Your carrier changes its model. Your agreement ends. What comes next matters more than what came before.
Kurt Wicks spent decades building one of Allstate's largest agencies: six offices, 35,000 policyholders, about $43 million in premium, a 45% loss ratio, over 2,000 life policies. Then Allstate changed its distribution model and terminated his agreement. For Kurt, it was time to move on.
His independent agency opened on January 1, 2023.
Three years and seven months later: 6,200 policyholders, on pace for about 8,000 by year end. He projected $13 million by his fourth year; it looks like 15 million. A staff of 20 with 12 full-time salespeople.
How? Two things: hire the best people and make the phone ring. "When you make the phone ring, you better have people that know how to sell." Direct mail today: 4,200 pieces a week. "It's more than paying for itself."
At Allstate, his salespeople sold P & C and gave him three life insurance referrals a week or paid a $1,000 fine. He sold the life. His line: "Two ways to grow. Write more business, and keep what you got on the books."
Michael's read: life insurance is one of the great overlooked policies in a P and C agency. The life conversation deepens relationships because it is about private things. Trust is built. The RAM cycle (relentless, automatic, merciless, cyclical) lets you project your income.
On AI: Kurt - a member of The AI Growth Academy - remembers doubting desktop computers in the 1980s. "Well, now, I'm a believer, you know?" Kurt says Allstate is testing AI-driven virtual agents, and he thinks they are going to be good. He believes the better State Farm agents may go independent.
