Corbin Jackson

President
Corefira
Oklahoma City

Age: 24
iPhone or Android? iPhone
Favorite streaming service? Spotify
What’s in your earbuds currently? Lecrae

What brought you to insurance?

My father’s been in the industry for 35 years as a Farmers agency owner, so I grew up in the agency system and in the industry in general. I worked for my dad’s agency for about a year, and then I worked for another agency with Farmers for a couple years in more of a client service type of role. But I actually wanted to take a different path in high school—I wanted to go into the medical side of things.

At the beginning of college, after really analyzing the industry and the potential there, I decided insurance was a good direction to go with my skills and the relationships I had within the industry already. I majored in insurance and risk management at University of Central Oklahoma and was chapter president at Gamma Iota Sigma, the collegiate fraternity for risk management, insurance and actuarial science. Majoring in it really exposed me to a lot of different areas within risk management. I went to work for a broker out of college for a couple years and then started my own independent agency.

What keeps you in it?

Two aspects: First, I love helping businesses and clients with their insurance. Whether or not they realize it’s an important part of protecting what they’ve built over so many years, I take that with great responsibility to ensure that I have the technical knowledge, skills and abilities to handle that. I view it as a very important role and one that doesn’t need to be taken lightly. And secondly, I like competing in my industry and wanting to win.

Role model/mentor?

Definitely my dad. Growing up, you’re 13, 14, 15 years old and you’re sitting in your dad’s office hearing how he talks to people on the phone and how he handles difficult situations—whether you realize it or not, you’re learning how to communicate and be empathetic toward clients.

Why go it alone?

It comes down to my entrepreneurial spirit, being that competitive person and wanting to not necessarily reinvent the wheel, but add a different flavor to it—add value a little differently than some of the older models. It’s always good in business to know how you’re going to differentiate yourself. In Oklahoma, I sensed an opportunity with the smaller and middle-market commercial accounts to have a more high-touch service type of model.

You’ll probably hear from a lot of millennials that we want to do the technology thing and automate a lot of processes. And I think that’s good in some areas, but depending on the types of clients you work with, I think it’s equally good to be hands-on and understand their goals short- and long-term, then reverse-engineer that to create an insurance program that accomplishes what their goals are in business. So you can have all this automated stuff and that’s great, and if it helps the client experience out then it needs to be there, but I think sometimes as millennials we can go overboard in that area and not actually listen to the clients.

Millennial stereotype that fits you?

Because of technology and social media, our generation is able to—or more easily able to—pick up on quality and identify what’s real and what’s fake. Whether it’s on Instagram or Facebook or whatever, you can kind of tell who’s just PRing themselves and who really has the skills. Because we’re in it all the time, that’s really developed that muscle we have, that detector.

Next generation?

For future generations, even including our generation, the need for technical knowledge in the industry is key. The industry needs to build a structure around how to transfer that knowledge from the older generations to the younger ones.

Industry’s biggest challenge?

A lot of investment and venture capital money is going into these InsurTech startups, which is actually a great thing from a capitalist point of view—if we become obsolete, that means we didn’t do our jobs, right?  Now more than ever, independent agents need to identify what they’re really good at and double down on it. Forget about the rest. Be the best at what you do.

This article is the seventh in a series that profiles 10 millennials in independent insurance, based on IA’s July cover story. Keep an eye on IAmagazine.com and upcoming editions of the News & Views e-newsletter for more insights into how young people are working to secure the future of your industry.

Jacquelyn Connelly is IA senior editor.