Hey how are you in this video I’m going to explain exactly step by step how you can start a insurance brokerage or agency completely from scratch I’m remaking this video I made it a couple years back when I was first starting my agency and helped a lot of people and I wanted to remake this now in 2022 going into 2023 because some stuff has changed a bit so if I had watched a video hopefully like this I definitely would
Have expedited my process to grow my agency and over the last couple years I you know have grown it fairly you know well and it’s gotten you know exactly where I dreamed of it of being a few years back so I’m making this video to hopefully help you uh you know get your process sped up and get to the top faster and get your agency rolling so here’s we’re going to dive straight into it no BS straight to the point
Straight to the point all right so the first thing you need is experience in the insurance industry I get this question all the time you don’t want to go into this thing cold you don’t want to start off not knowing how to handle sales not knowing how to handle customer service billing questions basic stuff and insurance like these are things you need to fundamentally know personal Alliance commercial Alliance life insurance
Whatever it is product that you’re looking to sell have some experience I typically recommend about one to two years of experience under an agency or another broker or Mentor or whoever it is that you’re you are going to get that Knowledge from but there needs to be some form of Base knowledge and experience you do not want to sell yourself set yourself up for failure so highly recommend that excuse me
Number two you need an insurance license you need to have a license to legally sell insurance so 52-hour course typically in California that’s how it is across the country it’s pretty similar you do a pre-licensing 52-hour course and you then take the pad once you pass that you take the state exam you can get your license number three also a very common question I get all the time is appointments or contracts with the company so let’s just
Say you got the experience you got a license you’re good now I need to have a contract with a company to sell their products so that contract is not easy to get especially with big companies they have a lot of requirements on getting those contracts and giving them out they want to vet the agents well and make sure that you are qualified to sell their products so there are some ways around it I highly recommend you in look into Insurance alliances and insurance
Clusters if you Google that I have also made a bunch of videos on that on how those can really help you get those contracts to make commissions so that the carriers can you can get appointed with the carriers the next thing you need is an errors in emissions insurance it’s you know very simple to get uh hit me up hit up your local agent for errors in emissions Insurance it basically protects you from making mistakes uh if you do make a
Mistake it happens on somebody’s insurance and then they turn around they sue you it’s insurance for your for yourself as an insurance agent if you make mistakes have negligence or omit errors on a policy like change putting the wrong name address uh you know services that they provide and they sue you next thing you need is an office I highly recommend having an office I
Started off in a tiny office you can see in my original video on how to start an insurance agency I was in a pretty much like a 200 square foot green wall behind me tiny little office uh and it really helped me getting in there and like knowing that I had to grow and get out of there and hire employees so highly recommend an office the other reason is a lot of insurance carriers also do require a physical location so you may need to do that literally just to get
The contracts they don’t want to give it to you always if you’re working from home but things have changed a little bit after covid it has changed a bit so some carriers are a little more flexible with that look into that I would recommend being in an office good place to kind of get away focus on the business next thing you need to have you know the approval of the license once you do get your license in place you need to get it
Approved by the department of insurance so I think it’s like 80 I’m not 100 sure now how much it costs but you need to and each state is a little different so once you pass you need to call the Department of Insurance find out what you need to get that approved under your name um next thing you need is a DBA a doing business as you can go on LegalZoom or any other kind of legal entity uh you know lawyers attorneys that can help you
Get that set up it’s basically just let’s just say I’m doing Insurance my name is Chris costantini and I’m doing business as Adelphia insurance it’s not a legal entity it’s just a sole proprietor myself doing business under a different name so do doing business ads um next a business entity like getting an LLC Corporation S Corp whatever set up um under so let’s just say you you know Chris costantini LLC uh our insurance
Services LLC mine is actually Adelphia Insurance Services LLC and we have our own business entity once you have that business entity you can get a business entity license so you submit an application to department of insurance and they give you an entity license number so you’re going to have your individual license number and you’ll also have your business entity license numbers are two you’re you’re personal license is going to be the sub licensee
To the agency license and then all your employees that you hire on producers if you do in the future they can be sub licenses under the agency license so you need to get a business entity and then a business agency entity license number so you submit another application I think that one I don’t know exactly I think it’s like another 80 bucks to get that application depending on the state so that’s that some states require a broker Bond
Usually it’s like a ten thousand or fifteen thousand dollar Bond it’s not what it costs they’re usually actually pretty cheap they’re like 50 bucks a year or 100 bucks a year uh it protects you and contracts from Google what a broker bond is um I don’t love broker bonds I don’t sell them that often and it’s not my expertise um lastly um one thing that’s very very important
And I highly recommend once you do get going is patience being patient and knowing that this business is a compounding business year after year as long as you’re putting in the work it should be stacking up and growing so don’t give up I have those first six months are complete hell you’re figuring out all these new companies you’re working with how they operate how their billing Works how their services work how when you change something on their
You know policy so there’s a lot of mistakes and a lot of failures early on in those first six months you make very little money so try to keep your office lean don’t go and get a super nice office that your expenses you’re at a ten thousand dollar office expense on the first month you know don’t go and blow it on like super expensive logos or branding and marketing like do those things but your first six months just know there’s going
To be a lot of stumbling and tripping and making mistakes so keep your expenses low if possible super lean in every way your phone system you know all those different things internet providers all the all the expenses you can you’re going to take on like Management Systems etc etc try to keep them to the minimal like as minimal as possible and then be patient because once those commissions and renewals start to flow
The agency will start to take off so that’s all I got I hope that does help you you know feel free to hit me up I’m happy to answer any questions for you um if you can also check out Chris costantv.com I offer some you know a little Consulting for people that need it so if you ever do need it check it out on there I’m happy to happy to chat with you or just shoot me an Instagram DM um my it’s Chris the insurance guy on
Instagram and pretty much any other social media you can find me Chris the insurance guy so super happy to help out give me a subscribe give me a like if you want you don’t have to would really appreciate if you did but you don’t have to um helps us reach more people so that’s all I got thank you hopefully you got some value from that we’ll see you guys at the top see ya peace .