Wolf of Property Casualty

Every sales organization has an invisible hand: a motivator that isn't on the comp plan, but shapes how people behave. For me, it was the chance to earn equity as a partner in an insurance brokerage. It made me better, and it made me ruthless, overworked, and a little maddened. In this Commissions to Convictions episode, I use Adam Smith's invisible hand theory to unpack the hidden incenti...

OSHA is a four-letter word, and Derek loves it. Drawing on years working with manufacturers and food producers, he covers the truths about OSHA that brokers and buyers need to know: why most mock audits fall short, what triggers an inspection, how to handle an unannounced visit, and why citations aren't insurable. He also explains why the smartest move isn't always paying the fine. Sometim...

Buying a company? The first question any insurance professional should ask is: stock sale or asset sale? In this episode of The Wolf of Property & Casualty, Derek Laczniak breaks down how deal structure changes the insurance conversation for buyers, sellers, and the brokers who serve them. He walks through why buyers push for asset sales and sellers push for stock sales, and what each means fo...

Derek's been fielding compensation questions from brokers nationwide lately — especially with the USI/Aon deal shaking up the industry — so this episode breaks down exactly how insurance producers get paid. No advocacy for one structure over another, just the real mechanics. Inside this episode: • The three types of commission "bands" — new business, renewal, and inherited/transferre...

Derek shares the "mess hall" lesson from a former mentor: the peer group you talk with — good or bad — shapes what you end up believing. He traces it from his three and a half months in county jail, where ten minutes at the wrong table can turn you against people who turn out to be nothing like the reputation, to the negativity bandwagon he sees among producers and managers in insurance...

Carriers can't get rate in today's soft property market — so they're going after values instead. Derek walks through how to use four independent construction cost indexes to challenge inflated trend assumptions from underwriters, plus his take on why 90% (not 100%) insurance-to-value is often the right call for accounts with a spread of risk.

A workers' comp "crit" might seem like a minor administrative issue. It isn't. In this episode of Wolf of Property & Casualty, Derek breaks down what a criticism letter actually is, why workers' compensation bureaus issue them, and why brokers should take them far more seriously than the dollar amount of the potential fine might suggest. Derek walks through how workers&#3...

PIP shows up on commercial auto proposals in no-fault states — and if a client asks "what's this?", you need an answer. Derek covers the 5 things to know: how PIP differs from MedPay, why it pays fast, priority of payments, and why it doesn't waive future lawsuits.

For years, I thought professional titles meant something. Partner. Director. Senior Account Executive. Those titles represented years of work, success, and climbing the ladder. Then I lost them—and I realized something I wish I'd understood much earlier: my clients never cared about my title nearly as much as I did. In this episode of Commissions to Convictions , I talk about professional titl...

Employee Benefits Liability — the coverage Derek calls "HR screw-up insurance." One missed COBRA notice during a layoff. One forgotten dependent enrollment. One overlooked disability election. These are the mistakes that get HR teams sued — and this episode breaks down the coverage built to catch them, including a real claim from Derek's own career that settled for over $600K.

Loss control visits and claim reviews are necessary — but they're not where the real leverage lives. In this episode, Derek breaks down the two types of carrier engagement every broker needs to master, and shares his exact playbook for building the relationship that gets you through bumpy renewals and messy claims. No fluff, no selling — just what actually works.

Derek made millions as a top insurance broker — then lost it all chasing the wrong thing. In this Commissions to Convictions episode, he breaks down the warning signs he ignored, what jail taught him about money, and why your worth was never tied to your paycheck.

20 state AGs are suing Meta for $1.4 trillion — and its own insurance carriers say they don't have to defend the company. Derek unpacks the duty-to-defend fight playing out in Delaware court, why "intentional acts" exclusions are doing the heavy lifting here, and the coverage lesson every buyer should take away: it's not what happened that triggers your policy — it's what&#39...

Most insurance programs are buried inside proposals, policy binders, and 20-page renewal summaries. But what if you could understand an entire commercial insurance program in less than 30 seconds? In this episode we break down one of the most valuable tools I used throughout my commercial insurance career: the Balanced Risk Management Approach (BRMA). This simple one-page visual document summarize...

When a box of bananas goes missing and my off-the-record guess gets someone fired, I remembered a phrase from my time in sales: confidential but not anonymous. In my sales career, where "confidential" employee surveys/votes turned out to carry a lot more traceability than anyone let on. A candid, unflinching episode about information, trust, and the systems we assume are safer than they...

Everyone's talking about how to win an Agent of Record letter — Lets talk about what happens after you win it. We break down six operational mistakes I've made (and one bonus trick) around carrier AOR rules, wholesaler transfers, commission timing, orphaned audits, fresh submissions, and getting documents signed without the awkward back-and-forth.

Sometimes in a quest to chase accolades and achievements we lose sight of the basics of what make you successful and great on and off the field.

Four follow-up questions from the previous business income episodes, answered: extra expense as your "slush fund," the continuing expenses people forget (rent between related entities, corporate debt, depreciation), managing coinsurance and related time period limitations on limit, and the forever profit stop gap that comes with Extended Business Income.

A conversation with a former customer reminded me of a mistake I made more than once in mt broking career — not consistently securing the alternate employer endorsement on staffing arrangements. We break down why a waiver of subrogation alone isn't enough, walk through a real injury scenario at "ABC Manufacturing," and explain why this endorsement matters even more outside states wit...

Most buyers — and plenty of brokers — treat business income as a mystical number pulled from a worksheet. In this episode, we explain a niche but powerful strategy specific to value-added distribution companies: valuing inventory at selling price instead of cost, and using that to right-size (and often shrink) your business income and extra expense limits. Includes real client numbers, carrier pus...

Taylor Farms voluntarily recalls lettuce. The FDA confirms contamination. Then walks it back as a "false positive." Taylor Farms keeps recalling anyway. In this Claiming the News breakdown, we unpack the coverage triggers hiding inside this real, unfolding claim — voluntary vs. mandated recall language, the reimbursement-policy trap, and an "adverse media coverage" trigger most...

This episode reflects on impulsivity — the moments where words fly out before they're thought through, and the real cost of that habit. From an unwitting insult to my father's legacy, to a comment that mortified me in front of our CEO, to words twisted in a courtroom, this episode draws the line between being bold and being reckless with your words.

The soft market is producing more marketing activity — and more declinations, as carriers hold their underwriting line instead of chasing growth. We break down five things every broker should do with a "no," from documenting the real reason in writing to using declinations as leverage for future submissions. If you're just logging "declined" on your marketing table and movi...

Soft market got you eating commission cuts on every renewal? We break down how to build KPIs and bonus structures into your fee agreements — from captive quoting to shared-savings clauses — so you get paid for the work you're actually doing.

Condescension doesn't announce itself — it hides in tone, in dismissiveness, in the small ways people remind you where you stand. A subtle exertion of power that doesn't just deliver a message, it delivers a reminder that you're a notch below. From a guard who wouldn't bend the rules just because he "didn't want to," to a moment I raised my hand in a room of executive...