Insurance is a necessity we all kind of don't like bothering with. If you have not checked your insurance products in the past couple of years you may be missing out on savings and carriers that are just doing it better. Just sitting with one carrier for a decade no longer offers the benefits it once did. You don't get additional discounts as you age with an insurance carrier, you actually are losing them all mostly within the first five years less your multi policy or paperless discounts. As an agent myself I think it should come down to quality products, pricing, and what the insurance carrier can offer you back with services. We chose in 2025 to move our agency to a national carrier footprint. We saw who was and who wasn't investing in our clients and agency. It matters to have service you can reach in this modern time 24/7/365. I as a human must close my office at night & on weekends. Carriers should be able to pick up the slack with LICENSED agents available 24/7 to our clients. Apps, 24-hour service, and full accessibility to your products is where the insurance industry has moved over the last decade. You don't go to an insurance agent's office any longer, I should know I pay rent for a space literally no one uses and have for 17 years, and I haven't had more than 3 dozen office appointments with clients in those 17 years. This is a virtual world and covid only solidified that. Now service is remote for most insurance carriers. Most agents have worked remotely for years. That means availability must go up, because people are too busy to stop by, sit & chat about insurance, nor does anyone want to. Things like texting your insurance office is huge, or messaging and calling the service team live in app, or grabbing what you need right off of your policy right in app. It makes processing time faster and easier on the office, freeing space for those discussions with clients where we can spend a little extra time on each client which is a wonderful side effect. These modern technologies have really brought me full circle as an agent, I started customer focused with relationships, purposely did not grow too big so I could maintain that with my clients. Freeing up an ounce of space on my desk has given back to my client family ten-fold in just time I can spend with them, research I can do on finding even more product solutions and pricing for them. I feel like I have reached the mountaintop of insurance service for our client, it's where we needed to be. After making critical changes in staffing this was the second-best thing I've done as an insurance agent, moving my agency forward since the industry has already made that leap.
Heather Harris
I’m Heather Gibson Harris, owner of Brookson Insurance, which I started in 2009 after a career as a claims adjuster for personal home and commercial insureds. My career has been my passion for many years, especially my time in catastrophe claim work.