IA Forward
IA Forward is your playbook for success as an insurance agent.
Every week, Shane Tatum, Tonya Lied, and Mike Boesl tackle the real challenges insurance agents face, from growing a profitable book of business and building a stronger team to marketing, leadership, carrier relationships, industry changes, and the decisions that come with owning and running an agency.
No corporate talking points. No textbook advice. Just honest conversations, practical strategies, a few strong opinions, and lessons you can actually use in your agency.
Whether you’re building your first book, growing an established agency, or trying to figure out what’s next, IA Forward is about helping you think bigger, lead better, and build a business you actually want to own.
Learn more at www.integrapartnernetwork.com
IA Forward
AI Is Here. No Panic Required.
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
IA Forward tackles one of the biggest questions facing independent insurance agencies right now: Is AI going to replace traditional agency roles? From CSRs and account managers to producers and agency owners, the conversation explores what AI is actually changing, what it definitely isn’t, and where agencies can gain efficiency without losing the human relationships that make independent insurance agencies different
Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.
This is IA Forward, your playbook for success as an independent insurance agent. Now, here to help you knock it out of the ballpark are your hosts, Shane Tatum, Mike Basil, and Tanya Leed.
SPEAKER_04Welcome to IA Forward. And today we are discussing a topic that Shane suggested. However, he doesn't actually remember suggesting it. But before we get there, I have to ask Mike a question. And that is, I got called out on the last podcast about saying the word supper. But for some reason, Shane has not been called out by starting an email with the word howdy.
SPEAKER_03So that's that's a good point. And he does that a lot. So I think I'm kind of numb to it now. But that is like howdy.
SPEAKER_04Well, I think that's the way I remember him saying that like in person.
SPEAKER_01Howdy's not a an older generational thing. Howdy is a Texas thing. Like it is the universal hello for Texas AM fighting Aggies or fighting Texas AM Aggies. Like when you greet people, like when you go to Fish Camp and you're a fish camp as a freshman, you go to frit fish camp and you learn all the traditions at Texas AM, they teach you howdy. That's you you learn howdy.
SPEAKER_04And so Mike hasn't gotten past the words past the words fish camp yet.
SPEAKER_01That's 100% right. Well multiple colleges have fish camps. I mean, that's pretty normal.
SPEAKER_04So no, it's not. Yes, freshmen are called fish. Yes.
SPEAKER_03So you kept talking, but in my head, all that was happening was a bunch of people running around with fishing poles and nets, and just I don't like that's where I got stuck.
SPEAKER_01You said all your things, but well, y'all, this is the this is this is the problem with um the north versus south. And you know, this is why we had civil war way back, is because you know the the Texas way, right, is is we're gonna impose that on everyone, right? And so um howdy is the thing that you do if you're from Texas. Howdy.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so just so you know, I am looking, I just looked up Fish Camp College, and nothing is coming up except for Texas AM. So I don't think this is a real common thing in other places. Now, the University of West Florida, which has a marine science life thing, has a fish camp, but it's not the same thing that you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01Well, they just haven't caught on yet, but it's coming. It's a your search is ahead of the coming trend. Uh everybody else is gonna look up and go, why aren't we doing a fish camp? This was a thing when you went to college? It was. Julie's a really well-kept secret, then, because it's been, you know. Well, I didn't go to AM, number one. I married into the cult, remember. But Julie went to fish camp. She's an Aggie. Hannah went to fish camp, I think. I'm pretty sure. Or maybe she was just going through recruitment. She was sorority, so she may not have gone to fish camp. But fish camp is a big deal. They now have a Christian version of Fish Camp called Impact. So anyway, there's there's it's a big thing. It's a huge thing. A lot of people go to both. It's not a huge thing.
SPEAKER_04It's not because I am I am looking through this and I'm not seeing any other school that has.
SPEAKER_01There's some version of it.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So back to I'm not quite sure I can get past Bishcamp to try to talk about insurance today, but I'm I'm gonna do my best. And I called a um actually called an insurance agency last week because my boss told me to. And I got the AI receptionist. And let me just tell you, I hate the AI receptionist. I hate the person that acts like a real life person but is not a real life person trying to sound like a real life person. And I got that and I hung up on it, and then I did a little bit of research on it, and it was amazing to me the number of people that the percentage of calls of people that will hang up from a law office, an insurance agency, um, a CPA, any kind of professional service that if they get the AI receptionist, people just hang up. And it made me wonder like we get excited about using AI, right? But have you personally ever heard somebody say, you know, I called XYZ business today, and I was so excited because I got to talk to their AI receptionist.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, nobody's doing that. Haven't heard that yet.
SPEAKER_03I'm a little upset with AI right now. Let's just start here. I'm a little upset with AI right now. Okay. So, you know, we am on a lot of these podcasts, we've talked about not riding the roller coaster of emotions. But I struggle with it, so I do. So, you know, I went to conference and I got my little crystal matrix of leadership, which is why I have my Transformers shirt on here today. I don't know if you guys are Transformers fans, but that was part of the movies, okay? So that I was up here, and then I went through the whole deal there, and one of the last speakers was talking about AI and um really engaging, and you talked about hey, try Claude instead of whatever you might be using. I was like, okay, you know, I'll give that a try. So I went in there and I was like, let me see what AI has to say about the Integra Partner Network. So I asked Claude, and he gave me all this information, a little creepy how much he knew it, whatever. So, whatever. I went about my day, and then I was like, actually, let's just try it real time here. I was like, you know what? Let's ask Claude. I got my phone here. Let's ask Claude about IA Forward. Can you tell me about the IA forward podcast? Let's see what old Claude has to say. I can't wait.
SPEAKER_02Here we go. He's thinking about it. It's thinking about it. Is it a he or she? I mean, Claude. Here we go.
SPEAKER_03It's not a good one. There's a bunch of there's a bunch of information. It's all legit, it's all good, but let's just start with uh let's just start with the first line. Hosts. Shane Tatum and Tanya Leed. Hey Claude, what's up with the disrespect? I'm actually one of the hosts of the IA Forward podcast as well.
SPEAKER_01See what Claude has to say about that. Well, you know, you're a fairly new host, right? So Claude, you know, AI is basically in that sense, it's search, right? Like it's just advanced search. So you're just you need a little more, you you're you're kind of new, you're a fish. Right? You're you're kind of the the freshman of the podcast, right? Like you're you're you haven't gone to fish camp yet.
SPEAKER_03So here's the response to that one. You're right. I apologize for the oversight. Okay, there's some redemption here. The search results did mention additional hosts, Mike and Robbie. Are all the listed the hosts of IA Forward? Are you Mike or Robbie? I'd love to make sure I have your name right.
SPEAKER_04Just for your information, if you go and look at the contributors for IA Forward, as far as our hosts go, you are actually listed first.
SPEAKER_03That's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_03So, but you know, so I was all the way up here, and then you know, we had some like wily coyote stuff going on here, right? Like I was standing up on some some big thing, some tower, and all that pulled that right out from underneath me, and I was just in mid-air, and he gone.
SPEAKER_04I will give you a shout-out about wearing the Autobots t-shirt today when we're discussing AI. So you can tell me you didn't know the topic today, but I think you somehow had uh had ESP or ESPN or something that would make you wear that t-shirt.
SPEAKER_03Well, now that we've resolved that issue, we can move on.
SPEAKER_01Well, hang on, before we move on and get into AI and how it affects our our roles in the insurance business. I did want to say that there's also another term for freshman uh coined by Dazed and Confused, the movie Dazed and Confused. Have y'all seen please tell me you've seen that movie? No boy.
SPEAKER_02Here we go.
SPEAKER_01Oh Lord. Are you are y'all serious? Y'all haven't seen that movie?
SPEAKER_04Okay, you've known me for nine years, and you're asking if I have seen Dazed and Confused.
SPEAKER_01I I don't know the answer that you're trying to reference. Does that mean of course, or absolutely not?
SPEAKER_04Absolutely not.
unknownOh gosh.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so um more orientation need for the integra organization for our people, especially our leadership team. Um, more homework for you. You have to go see Days and Confused, or you gotta at least watch Days and Confused. Is there a book? Oh no, absolutely not. Um, no. This is you know, Matthew McConaughey, early, early days. I mean, it's it's I think is that rom-com? No, definitely not. Oh definitely not a rom-com. That's what he's known for. No, it's the last day of school, uh, high school, the incoming.
SPEAKER_05He's in high school.
SPEAKER_01What well he's not in high school, but he and he hangs around with high school sticks. Oh, okay. Yeah, this sounds like it's going in the right direction. Yeah, it's uh it's classic. Anyway, you gotta go watch Dazed and Confused. Anyway, they referred to the freshmen as piggies. So we've gone from fish to piggies. I thought they referred to them as fish. Anyway, so we've got some animal references, obviously, or or marine life references to incoming freshman classes. So anyway.
SPEAKER_04I can't.
SPEAKER_01I'm really worried about you guys.
SPEAKER_04I'm really worried about the fact that you said piggies was a marine life reference.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, no, no. Piggies and fish, right? So we got animal reference, we got piggies, marine life reference, right? I mean uh fish. And so these are just I don't know. I'm really worried about you guys and your culture or lack of culture when it comes to um I don't know. Maybe maybe it's just an 80s thing. I don't know. I I'm trying to figure this out, but we got to talk about AI. I know we'll work on this later.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So, Mike, why do I have a feeling that if we don't like start knowing some of these movies, he's gonna take our our crystal away from us. You know, we're gonna have to.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna take your crystal away and say, you know, until you watched Outlaw Josie Wells and uh dazed and confused that you're no longer leadership team worthy and you can't have your crystal. I I went to the VHS store.
SPEAKER_04Uh, they didn't have AI, insurance.
SPEAKER_01Okay, fine. If you want to talk about real insurance stuff, that's fine. Let's go.
SPEAKER_04So this is your topic that you don't remember giving me, apparently, but USC said, I think this is going to be a really good topic.
SPEAKER_01Well, now that we've discussed dazed and confused, um, I will, you know, where this came from was, you know, the question of do the roles really change? Like I've been having conversations with different agents around really the difference between traditionally structured insurance agency roles, personnel, um, really around commercial lines, but it's also a personal lines thing is uh could be adapted there as well. And so many agents have come out of the exclusive channel uh or from a different career and came into the independent agency system over the last decade and they continue to do that. That I I feel like this is a discussion that's really needed. One, to understand traditional roles inside independent agencies, and number two, to think about the AI impact on those roles. Do those roles actually be get threatened, or do they somewhat get enhanced through the use of AI?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think maybe we should start at the very top, because this is the question you always hear first, or at least the one I always hear first. Is this going to replace me? Yeah, I don't do either of you think that? Because I certainly do not.
SPEAKER_01I think that it's going to allow those roles to be more productive potentially.
SPEAKER_04I think it evolves the job description. Kind of like people, you know, you'll hear some people complain about having to check out their own groceries. Or if they go to the Target, they complain that they have to do self-checkout. Um, I am one of those people that loves self-checkout because I'm able to get in there and get out and, you know, do whatever I want to do. Uh, but they're saying that it makes those entry-level jobs go away. And yes and no, but it evolves those jobs, right? So they're still the same number of jobs, but instead of being as many checkers, now you have entry-level jobs of people that have to go in and do installations of self-checkouts. They have to be able to um fix them, make sure that the network's working correctly, make so all of those things. So it's not that it, it's not that it takes away a job, or but it to me, the jobs do evolve because of it.
SPEAKER_03I think there's certainly some measure of, you know, if you're bringing people in, high school students, people to do remedial tasks, I think there's some truth in those being in jeopardy. Um, because that at this point in the evolution of AI, that is what it does really well. Like things that are done are repeated in a repetitive fashion, it can eliminate a lot of that work. It can save you time in you figuring out how to word an email or a message that you're sending. You know, instead of taking 35-40 minutes to craft something perfectly, you can say to Claude, hey, shoot me or create me an email to shoot out that uh explains these points, and within a minute, you'll have a really well-crafted email.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think the enhancement of the role is is is where it's going and what we're seeing. I I also think about this just from an agency owner standpoint. And I think one of the things that most agency owners, and I'm not saying all, so don't nobody yell at me. I mean most, they are not the best managers, right? Um most of the time. Most of the time, salespeople, really, really good salespeople, don't always make the best employers from a management standpoint. Uh they they just it's kind of I equate it to the same thing as sometimes the best athletes or the best ball players don't make the best coaches. It's very similar. It's not meant to be, you know, I'm not taking shots at people. And I think what happens here that's really exciting is that ultimately could mean that you don't have to hire as many people because the people that you have are able to do more with the utilization of AI in the in its proper form, right? The way it should work, which could be really good, right? Once that salesperson, you know, used to be a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars worth of revenue was like elite, and I'm I mean per employee. So hundred to a hundred and twenty-five thousand per employee of revenue, uh, excluding that owner, would be like an elite level 25 years ago. I think now the reality is is you might could push that envelope 150, 175, maybe 200 plus per employee, that that could be substantial for a lot of agency owners out there and a lot of agencies and their personnel. Because now once you have that employee working for you that understands how to use AI well, that is able to make you so efficient, you don't want to let them go. You don't want to lose them, so you pay them. And so now the employees are making more money, right? Everybody's winning, and it's just this really kind of not to sit here and sing kumbaya about AI, there's gonna be problems, I know, but that's kind of the best case forward that I see with how things are going to progress inside a traditional environment.
SPEAKER_03Oh, so to the best of my recollection, I believe we've seen or heard from two different people about AI in conferences we've gone to in the last couple of years. And they both made essentially the same statement, which was if you do not use AI at all, you will be left behind. And that could be very dangerous to your agency's long-term future. So, you know, that's two different sources. That makes me feel like that you might you might need to take that seriously.
SPEAKER_04I don't think that AI is going to eliminate people or it's going to eliminate uh what we do. I think it eliminates if you embrace it and use it and create systems correctly, it eliminates people heavy, light process reactive kind of work, right? So you're still gonna have these, you're still gonna have people that are relationship managers. managers and advisors and problem solvers and all of those things where I do see it shrinking or pure-based, pure task-based CSRs, or those heavy data entry positions, or repetitive quoting admin only kind of roles, I do see those shifting to AI. It almost seems like it would be go from three people to one person using AI doing the same amount of work as three really stressed out CSRs. So I can see that happening. So if you are in a role or if you if you're in a role that's that sounds like that, you know, start figuring out how to use AI to make yourself be more valuable, right? Take some classes, hop on masterclass, hop on YouTube. You don't have to spend a ton of money giving AI certifications from random places. Like there's so much information between masterclass and YouTube. Or hop on your AI of choice. You know, if you like Claude, if you like Gemini, if you like Chat GPT, start with one of those three and say, teach me how to use you. This is what I do for a living. Teach me how to be more efficient, more effective. And it will do that for you. Like and you're not going to mess it up. That's that's then one thing that I hear so much about people talking about technology. What if I mess it up? What if I blow it up? What if I mess, you know, you're not going to mess it up. You're not just talk to it like a person. Um I type on mine my husband texts I I always tell him that I really think that um that Claudette or Geminette is going to replace me really really soon because we can have conversations and he can ask me how to do something and I'll like make a suggestion and then he'll say well let me check with Claude and then Claude will say the exact same thing that I said and I'm like why did you not just believe me? But you know learn how to use those things and make yourself more valuable to your employer and you're not going anywhere.
SPEAKER_01You know I uh I am not the believer that the agents agencies that don't adopt AI are going to go away right um I I don't believe that I I think what's going to happen though is those agencies are not going to be as profitable as are agencies that have figured them you know that figure some things out right um so there you know as you get if you get you know um the cost of labor the cost of compensation goes up your revenue may not be able to keep up your margins may shrink a little bit more and what happens is the valuations on those agencies will be reflected in that right and and I think you know so I I would want to say this to those agency owners out there that are like I'm not technical I don't know about this stuff I don't like AI you know whatever and whatever that that negative view of it is which I'm fine with that I respect that no I've seen this happen through other uh cycles you know it happened in everybody's got to get a website or you're not gonna be able to sell online and that never really happened and then you know um we've seen what's happened with just trying to force um you know electric vehicles on society you know that's imploded um forcing AI on the independent agency system isn't necessarily going to cause everyone you know there's gonna be some early adopters freak out adopters we got to do this or we're gonna die then there's gonna be the slow movers there's gonna be the middle 80 and then everybody's just kind of waiting and seeing what's going on and I don't that's why I I thought you know a the idea of does it change the traditional role and and I don't think it changes the traditional role like I still think we're gonna have producers I think we're gonna have account managers or CSRs. I call those the same thing right for for definition purposes um and and there may or may not be sort of that assistant or um like a CSR processor assistant to Tanya's point that may be the area where we hire less of those through natural attrition and I think that's what's gonna happen like small agent agencies in general are small business. We know that right like some really significant percentage of agencies across the country are small businesses. They're not gonna just jump up in their communities and start firing people. That's not the way this is going to roll. However through natural attrition those that have adopted better tools improved tools and make themselves more efficient may decide not to replace those individuals that they lose through retirement or you know whatever right whatever happens to cause natural attrition and employment and then they're gonna look up and go well do we have to you know replace them you know Sally or or Joe like do we have to do that?
SPEAKER_04Can we can we in can we look at a little better process here using some AI tools available to us and I think that's where things are going to kind of end uh at least in this current iteration I don't know what comes AI 2.0 3.0 I don't know what happens then we have an agent that loves to buy stuff I mean when I tell you I and I you know and I adore them like they're great great great person but this agent if somebody comes to him and says like there's this great product it is going to create sales for you it is going to make life easy for you he buys it and he gets so excited about it and it never works and the reason for that is that he's never fixed the processes right and so no matter what you layer whether it is AI or or software whatever on top of broken processes you just break it faster right and I see that the biggest challenge with AI is people that don't know really even what it is and they're just gonna put it in place or they're gonna or they hate it but they they think they have to because their whole world is going to fall apart and they don't have it. And then it doesn't work the way they think it works. It's like very princess bride I don't think that word means what you think it means kind of thing and they don't train properly they don't train their people properly they try to replace people too fast.
SPEAKER_03But if process gets ignored then it's it's just gonna break and it's gonna break even faster and then you're gonna say well I tried that AI thing and it didn't work I think first of all maybe we should play a game on this podcast of how many movie references can be made before I actually know one of them.
SPEAKER_01You don't know the Princess Bride inconceivable but anything wait a minute wait a minute you if you have not seen outlaw Josie Wells in dazed and confused you do not get to say that not seeing the Princess Bride is inconceivable. I'm sorry come on that is that's that's that's not fair. Just saying let's just be real about it today.
SPEAKER_03Have you seen the Princess Bride I have I know I once just once once we did the name the title maybe watching like once probably plenty but like I only saw Outlaw Josie Wells once last week which I'm very disappointed in myself about so gosh I let me let me try to regain my train of thought oh yes yes yes I got it so I think so far we've talked about AI in this broad stroke of what it can do kind of in a big umbrella and there's gonna be people who are listening that are like they need their medication after listening like I there's just a lot this is a lot this is a lot this is a lot this me after every single one of these podcasts so what I would say to that person is you can you can definitely start slow and build up when you feel comfortable move up when you feel comfortable move up like start with something super basic like I had alluded to earlier you receive an email you're not quite sure how to respond copy the body of that email into one of these engines ask it to compose a response you get a response and you can send it back that's like that's the easiest place you can start right that'll save you some time every single day you're getting a feel for how this goes and then you can build up to the next thing when you're ready to move to the next thing yeah I think the the the reality is job interviews are going to eventually ask the question of do you know how to write a prompt?
SPEAKER_01Do you know how to word a prompt? I think that's the most recent thing this year to 2026 when we're recording this um I've seen a presenter uh twice now at our conference and a carrier conference and really that entire presentation was centered around the types of products that are out there and what they do and then how to write a prompt or how to speak a prompt. If you're a if you want to speak a prompt, great you can do it that way. Or you can write a prompt type it in using your phone app or using your keyboard on your computer there's there's multiple ways to get the prompt into the AI tool. Writing a prompt in and of itself is kind of a learned thing like you got to learn how to do it. And and one of the things I learned listening uh to both of those presentations which were pretty close to the same but slightly different was that us in the South Tanya and I are going to have trouble at first learning how to write a prompt the right out of the gate because we're like please thank you yes ma'am yes sir like we're we speak to AI like we speak to each other or any human being right and it's like no you can just speak to it like well it's not a human being and you know one of the things that that we learned from uh Haas Pratt is you got to boss it around like you got to kind of you know you can't be like please and thank you. I mean you know it doesn't have emotions feelings the emotions or feelings that it has is going to be developed from you. Like it's going to learn your behavior it might start saying please and thank you because you started saying please and thank you not because it knew that right and and I think that's the thing that is really interesting about this is it AI mirrors us and learns us learns our behaviors but writing prompts becomes a big first step like just understanding how to talk to it is a great first step.
SPEAKER_04This was actually a breakfast conversation that um that I had this weekend my part of my husband's uh work team came in for a deep sea team building weekend thing and then more of his team came in last night so we actually had this conversation over breakfast on Saturday morning and um you know that's Haas Pratt's opinion and it's okay to have different opinions and I understand what he's saying. However in doing that embossing it around what it actually did that I could see and what it actually did that my husband could see was that what it started kicking back to me did not sound like my voice. And so if I wanted to use it to create an email the email sounded rude and so it so I'm not quite sure why I would try to create a persona online that is not who I who I am in trying to take the please out just because somebody said that I should try to be somebody else. Well now I'm using energy trying to not be myself and what it's giving back to me doesn't sound like anything that that I would want. So yes I think that we have to learn we have to learn prompting number one and if you don't know what prompting is that's okay that's totally okay. In fact I just wrote it down for us to do a a podcast on prompting that is useful for uh for an independent agency and hopefully we'll be doing that soon but be careful when you're taking advice um you don't have to take 100% of the advice that everybody gives you um and I love what Hoss presented I thought his shtick is fantastic. I thought of 85% of what he gave was wonderful. But the outcome I got from being bossy didn't give me the outcomes that I was wanting coming from me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah so first anyone who is listening to this that knows Shane probably had the exact same thing pop into their head as me like if I put a prompt in it's you know two sentences but everybody's like Shane puts a prompt in 12 it's at least a paragraph or two but so I was thinking um but you know to Tanya's point he he he was getting yes he was a little bit shorter but then there was other things that he put in there that were really fillers that kind of just like oh get create me the most impressive amazing email that's ever been sent to this person. Okay well that's all fluff right yeah so you you have wasted some energy there like I think you do kind of have to just if it's easier for you when you're starting out I think the best thing would probably be use your phone to do it hit the microphone button and just talk to it like you would normally talk yeah finish and send and you will probably get something that looks appropriate.
SPEAKER_04The one thing that people leave out of prompting and like I said I really want us to do a follow-up podcast on this but the one thing that I see people that are starting to use an AI module an LLM is they don't tell it who they want it to be so the first part of any prompt should be acting as an independent insurance agent or acting as this or I want you to work as my advertising agency or I want you to work as a social media expert. If you will tell it how you want it to act what role you're giving it just like you would give an employee and say hey I am hiring you to be my XYZ well if you tell an AI tool who you want it to be then you're like 50 60% ahead of anybody else that's using AI.
SPEAKER_01Yeah that that's right and it's gotta learn you right I mean it's you know large learning model or large language model or whatever learn you anyway the the very what an LLM right so it's it's learning right it's it's learning you and a lot of people are uncomfortable with that I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that I don't know that I want to sit there and do enough of that I've talked to some agents who've invested quite a bit of time um getting their AI tool of choice to learn their behavior and then we find out that well such and such tool has now because there's there's a race right there's there's this race to have better and better uh AI uh response and so you know Claude's now according to most people kind of moved into the lead and you have chat GPT well you know I know a guy that spent six months on chat GPT like getting used to it learning and now it's like oh my gosh it's Claude now. I mean you know so understand that this stuff is moving so fast and that's why I want the folks that are like oh my gosh what do I do you know the sky is not falling right there's there's that reality and the the the roles what what our topic is the roles I I I just still believe that the future of the independent agency right now as you know when you kind of look over the horizon it's making those roles stronger through the use of AI and you got to start somewhere to to everyone's point here you got to you got to stick your toe in the water you got to learn you got to not be afraid of it um being afraid of AI is kind of like saying well I don't want to pay I don't want to use Amazon or I don't want to pay for something with a credit card I want to write a check to really date myself right like you know you you you have to I want to send a fax. Yeah I want to send a fax I'm afraid I want to send an email it's not as safe as a fax and I'm like okay um you know so look we've we've been through these cycles and we're at another cycle inflection point right and and I think that's the place that everybody needs to be calm and you know maybe have a cup of coffee and slow down a little bit and uh you know get your head straight. Because let's remember the internet was going to replace everybody too. Right right and caffeine helps some of us calm down.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_04Tanya okay I just actually read a book on that it was called caffeine and I'm gonna have to send this to you because it was absolutely fascinating. Caffeine basically affects our world economy very much the way insurance does and we had no idea in fact in fact Lloyd's was a coffee house. Yeah absolutely right and so like the whole concept of insurance was developed because of coffee right so anyway anyway but I I think what you were just talking about you say is starting somewhere right and figuring out how to use ai without blowing up your agency and if if you're if it ends up creating chaos and I know that Shane is all about embracing chaos right now right but you don't want to create chaos because of it. So use it for figuring out where you're wasting time where is time being wasted what what what are you doing that is repetitive right in whether it's email whether it's follow ups Documentation. But I think the biggest thing is to encourage your team to try to shift mindset. And that's a that's a big part of it, right? Is creating that challenge of thinking, how can I do this more efficiently? How can I use AI to help me do this easier, faster, more efficiently, safer. And if they can figure that out, if you can create that challenge for them, then sometimes there's going to be, there's probably going to be somebody on your staff that can really embrace this and be like, hey, I can be good at this. And then if you have an AI specialist on your staff, well, maybe somebody that was working as a CSR can figure things out for you, can help your staff create this next level, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think we can learn from with that, you know, we can learn from uh just some things I'm familiar with from the school district world, uh education world as a school board member, you know. We small school of 1,600 students, K through 12, small town, still had a couple of hundred, 220, 230 teachers when I was uh on our school board. And we had four campuses, right? And so on each campus, someone became sort of this. It was a teacher, right? Usually a teacher. Sometimes it happened to be a little bit younger teacher, but not all the time.
SPEAKER_03Sometimes it was not all the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, every time. Not all the time. Uh just most of the time. And it, you know, these individuals become the kind of the campus instructional technologist, right? Like that was the word, instructional technologist. Like, you know, it was implement this technology, and like now the teachers don't know how to use it. So there would be a teacher that would kind of take the lead and do that. To Tiny's point, most of our agencies, 86-87% of independent agencies in the U.S. have less than like eight employees. You have a small team. Like somebody on your team, more than likely, if you have any employees, is going to raise their hand and put their foot forward and say, I want, I love this stuff. I've been playing with this at home personally. Like, you know, um, I think the main thing though is, and and this probably gets into prompting as well, another another podcast, but just making sure you're on the paid version, making sure you're on the business version um so that people aren't rogue. Because there are some ENO issues that start to creep in. There are some cyber threat issues that start to creep in. And so we also have to take that piece of this, and that's again why I say that the roles within our agencies are not going anywhere. The insurance expertise are not necessarily going anywhere. Um, we're just going to have uh some sort of I hate to use the phrase superpower because that's kind of been overused, but you you're just gonna have more tools at your disposal to be more efficient and continue to grow your business. And and we are we do have a lot of exhausted service people in our agencies. Uh that's why I think this can be a relief valve for them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So Tanya mentioned the word safely, and you saw you kind of alluded to it as well, Shane. Um, that is a big part of this. So this is moving fast, and when things are moving fast, usually that is an opportunity, an opportunity for people who have bad intentions to close in and make things happen. Uh so you tread lightly and step, you know, gradual steps because we just saw this, right? Uh, we just received an email from our uh IT provider that outlined the concerns that come with allowing one of these engines to have access to your uh to your inbox. Right. Right. So, you know, there's give and take within all of this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like there's bad people and they're good people, right? The bad people use these tools for bad reasons. And you know, the idea of you know, send an email to everyone in my, you know, the prompt that it could write itself, like, you know, send an email to everyone in my contact list and do this with it, right? Like those are the scary, like bad guy stuff that that that can happen. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We know there's way worse than that. And so we do have to have um I don't want to use the word, yeah, common sense, but I don't want to use the word like slow, slow, but I mean you want to kind of slow down and take a breath. Like you really do need to to do that. Like, don't don't be in this panic AI mode. I'm gonna lose my business if I don't hurry up and do this thing. Well, if you hurry up and do this thing, the reality is that thing's gonna change. And you're gonna be hurrying up to do the next thing. And so slow down a little bit, right? Breathe. It's okay. The sky is not falling.
SPEAKER_04And here's the thing if you have questions on AI, reach out to us. We would love to have the conversation, whether you're an integrapartment network agent that is listening to us, or if you're someone out in insurance land, feel free to uh to email, send us a message on any of our social medias. We would love to have this conversation with you, seriously. Because if you're into AI, then yes, we want to learn, we want to talk, we want to have those discussions. If you're not there yet, well, then let's talk about what it looks like doing this at your speed, what it looks like doing it where you feel safe, right? You know, being able to turn, you know, knowing how to turn off the um the switches. So it's not uh using your information to to quote unquote learn and share. And, you know, there are things that you can do that are very simple to make this much safer. You just have to learn to do it. Or you can you can look at your LLEM, you can speak to it, you can type, and you can say, tell me what I need to do to do this safely. Act as my IT safety officer and and go. And it will tell you, right? I mean, you know, I'm at a point now where I can use Gemini to say, create a prompt for Claude that does this, and it will tell me the best prompt to use to make another engine do it, right? I mean, you can use them and play them off each other, but ultimately it will teach you what you need to know if you ask for it. And I just want to say, by the way, I was not important enough to get an email from our IT provider to tell me how to use uh AI.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I wasn't either. I just heard about it because I'm nosy.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. Yeah, I did not get that. I did not get the memo on that. Or either that or they just assumed that you and I Mike were using it safely.
SPEAKER_03Well, it wasn't actually in retrospect. Well, that's gotta be it.
SPEAKER_01For both of you and your little snooty comments, just so you know, it wasn't a uh organizational-wide email, it was a couple of people, right? And so um, yeah. And the other thing that I just want to clarify from Tanya's monologue, which was very good, by the way, um, is I don't really want to talk to the princess bride people. So if you're a princess bride person, make sure you're calling Tanya. I want to talk to the outlaw Josie Wells and Days and Confuse crowd. And so if I'm your people, then I'm your people, right? So I just want to clarify that about reaching out about AI. Uh Princess Bride people, it's okay. That's what Tanya's here for.
SPEAKER_04You're a girl dad. You can just love the princess. I mean, rodents of unusual size, like inconceivable, you know, the six-fingered maiden.
SPEAKER_01The really good thing about being a girl dad is you can, you know, shape and craft the minds of your, you know, your girls. And I made my girls watch Outlaw Josie Wells.
SPEAKER_04But I mean, like the Princess Bride is still a guy's movie.
SPEAKER_01There's sword fighting. There's comedy. There's let's let's let's let's I hey I appreciate the effort, but let's just I think we're just agreeing to disagree on that. You know, that's like saying that's like the crown, that's like Die Hard's a Christmas movie.
SPEAKER_04Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
SPEAKER_01See, here we go.
SPEAKER_04Bless. As Deanna would say.
SPEAKER_01I'm saying that there's a movie y'all have all seen.
SPEAKER_04I saw that on Christmas Day in the movie theater with my grandparents. Therefore, it is a Christmas movie.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04So can I have a Bill Belligent quote today, Mike, or is that right off over the Tom Brady quote?
SPEAKER_03It's exactly the same.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I wouldn't say that at all. It is not exactly the same.
SPEAKER_03They are two peas in a pod. I think they would both disagree with that. I know, but that's what makes them two peas in a pod.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so I'm gonna leave us today with a quote from Peter Drucker, whoever that is, but he has something to do with sports. The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence, it's to act with yesterday's logic.
SPEAKER_01Attitude to choice. Make a great one.
SPEAKER_04Bye, y'all.
SPEAKER_01And we've talked about that.
SPEAKER_04Can you say that again just for fun?
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's the it finally, finally, it it has happened. Tanya is right. Um took like eight years, but here we are, right? Should be celebrated. Comfetti, confetti. Um no, she Tanya's a hundred percent right on we've cheapened it, the brand, the marketing of it, the chase, the really this race to the bottom, so to speak, uh, through the years. And I love that, Mike. You know, I love insurance advisor, I love insurance consultant, I love anything that depicts something that is other than, you know, we're just trying to sell you something cheap. Um and that we're just, I mean, I know I know we're salespeople at heart, but you know, getting the right coverage is important. And as as working with a lot of personalized focused agents, um, you know, there's there's personalized accounts that are ten to fifteen thousand dollars in premium, you know, on average today because of auto and home and second home and some rental properties, and it's really easy to get there, right, with with within the personal line spectrum. But that is not sell you a cheap policy. And these are not necessarily the ultra high net worth type people either, right? These are the this is the the shift in really the American economy. And um kind of my story on this uh several years ago was going to 30A, uh, which I even hate to say publicly because more people don't need to find out about 30A. Um, you know, during COVID, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about 30A. It's uh it's in the the the Emerald Coast area of uh uh Florida between Tanya and Panama City. Um it's it stands for County Road 30A, and it's the Wall Street Journal called it the Hampton of Hamptons of the South, and everybody started coming there and it unfortunately it's rent our our perfect spot. And uh so you know um hopefully people stay away and get tired of it because we love it. But um I noticed when we would ride bikes through neighborhoods down on 30A that you know a lot of one of the things to do with is to have a little placard outside on the on the front of the house or you know out by the street. And it was the owners of the house, and it was what what what you would notice is that many several years ago now, all of these houses started being different LLCs, right? Like the the family partnership LLC, you know, the Tatum Family Trust LLC, the Basil Family Trust, LLC, or whatever. And these were the owners of these properties, right? These are obviously secondary family homes, maybe maybe uh multi, you know, siblings on this, whatever. And these are not I've met some of these people. These people are not yacht owners, right? There's they're business owners, right? They're they're uh successful uh they're successful professionals. The American economy has created a ton of wealth over the last 30 years, certainly 50 years, I mean a lot of wealth. And when you have that environment going on as an insurance advisor, to Mike's point, if you're selling insurance like just on high volume, and that's not the game. That's not where we're going. That's not what your client, I mean, maybe non-standard specialty auto looks like that, but your personalized middle class to maybe the the the I don't know what we call it. Um the uh it's not necessarily super high net worth, but it's it's certainly it would have been considered wealth, you know, 25 years ago, but today that number keeps climbing, right? That net worth keeps climbing that's not necessarily considered uh wealthy, you know. Um and so comfortable maybe, but not necessarily wealthy. And there's a lot of opportunity within the independent agency channel that we can solve problems that the exclusive agent channel cannot solve, which is why I see that exit as continuing and why we see independent the captive, the exclusive agent companies, the direct channel companies getting into the independent agency distribution channel is because they understand that those assets have shifted, that wealth trend has shifted.
SPEAKER_04There was an article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month talking about the growth of the upper middle class, and I think it said something like 31, 33-ish, around in there percent of Americans were now upper middle class, and that was up from like 10% in the late 70s. And an upper middle class being a family of three that earns between I think it's at 130,000 to 400,000 annually. So if you think about the fact that that has tripled in size over the last 45 years, that is so significant.
SPEAKER_01That's a big number. Right.
SPEAKER_04I can't believe I just remembered a random article from the Wall Street Journal.
SPEAKER_01There's been a lot of that, right? There's been a lot of those types of articles in in the Wall Street Journal lately. And um, you know, it's uh it's a reality. And and obviously we got a stock market that's popped above 50 and bounced back to 49 and keeps going back and forth, obviously going on. I mean I remember when it crossed 10. I remember when it crossed, I probably could go back and say I remember when it crossed five, but for sure ten and twenty was like holy moly, like that's a big deal when it went across twenty because it dipped back down and stayed below twenty for a while. But um, you know, here we are. And um I don't know. It's just I I think there's so much opportunity there for obviously those in commercial lines, you know, is is is always going to be there, but there's a personal lines opportunity, and that just happens to be what um you know a a large part of the integra partner network consists of agents that came over from the exclusive agent channel. So that's just a natural gravitation. Our commercial lines is growing, yes, but our personal lines continues to grow because it's it's hitting this market segment that is doesn't appear to be going backwards at all.
SPEAKER_04We really had a fabulous time at our conference this year. Any more major takeaways, you guys, that um that you don't think we've covered that were just really, really a uh a great asset um to our agents.
SPEAKER_01I I will add that, and we've heard this from our agent council before. I I think it's something that I've observed over the last couple of years. The sessions are incredible, and yes, we need to keep raising the bar on sessions. Uh hearing agents talk about success and failures uh it are the best sessions to me. But the sharing of knowledge with each other, where what Mike was talking about, that happens outside the sessions. That happens at dinner. Um, that happens, you know, I I I heard I was not there. That happens around the bar late at night. Um, you know, these these are the things that I hear the feedback is, you know, some of the best nuggets of how to be better, how to grow their business. It's it's free to us, right? Like what I mean by that is we're not paying for a speaker, we're not paying for it's it's agent sharing with agents in very natural settings. You know, it's not the formal sessions that that provide the most value. It's the informal casual conversations that provide the most value, and that continues to be the case.
SPEAKER_04And the food. I gained three pounds.
SPEAKER_03One thing I just wanted to add before we wrap up is you know, I there was a lot of people that that had a lot of nice things to say about the podcast. And I just wanted to thank everyone that listens. And, you know, anyone who's listened even one time will notice there's no ads in these podcasts. There's no revenue coming from these podcasts. We're just, you know, we're doing this to to share and hopefully provide a little something. So uh, you know, for everyone that listens to it, thank you for listening to insurance advisors forward.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from James Clear You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
SPEAKER_01And in the spirit of the outlaw Josie Wells, attitude to choice make a great one.
SPEAKER_00At the Integra Partner Network, we understand. That carrier access is the key to your agency's success. That's why Integra offers direct access to top-rated personal and commercial carriers, ensuring your agency thrives in today's challenging market. And with our comprehensive resources, profit sharing, and bonus opportunities, technology and peer support, all will you retain 100% of your book with no penalties to exit. Integra is ready to empower you and your agency to find sustained growth. Find your way to Integra. Visit IntegraPartner Network.com today. That's IntegraPartner Network.com.
