Smart Choice Maine

Why Independent Agents partner with Smart Choice

• Smart Choice provides a vast choice of carriers to place insurance including access to Nationwide Insurance Commercial policies.
• What made Smart Choice a godsend to us is that I can talk to a Commercial Lines prospect for 10 minutes, send it to Smart Start and within 2 hours they are covered.
• Teaming up with Smart Choice makes it a lot easier to serve your clients as you're in a better position to eliminate coverage barriers.
• I spoke with two other networks/aggregators and their contract was like 3 inches thick – they were like Hotel California… you could check in, but you can’t check out.
• The impact on our agency has been significant. We were able to reach the commission cap in a very short period of time which now allows us to be paid 100% of the commission from the carriers. We also qualified for profit sharing this year which greatly impacted our agencies revenue.
• When I met with Network X and Network Y, all I heard was talk about money – how much of my money they’re going to take. When I met with Smart Choice, they talked about opportunity, and how they would walk alongside me because they have a vested interest in my success.
• As a scratch agency, we had very little premium to show to carriers. Smart Choice allowed us the opportunity to get appointed with carriers that we wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise.
• It is so exciting to offer the Bestow product! It is quick and easy for potential clients to understand. I appreciate the simplicity of the site, and it's a great product to offer and discuss when I'm in front of a customer. It definitely saves time for me which is the most valuable asset as an Insurance Agent. Easy sell and addition to my agency.
• When I decided to go out on my own the hard part was getting carrier appointments. So, I looked into different aggregators and networks and for several of them, I would have had to pay a large down payment -- with Smart Choice there were no fees. Bottom line is that our business has grown dramatically every year, I’ve hired three people and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Smart Choice. They really helped me.
• After comparing Smart Choice to other competitors, I found that some wanted as much as $12,500 upfront and if you sell your agency 30% of the sale. I looked at more than 15 networks -- tracking and comparing the options on a spreadsheet -- coming to the decision that Smart Choice was the right fit for my agency
  
• Smart Choice has allowed me to get direct appointments with carriers that I wouldn't have been able to get on my own or even through referrals.
• Any time we have questions about where to place business, or best practices on how to work with certain companies, our Smart Choice rep is more than willing to help. He’s knowledgeable and I don’t remember a time when one of my agents has had a question that he hasn’t been able to answer.
  
• We started in November of 2019, and we've got a $4 million book of insurance. We're writing over $200,000.00 of business every single month. Plus, new agents are interviewing and joining our team every month. Of course, Smart Choice can’t take all of the credit for this, but the network has made a big impact. Smart Choice has been great to me. They gave me the opportunity to have this agency and to be successful. In the future, I will roll business with any new carriers to Smart Choice because they’ve been so great to us.
• Smart Choice has a lot of carriers that help me place my clients and grow my business. I like the 100% book ownership and fair split structure. My territory manager helps me get appointed and find the carrier(s) to fill my client’s needs.
• There are so many different contracts out there. Smart Choice to me was the most helpful and they allowed me to own my own book.
• We thought Smart Choice would be fairly hands-off with a basic level of service. On the contrary, they’ve really become a valuable partner for our agency, being supportive, responsive and incredibly committed to our success.
• I interviewed three different agency networks and obtained copies of their contracts. My attorney reviewed all three and she told me, ‘Smart Choice is the most transparent and the most fair.'
• Partnering with Smart Choice has had a HUGE impact. I have grown my business far more than I could have expected and it was because Smart Choice provided access to the markets needed to be successful.
• Smart Choice quickly got me direct appointments with Allstate, Travelers, Hartford and Branch. Plus, they offer mentors and experts like my territory manager – who is like Yoda – she teaches me everything.
• They’re not hovering over me telling me to do things a certain way. We're still able to run our agency exactly the same, because it is exactly the same. With Smart Choice, there's no buy-in. They don’t say you’ve got to pay $10,000 to get in or $50,000 to get out. There's none of that. All those restrictions that make me unsure if I want to jump in the water – all that's been removed with this network.
• Having the availability of carriers without the commitment for production along with the broad range of larger national carriers (Allstate, Nationwide, etc.) creates the image of a large agency regardless of actual size -- giving us the ability to compete with anyone in the industry.
• It’s hard to imagine running this agency without the support of Smart Choice. The reality of being a brokerage is that it is significantly more complex because every writing company has its unique differences. Smart Choice helps us solve that problem by giving us one central point of contact for help with dozens of writing companies. It prevents us from getting caught in the minutiae and lets us focus on what matters most: serving our customers.
• Bestow's Term Life Instant Issue is a complete game changer allowing our agency to be well rounded in our day-to-day prospecting and servicing of our policyholders. The amount of time this product saves our agency is incredible. Our clients are thoroughly impressed by how user friendly it is with applications taking no more than 15 minutes. More importantly, the Bestow Instant Issue allows the client to be in control of creating their own legacy without feeling pressured. In less than two months thus far with Bestow, we are on pace to increase our gross commissions for our agency by 25%.
  
• Having direct access to carriers has been a huge help in allowing us to respond to our client’s needs in a fast and efficient manner.
• My goal is to continue to grow my Agency and having Smart Choice partner with us to identify opportunities to purchase books was unexpected.
• We are consistently presented with markets as they become available rather than having to seek them out on our own. It is nice to have options for our risks, and to know a Smart Choice carrier partner can be trusted.
• It used to be that my hesitation to write life insurance policies was the TIME that it took! But, with customer demand high and the potential for increased revenue I decided to partner with Smart Choice because of the ease in issuing most life policies.
• Everything has worked out great. I capped as an agent last September. Everything that they told me was going to happen with the pay structure has happened. I can tell by what they offer to me such as giving me direct contracts with companies… I know that they’re not in it just to make money. They’re there truly to help me build my agency and help me become a better agent.
• I have been an agent for 20 years and never seen anything as easy to sell life insurance as we have found in Bestow. We just send our agency link over to an interested prospect for a quick online app -- which literally takes less than 5 minutes for the prospect to complete. In a couple minutes the applicant will know if they have been approved and they are issued a policy right then and there. Very little work is done on our end, but we still get to reap those nice commission checks. Bestow has proven to be a win-win for our agency!
• Our State Director at Smart Choice (Todd Alexanderson) is ALWAYS here and available for us when we need anything. He uses his connections with carriers to really help us beyond our expectations.
• Having access to more carriers has enabled us to dramatically grow our business and in just the last 12 months, our premium has grown 53% in the Smart Start program!
• I did a ton of research before I even reached out to any of the aggregators, clusters and networks -- I had to learn what the difference was! Smart Choice stood out in a few ways with the cap and being able to write all the major insurance companies.
• Our revenue has increased significantly since we’ve joined Smart Choice. We were able to reach the commission cap in a short period of time and we’re now able to get paid 100% commission and participate in profit sharing on an annual basis. This is something that we never had before when we worked exclusively with wholesalers.
• One of the things that everybody must look at is that lack of a setup or initiation fee when you are starting a small business. This is huge because having a network tell you, ‘Hey, we're going to partner with you, but we need you to bring five digits to the table’. Like, man, I don't have five digits. That's not where mid 20 somethings who just got fired are sitting in life.
• There are other aggregator type groups out there, but I feel like their contracts tie you in much longer and much deeper. One big advantage is that Smart Choice stops taking a commission percentage once a certain level is reached. With some of these other networks and aggregators, you don’t have that cap. They’re going to take a percentage of what you do in perpetuity, and they’re going to take it at that same percentage no matter how big your book gets. To me, that makes Smart Choice a very equitable and fair proposition.
• Our Smart Choice Territory Manager (TM) is amazing, and I knew that he would help me become successful in a challenging insurance environment. My agency would not be where it is today if it wasn’t for Smart Choice and my TM, Chris Reisdorf.
• I have been a partner with Smart Choice since November, 2003 and have enjoyed every minute of it. Starting out, Companies wouldn’t appoint my Agency because of size. Smart Choice didn’t require policy
  achievements so this allowed my Agency to partner with prominent carriers. As my Agency grew, I was able to achieve 100% of my commissions. Without Smart Choice, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
  Good Luck and Happy Selling.
  
• One of the most challenging things we face as an independent agency would be the lack of carriers you can acquire if your agency does not have a large book of business. If you can’t get access, you just can’t compete. Smart Choice gets us that access and to over one hundred carriers which means I can offer multiple policies to clients assuring a good fit and a successful sale. If I was making this decision again, I would in a heartbeat!
  
• There were some unexpected benefits of working with Smart Choice. I was surprised how fast I was able to get direct appointments and all the extra commissions if you exceed the required amount set forth. And it seemed that just about every carrier offered extra cash incentives.
• I spent a lot of time researching and a lot of time looking at different networks and some seemed very micromanaging in their approach telling you what to do – while I was interested in the kind of support where you’re going to be a partner and help me run in the direction I’m going. You have to make sure that you're partnered with someone that is going to be able to support you and that you're aligned with from a value perspective, and helping you reach your goals. So, to me, Smart Choice was the absolute best option.
• I know some of Smart Choice’s competitors, they have a pay-to-play model that involves giving them a bunch of money up front. That might be worthwhile if those networks offered access to more carriers and better options, but from what I have seen, that’s simply not the case. Some of them also have stipulations that can harm agencies – for example, requiring them to meet quotas or pay money back.
  
• In the beginning of my career, only having access to one carrier as a captive— even at my very best, I would be lucky to close 15 to 20% of the deals that came my way. With Smart Choice giving me the options and the capability to quote so many carriers, it’s extended my closing ratio up to 75 to 80%.
• Smart Choice has been instrumental in our success because they put the agency’s best interests at heart and will do whatever is necessary to help them succeed.
• The accounting team at Smart Choice and their online portal is very clear and makes our reconciliation job very easy.
• Smart Choice is always adding new carriers and providing incentives to qualify for additional compensation which allows our agency to perform at the highest level.
• Our revenue has been significantly bolstered working with Smart Choice – we’re hitting bonus multipliers we wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise – like 4.5% in aggregate instead of 2.5%.
• Express Markets offerings have allowed us to create a niche, making it possible for us to place business for our clients others won’t or can’t.
• Life insurance offers great commissions. Since I am a start from scratch agency it’s going to take a couple of years to build the residuals in the P&C market. Life allows me to make huge gains in revenue to offset that. It has also open doors for my P&C by getting me in front of customers that I might not have if they hadn’t requested a quote.
• Smart Choice makes me look really good, and bigger than my agency is.
• I’m proof that Smart Choice is able to take a teachable agent from zero to more than $2 million in just a few years. I’ll probably surpass $250,000 in commission this year, simply because I trusted Smart Choice’s guidance
• I've used Bestow with some of my insurance cases and I'm impressed! The communication, ease of doing business, and follow-up have been amazing. Once the policy was applied for through my custom link, the client received an active policy within minutes. Bestow understands what is important to the agent and client satisfaction. I will not hesitate to use Bestow again and again.
• We wanted to try to get “single entry” market access to standard lines carriers. Since we are a smaller agency, it would have taken us forever to achieve the volume required to get direct contracts with some companies. Smart Choice makes it much easier to know where we are going. The MGA’s we used previously had inconsistent service, were often gobbled up by other MGA’s and we get lost in the shuffle.