how do you start your own independent insurance agency?
Home Insurance
I’ve been a licensed insurance agent for 10 years. Recently we opened a travel agency and work from home. We would like to open a store front and thought it would be a great idea to have an insurance agency and a travel agency operate from the same office. We don’t know how to start the insurance agency.
Tags: Home Insurance, Independent Insurance Agency, Licensed Insurance Agent, Mortgages
You’re a licensed agent for 10 years and you don’t know what you need to do to start an agency? That’s a bit scary. Make sure you keep your Errors and Omissions policy up to date if you ever actually start trying to sell insurance.
It would be very difficult to start an agency from nothing. You have to get the agency licensed, individuals licensed, one of the biggest things you’d need to do is get several contracts with a variety of carriers, get an agency computer system and that is only a few of things you’d need to do before even opening the doors. The best thing you could do is see if another agency around town would be willing to sell their agency to you, even if it was small this is a way better option as at least you have something to build off of. You’ll still need to go through a bunch of steps like licensing and getting approved by that agency’s carriers to do business, etc…
It’s very difficult, but I wish you the best of luck.
Well, you already have the office and the license, all you need now is the contracts with insurers. Depending on what kind of insurance you want to sell, and where you are located, it can be simple or impossible. If you’re NOT in Massachusetts, Progressive is VERY willing to take on new agencies. If you’re in FL, good luck finding ANYONE who will let you write homeowners.
It’s about networking and marketing YOUR AGENCY to the companies. You’ll just have to make a lot of calls, and call in all the marketing favors you can from your prior employers.
There are some good thread discussions about opening an agency at http://www.insurance-forums.net
If you want to sell travel and health insurance, Squaremouth has a comparative quote engine that can be co-branded.
You use it from your site and can customize the products you sell and also the look and feel to better reflect your site.
Squaremouth also can handle the agency contracts for you.
The setup is easy and could be a perfect fit for you. The company do not charge for setup and pays around 20% commission which is similar to what you would get on your own.
http://www.squaremouth.com/affiliates.html
Check out these websites for additonal information
— Carye
http://www.IBOPlus.com/40485726
http://www.EveryoneBenefits.com/40485726