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94 THE UNCAPTIVE AGENT

run your normal business on commission income and
other revenue streams, because you can never count on
receiving profit sharing.

Getting Appointed

How do you get appointed with your insurance carriers
of choice? The first thing to do is to reach out to them
directly and have a conversation about your agency,
followed by a compelling business case for why they
will benefit from appointing you. This will be backed
up by your well-written business plan.
Another way to get appointed by carriers which is
increasingly practical, and used by an increasing number
of agencies, is to be a part of a Market Access Provider,
or better yet, an Agency Development Organization.
According to the 2018 Conning Property-Casualty
Insurance Distribution report, approximately twenty-six
percent of independent insurance agencies are part of a
Market Access Provider or Agency Network (another
generic term for ADO). According to the study, small
insurance agents derive an average of forty-nine percent
of their personal lines income and fifty-five percent of
their commercial lines income from the use of Market
Access Providers. As a startup agency, a MAP or ADO
is certainly worth considering.

The Role of Wholesalers

Closely related to the issue of insurance company rep-
resentation and MAPs and ADOs are the selection and
use of insurance wholesalers, managing general agents
(MGA), brokers, and managing general underwriters
(MGU). Historically, the use of wholesalers and bro-
kers by independent insurance agencies has been for