessed for those moments of failure and the many lessons I learned from them,” Foster says. “My dad was always challenging our thinking, pushing us outside our comfort zone, and he was all about owning mistakes.”

“If you make a mistake with a client, you figure out how to make it right and then you don’t do it again,” she says. “If you can sit there and say, ‘Man, this is awesome, I haven’t made a mistake,’ you also really haven’t learned a whole lot.’”

When an agency leader experiences a failure, it’s crucial that they own their decisions and the outcomes. “Successful leaders lean into assessment and analysis of what happened, and then focus on what they can control,” Carter says.

A key question to uncover the learning opportunity from failure is: “Did I make any assumptions that turned out to be wrong?” Carter says. “A growth mindset recognizes that I’m not fixed in the position I’m in today, and I’m open to understanding more about every situation I’m in.”

Leaders should also foster a culture in which their staff are empowered to learn from failure. “It all starts with how leaders respond when things go wrong,” Carter says. “If the first reaction is to place blame or punish, that creates a culture where people are afraid to make mistakes.”

And “when people are afraid to make mistakes, that doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes,” he continues. “It just means they’re not going to tell you about them, and they’re not going to learn from them.”

Instead, leaders should model transparency. “Share stories of your own setbacks or failures,” he says. “You are also human, and you also make mistakes, but you’re still here and thriving because you’ve learned.”

When mistakes are made, agency leaders should ask questions rooted in curiosity, not accusation. “Ask your team what we can learn, what we can do differently,” Carter says. “It’s not a loss if you’ve grown and learned.”

7) Efficiency Is a Constant Process

“Never stop working to make your agency more automated and more efficient,” Treutel Zeringue says. Treutel Zeringue, who has previously served as chair of ACT, likes to say: “We’re in a war against keystrokes.”

“My desire since joining the agency world has been to increase utilization of automation to allow our team more time to spend with clients and reduce time spent on internal processes and rekeying data,” she says.

Nelson encourages agencies to think of automation like a car. “If you don’t change the oil or rotate your tires, it’s not going to work the way you want it to, and then eventually it’ll stop working,” Nelson says. “Tech is not set it and forget it.”

“Change management is not something that’s built into many agency cultures,” Connors says. “There’s often front-office staff and back-office staff who aren’t communicating on a day-to-day basis with each other and the agency principal. It can take a while to discover a breakdown in automation if you’re not having open conversations and creating buy-in where everyone’s voice is heard.”

Treutel Zeringue applies the Deming Cycle to develop a systemic, ongoing effort to enhance products, services and processes. The Deming Cycle, also called the Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle, was popularized by W. Edwards Deming and outlines a system of continual learning and improvement: planning, implementing the plan, monitoring outcomes and integrating the learning.

“Two to three times a year, we’ll take a particular process and involve everybody who touches it to identify ways to make it better,” she says. “Nothing is finished. You must continually improve.”

By investing the time to continually improve efficiency and automation, “we can operate our agency from the moon if we need to because we’re so highly automated,” she says. “We’ve been able to bring on more business, quadrupling the size of our agency in the last 10 years. And our jobs are more satisfying because we don’t work for the systems, the systems work for us.”

One of the efficiency evolutions top of mind for many agencies is AI. Treutel Zeringue has been able to build on SouthGate’s diligence to take the next step with the developing technology. “Now we are implementing AI to assist with further automation of our daily processes,” she says. “AI is assisting with coverage explanations, customer outreach and advertising.”

AnneMarie McPherson Spears is IA news editor.