The Insurance Growth Lab

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Michael O’Connor, CEO of BroadStreet Partners, to break down one of the most unique models in insurance distribution. BroadStreet is the 16th largest broker in the world with $2.8 billion in revenue, yet it rarely puts its own name forward. Instead, it takes a majority stake in each core partner agency while leaving real equity with local leaders, who keep run...

Host Callan Harrington goes solo in this monthly roundup to break down what he saw and heard at ITC. Instead of chasing the obvious AI headlines, Callan focuses on three themes he picked up from direct conversations with vendors, brokers, and carriers. He shares why vendors are more aggressive than ever, why that is happening, and what it means for anyone getting flooded with outbound messages. Ca...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Troy Kemelgor, Managing Partner at Northwestern Mutual in Columbus, to break down a 19-year turnaround story. Callan was there at the start as a producing agent, which makes this a rare inside look at how Troy took over the #78 office out of 82 and rebuilt it from the ground up. They cover the hard decisions, the mistakes, and the discipline it took to grow re...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Scott Denbo, CEO of Commercial Insurance Associates, to break down one of the boldest moves in the independent brokerage world. Scott shares how his firm recapitalized the business, bought down producer compensation from 50/50 to 40/40, and converted that reduction into equity to add 12 new owner producers. The conversation is honest, tactical, and often funny...

Callan Harrington sits down with Seth Zaremba, CEO of b atomic and ZINC Insurance, to break down how he built extreme efficiency into an insurance agency and turned it into industry-best margins. Seth is one of the most resilient entrepreneurs in the space, and he opens up about the reality of holding your breath through the hard times as a founder. Seth explains how he reduced insurance operation...

In this episode of The Insurance Growth Lab, host Callan Harrington sits down with Jeff Wilcoxon, Senior Strategy and Corporate Development Principal at VIU by HUB. The two dig into a new VIU by HUB survey that found 88 percent of policyholders want their provider to proactively flag when coverage no longer fits their life, while 56 percent have not heard from their provider in over a year. Jeff e...

Callan Harrington sits down with PJ Cannon, Regional Managing Director at Henderson Brothers, to break down how he recruits and builds high-performing insurance teams. PJ traces his approach back to his college football recruiting days at Wisconsin and explains how attention to detail and making people feel valued shaped the way he attracts talent today. The conversation digs into the tactics behi...

Callan Harrington sits down with Alex Frommeyer, Founder and CEO of Stack Health, to break down the future of small business health benefits. Alex previously founded Beam Dental, which he started in his dorm room and grew to over $175 million in premiums before its exit to Principal. Now he is tackling what he calls the core problem in healthcare: benefits organized around the employer instead of...

In this episode of The Insurance Growth Lab, host Callan Harrington sits down with Jeff Cohen, Senior Vice President at Zywave, to break down how data separates transactional agents from true advisers. Jeff has spent over 20 years building two powerful datasets, an insurance program benchmarking database and a library of more than 1 million verified loss events. He explains why benchmarking answer...

Host Callan Harrington pulls together some of the best cross-sell moments from top insurance agencies on The Insurance Growth Lab. Featuring Chris Paradiso, Eric Roberts, and Clinton Houck, this episode breaks down exactly how elite agencies grow policies per customer and treat retention as the foundation of everything. Chris explains why emails are for information and phone calls are for communic...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Bill Johnson, Chairman and CEO of Liberty Company, to unpack one of the most unusual growth stories in insurance. Bill built an agency to $3 million in revenue, left to produce more than 30 films alongside major actors, then returned to grow Liberty to over $240 million in revenue and 900 people. He explains why he almost sold the business, how the universe pu...

Callan Harrington sits down with Lee LeBaigue, SVP at ISU Steadfast Retail and Brokerage, to break down how he is using AI to improve accuracy and generate new business inside an insurance agency. Lee shares how his years touring in a punk band shaped the business instincts he now applies to marketing, submissions, and growth. The conversation gets tactical fast. Lee explains how AI policy checkin...

Host Callan Harrington pulls together some of the best moments from The Insurance Growth Lab, featuring Ryan Hanley, Matt Naimoli, Curtis Barton, and Patrick McBride. The theme is simple. In a crowded broker world, the top agencies find ways to create real separation, and this episode breaks down exactly how they did it. Ryan explains why every leader needs a personal brand and how content fills t...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Diane Brickner, Retired President and CEO of Peace Hills Insurance, to break down how a company with no profit for its first 10 years became consistently profitable for more than three decades. Diane shares the unlikely story of how Peace Hills started from three people, an idea, and a dormant insurance charter to become a company with over 350 employees and h...

Host Callan Harrington takes the mic solo in this episode to break down what separates the elite insurance brokers from everyone else. After 40 episodes of the Insurance Growth Lab, Callan pulled out the three themes that consistently show up among the top performers and turned them into practical takeaways you can apply to your own business. The conversation digs into how the best brokers find un...

Callan Harrington sits down with Travis Hedge, Co-Founder and CEO at Vouch Insurance, to explore how his company became an AI-enabled brokerage generating 73 NPS scores and $200M+ in funding. The conversation dives into Vouch's transformation from primarily a carrier to exclusively a brokerage business and how that shift unlocked new opportunities for AI integration. Travis shares specific example...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Scott Tannas, Chairman of Western Investment Company and Canadian Senator, to explore how he transformed a single small-town insurance agency into a massive enterprise. Scott shares the remarkable journey of growing Western Financial Group's stock price by 1038 percent, ultimately leading to a $775 million acquisition in 2017. Scott walks through his methodica...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Chad King, Chairman and Founder of King Risk Partners, to explore how he transformed a 6-person family agency into a $125 million powerhouse with over 600 employees. Chad shares the pivotal lesson from his father about keeping your word that became the foundation of his business philosophy, from driving through hurricanes to close deals to building authentic r...

Callan Harrington sits down with Jackson Rollo, President of Rollo Insurance, to explore how he became president at 24 and led the agency through 5x growth over 5 years without private equity backing. Jackson explains Rollo's unique philosophy of being a local generalist rather than pursuing industry niches, focusing on relationships and community connections over product specialization. He detail...

Callan Harrington sits down with David Wald, President and Co-Founder of Aclaimant, to explore what it truly means to become a risk advisor in today's insurance market. David shares the unexpected origin story of Aclaimant and its growth trajectory to tracking billions of dollars in claims annually and serving thousands of companies. The conversation dives into the practical aspects of becoming a...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Chris Paradiso, owner of Paradiso Financial and Insurance Services, to dive into the retention strategies that form the foundation of real agency growth. Chris shares how his 50+ employee agency learned the hard way that retention is everything when their numbers dropped nearly 10% after getting lazy with client communication during COVID. Chris breaks down hi...

Callan Harrington sits down with Lyndon Block, President & CEO of Block's Agencies, Prairie Insurance, Mello Insurance, and Rosthern Agencies, to explore his unconventional path to building 7 insurance brokerages across Saskatchewan. Lyndon shares how a chance encounter with marketing expert Chris Paradiso at a conference sparked a relentless pursuit of digital marketing mastery that changed e...

Curtis Barton didn't take the traditional path to building a large platform agency. He convinced six agency owners to merge their businesses, raise private equity capital together, and build something that had never been done in the industry. ALKEME is now ranked 21st on the Insurance Journal top 100, with over $2 billion in premiums written, $122 million in EBITDA, and 83 acquisitions completed....

Callan Harrington sits down with Andy Cohen, President and COO of Snapsheet, to dive into why claims operations represent the biggest opportunity left in insurance, and what it actually looks like when carriers get it right. Andy brings perspective from both the carrier side and Snapsheet's work with over 180 carriers, including 16 of the top 20 P&C carriers.  Andy covers why loss adjustment e...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Paul VanderMarck, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at SageSure, to explore what the best insurance producers actually do differently, and why a softening market is about to make that question impossible to ignore. Paul shares how top producers navigate the shift from a supply-constrained hard market to one where competition on price is back, and carrier...