Perpetuation

Every agency owner we’ve ever met has days in which they would gladly hand the keys over to someone else and walk away from the agency business. No doubt the…

Virtually every industry has a model for comparing results to other businesses in the same field. For the independent agency system, that model is the Big “I” Best Practices program.

What does the future of insurance hold for we mere mortals? Your guess is as good as mine, but we need to imagine it. Technology and the world in general…

Too many agents try to reap the benefits of their agency value before they are ready, selling the goose even though it is capable of laying many more golden eggs.…

According to the 2014 Future One Agency Universe Study, 14% of independent agencies do not have a perpetuation plan in place. But industry experts estimate the number is much higher.

Many agents with successors in place are not so sure that their successors can manage the business as well as the older agents or sufficiently enough to assure the older…

Is the future positive for small, traditional agencies? As with most broad looking-into-the-future answers, it depends. It depends on knowledge, commitment, and recognizing reality. For example….

We often hear of agencies ‘merging’ as a form of perpetuation planning for an owner. When we analyze most of these ‘mergers’, we find that they were acquisitions in disguise…

I have unfortunately worked with the families, estates and partners of several agency owners who have passed away. Most, but not all, of the deaths occurred unexpectedly. In all cases,…

When the current owners wish to perpetuate the agency without severe financial impact to the new owners, they sometimes attempt to gift, discount or bequeath ownership interest instead of charging…