Can small brokerages survive?
In this age of consolidation and amalgamation, will the small, family-owned brokerages become a thing of the past? We posed this question to Renate Mueller, President of Renate M. Mueller Consultants.
Renate Mueller: No, I don’t believe in that. First of all, the small, family-owned brokerages are owned by entrepreneurs. Whether they are small family-owned or just small in the size of having employees who are working, let’s say five, six, seven people in the entity. They have a professionalism to offer consumers. And I think the consumers still want and look for that professionalism versus perhaps what the direct writers are offering into the marketplace.
There’s an expertise here. So I believe the small, boutique brokerages will survive. They may have problems with the economy which is showing a backwards direction right now. And the consumers will have to take a look at their insurance products they’ve been buying and perhaps cut back on those. And that will hurt the small, family-owned brokerages, but that’s just a trend in the economy right now.
But I think entrepreneurial spirit will prevail. So as long as these small brokerages don’t lose the insurance markets that they have, in other words say they have two markets and all of a sudden one decides they are not profitable enough and no longer wants to do business with them, that will hurt the small brokerage for sure.
