Twenty-two years ago, John Bachmann was head manager of the University of Massachusetts Amherst women’s basketball team. Life was good—he had plans to be an assistant coach for a Division 1 level women’s basketball team. But when the head coach’s contract was not renewed, his life was completely upended.

Bachmann didn’t know what to do. “When I moved back home, a friend of mine, who was working in the mailroom of an insurance company, said, ‘Why don’t you sign up with this temp agency, and we might work in the mail room together,’” he recalls. “As fate would have it, that temp agency got me into that insurance company, but they got me a position with the claims department.”

Fast forward 22 years and Bachmann is known as a claims leader, author of “Successful Adjuster’s Playbook: The Secret Skills for Providing the Best Claim Experience” and a self-professed insurance nerd. On this episode of Agency Nation Radio, he shares how he started consulting and speaking in different venues all over the country, mostly with an audience of independent agents, but it was the coronavirus pandemic that put everything into perspective for John—that’s when he joined Norwood Insurance Agency. He also shares some advice for overcoming some of the challenges in meeting the demands of the modern insurance consumer, including video marketing and the claims process, and recommends some essential reading for independent agents and brokers.

Declaration of Independents on Agency Nation Radio is where insurance professionals turn on the mic and share unscripted stories about leadership, technology, marketing, success and failure—stories that helped make them the professionals they are today. From Main Street USA to the pages of Independent Agent magazine—we’ve got the stories you want to hear.

Bachmann was also featured in the July issue of Independent Agent. Check out his interview here or read the full issue online.