How Workman Insurance Group Survived An Insurance Crisis with E&S Market Access
Chris Workman is the president of Workman Insurance Group, a Louisiana-based agency that he opened in 2016. In the years since he’s been in business, the Louisiana market has experienced an insurance crisis, as carriers move out of the storm-battered state. Thanks to his partnership with Smart Choice and access to excess and surplus, and specialty lines carriers, Chris has managed to thrive during difficult times.
The Founding of a New Agency
Before getting into the insurance industry, Chris was in pharmaceutical sales. With mergers and layoffs going on, he realized it wasn’t the greatest time to be the newest hire, so he decided to look for another line of work. That’s when he learned about an opening for a commercial producer.
Though he didn’t know much about insurance at the time, he was willing to learn. Over the years, he worked his way up and eventually became a partner in the agency.
In June 2016, with 14 years of insurance experience under his belt, he opened what he calls “a little closet office.” Back then, it was just him running the agency, but in the six years that have passed, Chris has succeeded in growing his independent agency to a more than $8 million operation.
“We're in a rural area, but we service the entire state of Louisiana,” Chris says, adding that his agency also serves clients in Mississippi and Alabama. “Our business is split 50/50 between commercial and personal lines,” he says.
A Game-Changing Relationship
“I was looking for ways to really be lean and efficient when we opened,” Chris says, so he invested in a new agency management system, but had trouble adapting to it. While attending a conference to try to learn more about the system, he met a Smart Choice territory manager, and began to learn about the services the agent network provided.
He wasn’t sure if Smart Choice was even in his state, but when he arrived home, he started making inquiries, and connected with Jason Morris, the network’s Louisiana Territory Manager. They discussed the agency management system Chris was trying to use, and they also discussed how Smart Choice could potentially help him grow his agency more quickly.
Chris knew what he wanted to do. “It was really just a no-brainer for a new agency to join up with Smart Choice,” he explains. Even though he’d been in the insurance business for a long time and had made a lot of contacts, he realized that joining the Smart Choice network would give him a huge advantage.
His decision paid off fast. Through Smart Choice, Chris was able to get appointments with carriers he didn’t have at his old agency.
“One of the first carriers I was able to get signed up with Smart Choice was GUARD, and we were able to write a lot of business through them,” Chris says. “GUARD just gave us a huge advantage in the beginning.”
Choices In A Troubled Insurance Market
Getting appointments with major carriers through Smart Choice has been crucial for Chris’s agency’s survival, because many of the smaller regional carriers in Louisiana were not able to weather the major storm losses that hit the region. As some smaller carriers moved out of the state or liquidated, having contracts with big carriers like Allstate and Safeco became a lifesaver.
Some of the agencies in the area haven’t been so lucky. Chris says that an agency down the road from him lost all its markets.
“They had over a hundred policies with one particular carrier,” Chris says. “That carrier went into liquidation, and they didn't have any place to put them, so they sent them all to us.”
Thankfully, Chris was able to find coverage for those people.
“I’ll be honest with you - partnering with Smart Choice really saved our agency, because without that partnership we would have never of made it,” he explains.
High-Risk Solutions
Even with national carriers, finding suitable insurance coverage for high-risk clients in Louisiana isn’t always easy. It’s a region that’s vulnerable to hurricanes, and some standard carriers aren’t willing to write wind coverage there. “Some of these homes are older,” Chris says. “They're good homes, but they don't fit the standard markets.”
Having access to excess and surplus lines through Smart Choice’s Express Markets has helped Chris meet the needs of his clients. “We’ve seen such dramatic swings in premiums,” says Chris, explaining that premiums that have gone from around $2,000 a year to $6,000 or even $7,000 a year. Through the Express Market program, Chris has been able to secure quotes that are reasonable and affordable for his clients.
These options have given Chris a huge advantage over other agencies that lack these connections, and it’s helped him grow his agency and gain a competitive edge.
“Whoever has the most markets will win,” Chris says. “We've gotten calls from other agents asking if we would broker business for them because they just don’t have any carriers.”
An “Eggs-in-Many-Baskets” Survival Strategy
Louisiana has been hit hard by hurricanes, but other regions are dealing with their own insurance struggles, such as wildfires and floods, and inflation is affecting the market across the board.
“Every region has some sort of problem,” Chris says. “There's a huge reset button being pushed in the insurance market.”
By working with Smart Choice, Chris has been able to diversify and survive.
“We are very competitive – thanks to our partnership with Smart Choice and their Express Markets program. Some other agencies had a lot of their eggs all in one basket and that's been damaging,” he says. “I'm really grateful that we have this partnership, because had we not, I don't know if we would have survived,” he explains.
Do you want to see how Smart Choice can help you get the excess and surplus lines access you need to survive in a tough market?