I'm going to strongly, but politely disagree with your assumptions...I could find absolutely NO evidence that any captive agency owner has been able to recapture more than a minute number of clients after leaving the captive for independent market, at least in personal lines. Believe me, I asked agents who did what I did from around the country and with the exception of ethnic market niches, where english language can be a barrier, no one that I could find was able to make any significant dent in their prior client base.AgencyEquity wrote:The key to re-capturing your clients when transitioning from a captive agency to an independent agency is proper planning. You must have an exit and transition plan, this includes before taking steps to do things before a captive agency contract comes to a termination. You also need to understand the both the non-complete agreement as well as the applicable state laws that deal with non-complete agreements. Without proper planning, you may only re-capture 5%, but with some good planning, you should be able to re-capture 50%, especially the accounts you want. In most captive agencies, there will be some accounts that you should not consider bringing with you to you new Independent Agency. This includes very small accounts, accounts with poor claims history, and difficult clients. Keep in mind when starting a new agency, you have many more years experience, you should want a higher quality clientele as well as clients that are going to keep you out of trouble. Lastly, visit my site linked below, I have a section “Starting an Insurance Agency” which focuses on captive agencies and producers who want to start their own independent agency.
One impediment is that the captive company will fight tooth and nail with assigned agents (I'm assuming the departing agent didn't sell to antoher captive) to retain the accounts. Secondly, is just the bonding factor...many clients of captive companies just like the logo on the billing envelope, in spite of what they tell their agent at a time of anger.
50%??!!!, No Way.