The Greatest Insurance coverage Networks and Alliances within the USA | 5-Star Networks and Alliances

Swiss Re’s Sigma report states, “US tariffs are prone to improve insurance coverage claims severity within the US, and will dampen insurance coverage demand, particularly within the US and for specialty traces tied to financial exercise (i.e., credit score and surety, marine, and engineering).”

This makes it a logical resolution for brokers to hitch networks and take strategic shelter, together with different well-recognized advantages comparable to model recognition, coaching sources, and consulting companies.

Insurance coverage Enterprise America’s 2025 knowledge reveals that entry to extra insurance coverage corporations and merchandise is the largest motivating issue for brokers to hitch networks (88.3 p.c of brokers in 2025, up from 75 p.c in 2024 recognized it as their prime cause). This once more highlights the turbulence brokers throughout the US are feeling, and a collective want to stay in a robust place to ship the merchandise their purchasers want.

IBA surveyed brokers nationwide to achieve their insights into the capabilities of networks and alliances. Respondents rated their networks throughout 10 standards together with advertising and marketing assist, entry to area of interest markets, and vendor reductions, with the main performers awarded 5-Star standing.

Cementing service relations

Strategic Company Companions (SAP) has fostered shut relationships with carriers serving to brokers even via difficult occasions. The agency has earned $300 million of aggregated premium from the zero it started with in 2020, together with a community of 36 businesses.

“This stays a relationship enterprise,” says managing director John Tiene. “And so, whereas there’s turbulence, our capability to work with our service companions who know us has been important to sustaining the flexibility of our brokers to proceed to recruit new purchasers, get them positioned, and maintain their current purchasers. That partnership makes all of the distinction.” 

 

“The agent aggregates their premium up via the contract, there’s no loss ratio or penalties. Our job is to handle the e book and the profitability on a macro stage whereas the agent takes care of the purchasers”

John TieneStrategic Company Companions

One other 5-Star winner, Good Selection, has been working with service companions to grasp how you can keep away from stress factors.

“Over the previous 12 to 18 months, we’ve been popping out of one of many hardest markets that the insurance coverage business has confronted, so there have been challenges, but in addition plenty of alternative, which we’re enthusiastic about,” says Ashley Wingate, govt vice chairman of gross sales and distribution.

Good Selection has three verticals: 

• private traces
  
   

• industrial traces
  
   

• specific markets
  
   

And because of this, the corporate is cautious of oversaturation. Wingate says, “We work with our service companions to see the place they need to develop and be a little bit bit extra surgical about that.”

The community has signed on over 1,400 new businesses over the previous yr, which follows eight years in succession of 1,000+ additions. Wingate attributes this to the shut connections with carriers throughout the nation and the flexibility to seek out engaging charges for brokers.

“We’re capable of negotiate prime fee constructions, prime contingency bonuses with service companions, and rather less premium requirement,” he notes.

 

“For us to achieve success, we need to have as many companions as we will that strategically are aligned

with us”

Ashley WingateGood Selection

Having constructed agency connections with related carriers, Fortified, additionally a 5-Star community, has made its brokers a precedence for carriers. 

CEO Joe Craven highlights how property and extra legal responsibility proceed to be challenges within the market. Nevertheless, Fortified’s profile allows it to take care of any exterior noise.

“The most important profit is from our measurement and the relationships that we’ve got,” he says. “The underwriters know who we’re. They’re going to place us on the prime of the stack in lots of circumstances due to the amount that we ship them. They know our profitability, so that they usually need to work with us, figuring out that they’re going to get the correct accounts on the books.”

ISU Steadfast is energetic throughout the 51 jurisdictions and a few carriers it really works with have been unable to get sufficient charges filed via the division of insurance coverage over the previous few years. This has meant ISU has moved a major quantity of enterprise to intermediaries, wholesalers, MGAs, London, and so on. However now the state of affairs has reversed.

“My greatest problem is, can I carry enterprise again to the admitted carriers from the intermediaries?,” says CEO Dan McCarthy.

Nevertheless, there was no lack of give attention to delivering for the community’s members.

“The purpose is to assist the agent shield their consumer with the very best worth within the market. We make these carriers accessible in order that when smaller brokers want to cost it towards 20 carriers, they don’t need to undergo 20 appointments,” provides McCarthy. “As an alternative, they will make the most of the ISU Steadfast service stock to compete towards a center market or bigger company.”

Flexibility 

One quarter of brokers with out networks surveyed by IBA in 2025 mentioned that perceived lack of independence was their prime cause for not becoming a member of a community. 

McCarthy highlights that brokers prioritize autonomy, and this pertains to why ISU Steadfast solely chooses to do enterprise with brokers who reveal historic progress of 10–12 p.c.

He explains, “An agent that turns into a member is 100-percent owned by that company. We don’t carry any possession. Little or no, if something, is dictated to them, aside from they need to pay us a payment each month.”

Brokers can select from ISU Steadfast’s wide-ranging service choice and tailor it to their wants, whereas a 30-day discover of departure permits them to choose out of their contract with out charges.

 

“Folks don’t go away ISU Steadfast until they promote their company. If I look again over 5 years, I most likely can discover lower than 5 that left for a cause aside from they offered their company”

Dan McCarthyISU Steadfast

Good Selection leads with its accommodating strategy contract, which is non-exclusive and one-year lengthy with no charges, permitting brokers to retain possession of their e book and profit from top-tier commissions and bonuses. 

Wingate explains, “We’re getting a larger share of the brand new businesses which are approaching board, as a result of they’re recognizing the chance to their enterprise in the event that they signal the fallacious contract. When you write a chunk of enterprise, we break up commissions, however we’ve got pores and skin within the recreation collectively.”

In the meantime, these becoming a member of Strategic Company Companions profit from a zero-commission partnership that emphasizes a profit-sharing system.

“We don’t contact commissions; the commissions go from the service to the agent. Brokers want the fee as a result of it’s what pays their payments,” explains Tiene. “They pay a small payment and so they get a big chunk of their revenue sharing. However as a result of it’s aggregated, all our brokers make extra in profit-sharing contingency income than they ever may on their very own.”

Understanding brokers

The most effective networks have crafted a reciprocal mannequin, the place they adapt and hone their focus to what members need.

SAP spends time understanding its brokers’ enterprise; it explores issues to find if they’re centered on sure niches or perceive what service relationship may assist them increase. 

“It truly is one-on-one with the company as a result of each company is a little bit completely different. We’re not a community that throws codes at an agent and goes, ‘Right here’s extra carriers to work with,’” says Tiene. “If there’s no alignment, then it’s not ever going to work.”

A typical assist system that SAP presents is for company homeowners who’re normally one of many largest producers of recent enterprise however produce other managerial duties. This leads to restricted time and the community provides them a blueprint to take their company to the subsequent stage. They take away impediments by taking up the executive burden, permitting these agent homeowners to spend extra time with purchasers.

Tiene says, “It’s wonderful how rapidly they will transfer alongside and scale, and it’s additionally our capability to carry sources that they will use to assist them transfer ahead.”

And he underlines how accessible they’re to brokers, irrespective of the state of affairs.

“They will name us any time of the day or evening in the event that they’ve obtained an issue. Everyone’s obtained my cellular phone and the numbers of our consultants, and we’ll deal with it instantly.”

Fortified is conscious of how brokers are being impacted as beforehand it wasn’t very tough to get an umbrella over $10 million.

 

“There ought to be and must be greater than only a income profit to our members. They need to have a complete answer to assist them run their company on a day-to-day foundation”

Joe CravenFortified

“Many of the carriers gained’t write greater than 5 now, and lots of them gained’t even write that. It’s due to the surprising verdicts that we’re seeing throughout the nation and the stress that’s placing on the carriers from a profitability standpoint,” says Craven.

As a result of Fortified’s measurement and profitability, it can lean on companions to assist write larger limits. 

Craven provides, “We even have nice relationships with wholesalers that may assist fill within the holes once we want extra protection.”

That measurement permits the community to roll the premium up, which will get brokers into a lot better profit-sharing tiers. In lots of circumstances, Fortified even negotiates further fee or further overrides as a result of the companion carriers see worth from a profitability and progress standpoint. 

Fortified, with 70 members throughout 10 states, provides brokers the benefit of with the ability to faucet into a various information base. No matter points could come up, there’s a great probability that considered one of their members has expertise and might supply an answer.

“Considered one of my favourite tales is we had an agent who got here throughout a municipal airport and obtained the chance to cite it, however had by no means written any aviation. However we had one other member who was an professional in writing aviation, and we have been capable of put these two collectively.”

To answer its members’ wants, ISU has constructed its personal industrial API score engine much like Tarmika and Semsee, which all its brokers get entry to. As a result of working instantly with carriers and writing billions of {dollars} with them, ISU wished a direct relationship by constructing its personal engine. 

McCarthy explains, “This yr, we’ve executed nicely over 10,000 transactions via our personal API-based score engine. We need to assist our members shield their purchasers in one of the best ways attainable, so we put it into the engine that goes out to a number of industrial carriers, after which they will current the very best worth bundle again to their consumer.”

The system works by ISU’s score engine feeding a packet to the carriers’ servers, which reply and provides a quote or a declination. At the moment, it has about 40 completely different product choices.

“The following section will probably be including surplus traces transactions to our engine, which we’re engaged on so we will help an agent who’s engaged on a industrial consumer full 75 or 80 p.c of all their transactions,” says McCarthy. “The rationale we’re doing that sort of factor is that our father or mother firm, ISU Steadfast in Australia, did precisely this and is writing billions of {dollars} via its engines.”

Appreciative of the payment members can afford, ISU has tiered pricing. If brokers have issues, they’re related with their native relationship supervisor, who acts as an envoy for ISU. 

McCarthy says, “They coach or give them a manner via the difficulty. If they can not resolve it, then they transfer it as much as the degrees to a different particular person inside our group who can remedy it.”

Staying in touch

With a presence in 48 states, Good Selection’s territorial managers often go to brokers. 

Wingate says, “They and our state administrators go to 1000’s of brokers throughout the nation, attending to know them personally, what their wants are, and the way they will help.”

Coaching and schooling moved up IBA’s significance rankings in 2025 in comparison with 2024 (from sixth to second), demonstrating brokers’ elevated want to make full use of a community’s capabilities.

Fortified presents a producer improvement program to foster integral expertise that businesses can use to improve their producers’ skills. 

“The brokers can use a little bit little bit of this system or all of it, relying on what they want,” Craven explains. “In the event that they need assistance discovering producers, we’ve obtained nice companions who will help recruit individuals to the businesses. In the event that they need assistance financing, we’ve obtained a number of completely different arms that may assist them finance these new producers.”

Embracing tech instruments

Good Selection facilitates shut connections with tech suppliers, together with EZLynx, a comparative rater that secures discounted costs for brokers. 

“We like to make use of our relationship and our measurement to barter cheaper pricing for our brokers than if they simply reached out,” says Wingate. “The coaching know-how now that carriers have is top-notch. We come alongside and companion with them to bridge the hole and convey our agent to that coaching and host Good Selection trainings and webinars.”

ISU Steadfast goals so as to add an AI-powered underwriter within the latter levels of 2025, a functionality that may reduce agent quoting occasions drastically. 

“If I’m a retail agent, I can add a pile of paperwork,” McCarthy says. “The AI will learn all of the paperwork and pre-fill the quote system to make it even sooner and extra environment friendly for an agent. As an alternative of a human sitting there typing for 15 to 18 minutes, it simply occurs in a blink.”

Discovering tailor-made tech options is a precedence for Craven and Fortified.

“There’s lots of time and vitality being spent on gathering as a lot info to assist our brokers be on the entrance fringe of this new know-how.”

Fortified’s member portal is a distinction maker for brokers, as carriers can submit info that brokers can use to find out which merchandise work greatest for his or her state of affairs. 

“It permits me to submit info that’s invaluable to our members with regard to our manufacturing, our progress towards objectives,” Craven provides. “There’s a complete host of knowledge that they will entry. Contact details about different members, so forth, that’s all there in a single easy-to-access place within the portal.” 

SAP can also be exploring AI and is holding a know-how convention for brokers to discover new capabilities in 2025.

Tiene says, “Considered one of my brokers is experimenting with bots, the place the bot goes to the service web site, pulls the cancellation discover again to the company, attaches it to the file, after which pushes out notifications to the consumer.” 

• Networks that domesticate sturdy service relationships and present broad market entry enable brokers to stay resilient in turbulent markets.
  
   

• The significance of coaching and schooling surged in 2025 (69.68 p.c of brokers cited it as a prime profit, up from 15.44 p.c in 2024). Main networks put money into improvement packages, empowering brokers to leverage new instruments and keep aggressive.
  
   

• Offering consulting, administrative assist, and hands-on steerage helps businesses scale, remedy issues, and adapt to market adjustments.

• Acrisure Affiliate Brokers Community
• FirstChoice, a MarshBerry Firm
• Pacific Crest Providers
• SBMP

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• FirstChoice, a MarshBerry Firm