The Insurance Growth Lab

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...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Kyle Nakatsuji, CEO and Founder of Clearcover and Dearborn Labs, to explore how AI is reshaping insurance from the ground up. Kyle shares his unconventional path from persistent business school dropout to insurance entrepreneur who raised over $500 million and built technology capable of processing claims in 7 minutes. The conversation dives into Kyle's decisi...

Matt Naimoli went from college baseball player to building one of the fastest-growing insurance agencies in America using an unconventional $10,000 bobblehead campaign. What started as a networking attempt became a systematic referral machine generating 500 warm leads monthly with a 75% closing ratio. In this episode, Callan Harrington sits with Matt to break down the exact process behind the camp...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Jim Waterwash, Partner at INSocial Risk Advisors, to get into the details behind their 90%+ retention rate across 5 agency acquisitions, as well as the hard lessons that got them there. Jim traces the arc from running a fully digital agency selling 100% over the phone, to building a traditional operation with 20+ employees, $20M+ in premium, and a repeatable a...

Callan Harrington sits down with Jeff Snyder, President of Matic, to break down how an “unqualified” first employee built one of the most successful embedded insurance platforms in the mortgage servicing space. Jeff shares the unconventional strategy behind generating 750,000 leads annually by focusing on loan servicing rather than origination, targeting 65 million outstanding mortgages instead of...

Callan Harrington sits down with Eric Roberts, owner of My Insurance Group, to break down the systematic approach behind building a $20 million agency that generates 270 new inbound leads monthly without any cold calling. Eric brings a unique perspective to insurance sales, having spent 15 years on the claims side doing water and fire restoration before transitioning to agency ownership.  The conv...

Callan Harrington sits down with Eddie Knezevich, President & CEO of NLF Partners, to break down the continuing education lead generation system that transformed his wealth management practice. Eddie shares how he built a machine that generates 2000 qualified leads monthly without relying on friends and family networks or traditional cold calling. Eddie walks through his journey from hosting 3...

Host Callan Harrington sits down with Patrick McBride, founder of The McBride Agency, to explore his unconventional approach to building a successful independent insurance agency. Patrick shares how he transformed his personal passions for motorcycles and cycling into profitable niche markets, targeting high-value clients who own expensive Harley Davidson motorcycles and premium bicycles. Patrick...

Callan Harrington sits down with Andy Harbut, Co-Founder of NewCo Risk, who built a multi-million dollar insurance brokerage in just one year after leaving the big brokerage world. Andy shares how he and his partner, Josh, carved out their own path, focusing on search fund clients and lower middle-market private equity deals. With 75% of their clients being entrepreneurs who bought their own busin...

Callan Harrington sits down with Jennie Lyttle, Sales Director at Salt and one of the most skilled cold callers in insurtech. Jennie breaks down her most successful campaign ever, the “broker box” initiative at Beam Benefits that delivered over 300% ROI despite being launched without approval. She explains how she turned leftover Bluetooth toothbrushes from Beam's warehouse into a powerful lead ge...

Callan Harrington sits down with Clinton Houck, VP of Insurance and Distribution at Fair, to explore how to successfully drive adoption of non-core products within P&C insurance agencies. Clinton brings serious insurance experience from every angle, having worked as an underwriter at State Farm, owned his own agency, and held leadership roles at multiple insurtech companies. Clinton reveals Fa...

Callan Harrington sits down with Caleb Cramer, Chief Revenue Officer at LAUNCH, to break down the exact group demo process that helped AgencyZoom onboard thousands of agencies to their CRM product. Caleb shares his experience working across insurtech, agency networks, and service businesses, explaining why he believes the insurance industry attracts people who want to help others despite lacking t...

Callan Harrington sits down with Brad Barnett, former VP of Enterprise Marketing at Nationwide and current independent consultant, to break down one of insurance marketing's most successful campaigns. Brad managed over $300 million in annual media spend and a $50 million portfolio of sports and entertainment partnerships during his 20-year tenure at Nationwide. He was instrumental in developing th...

Host Callan Harrington breaks down why the insurance industry may be entering a new growth phase and shares a standout story from his Bold Penguin days that proves what’s possible when momentum shifts. With enterprise carrier spend up 27% and major players like Nationwide committing $1.5 billion to tech, all signs point to a market ready to get back on offense. In this episode, Callan unpacks what...