Your First 90 Days as an Insurance Agency Owner: What to Expect and How to Succeed

The first 90 days after launching your insurance agency are some of the most critical. These early months set the tone for your growth, reputation, and profitability. Whether you’ve chosen to go independent, join a franchise, or launch with a captive model, your onboarding experience, daily priorities, and long-term momentum all begin here.

This article outlines a realistic roadmap for your first three months, detailing what to focus on, where most agents get stuck, and how to lay a strong foundation—one quote, one client, and one conversation at a time.

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Month 1: Set Up and Get Grounded

Key Objectives

• Connect with referral partners, mentors (such as your regional support team), or peers for regular check-ins
• Establish relationships that can generate warm leads or business guidance
• Introduce your agency on LinkedIn, Facebook, and relevant community channels
• Build local and digital visibility through networking and outreach
• Quote and write your first policies to gain early momentum
• Set concrete production and quoting goals- SMART goals

Tasks

• Identify and reach out to 5–10 potential referral partners (real estate agents, lenders, small business groups)
• Join at least one professional or networking organization (local chamber, BNI, etc.)
• Create and post a business launch announcement on social media
• Schedule weekly calls or meetings with a mentor or accountability partner
• Practice quoting workflows using sample scenarios or early leads, connect with a peer to shadow them and learn best practices
• Set daily outreach goals to build your initial pipeline (calls, DMs, emails)

Common Challenges

It can feel intimidating to promote your business when you’re still building confidence. Many new agency owners hesitate to put themselves out there—delaying outreach, avoiding early quoting opportunities, or struggling to build initial momentum. It’s also easy to underestimate how much effort it takes to consistently network and follow up while juggling startup priorities.

Tips for Success

• Schedule 1–2 outreach blocks each day to connect with potential referral partners or clients
• Roleplay quoting conversations with peers or mentors to build confidence
• Post consistently on LinkedIn or local groups to increase awareness and credibility
• Track your outreach and follow-ups in your CRM or a simple spreadsheet
• Ask mentors or experienced agents to review your first few quotes and offer feedback
• Create a Friday review habit—assess weekly lead activity, referrals, and quoting progress

Independent agents may need to initiate networking and quoting workflows solo.

Franchise owners often have structured onboarding and marketing templates—but should still proactively build their personal brand and referral network.

Captive agents may receive early training and brand support, but success still depends on localized visibility and trusted connections.

Get comfortable with your product portfolio—understand the core types of insurance you’ll be offering, such as auto, home, renters, umbrella, flood, and commercial lines. Knowing what you sell, and which carriers offer a particular product, will boost your confidence, improve quote quality, and help you find the right solutions for each client.

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Month 2: Build Pipeline and Practice Selling

Key Objectives

• Establish consistent lead generation routines
• Set up reporting dashboards to track performance and conversion
• Build comfort and accuracy with quoting systems
• Establish a robust follow up cadence for incoming leads

Tasks

• Launch and monitor at least one reporting dashboard (CRM, quoting platform, or spreadsheet)
• Track quote-to-bind ratio and identify conversion bottlenecks
• Attend networking events and join referral groups
• Launch simple paid marketing (Google/Facebook Ads)
• Reach out to friends/family with structured asks
• Call 10+ prospects daily and fine tune your scripts
• Begin collecting positive client feedback/testimonials and reviews

Common Challenges

Many agents face “quiet calendar syndrome”—working full days with few appointments. Without clear visibility into lead volume or quote quality, it’s difficult to course correct. Confidence may dip when quoting takes longer than expected or early leads don’t convert.

Tips for Success

• Use a CRM, Excel, or reporting platform to track daily lead flow and conversions
• Review dashboards weekly to spot high-performing channels or weak follow-up points
• Stick to a weekly outbound plan: calls, DMs, emails
• Ask mentors or carrier reps to review early quotes and offer advice
• Focus on small wins—auto, renters, bundled discounts
• Refine scripts and email templates based on feedback and close rates

Franchise agents may have prebuilt dashboards and performance coaching—use these to accelerate learning and scale early wins.

Captive agents often receive carrier-specific tools for quoting, marketing, and reporting. Maximize these tools and adhere to any lead or performance benchmarks set by the carrier.

Independent agents should prioritize building tracking systems from scratch—whether via CRM, spreadsheets, or lightweight tools like Trello or Notion—so they can see what's working and adapt quickly.

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Month 3: Optimize and Scale Up

Key Objectives

• Improve client service processes
• Build automation or outsource support
• Create repeatable sales systems

Tasks

• Set up email campaigns for cross-sell and retention
• Evaluate quoting efficiency and sales script performance
• Begin planning for first hire or outsourced help
• Develop a follow-up schedule for all new leads and clients

Common Challenges

As policy count grows, the time spent on servicing and follow-ups can become overwhelming. Many agents feel scattered bouncing between quoting, answering service emails, managing technology, and trying to market.

Tips for Success

• Use templates for service emails, quote follow-ups, and renewal reminders
• Block time daily for quoting and follow-up calls
• Delegate non-revenue tasks where possible
• Automate recurring tasks using CRM workflows or email drip campaigns
• Schedule a monthly review of expenses, income, and lead source performance

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Sample 90-Day Milestone Tracker

Milestone	Target Date	Completed?
Referral partners and mentors connected	Week 1
First 5 outreach efforts to local partners	Week 2
CRM or lead tracking spreadsheet set up	Week 3
Joined a local networking or referral group	Week 4
Reporting dashboard live (quote-to-bind, leads)	Week 5
30+ qualified leads added to CRM	Week 6
Referral partner follow-up meetings scheduled	Week 7
First Google review collected	Week 8
Follow-up email workflow launched	Week 9
Weekly quoting or sales review process started	Week 10
30/60/90-day business performance review conducted	Week 11
Income and conversion metrics reviewed monthly	Week 12

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Final Thoughts

Your first 90 days as an agency owner won’t be perfect—but they should be intentional. Success in this phase isn’t about having everything figured out. It’s about building momentum through daily action: outreach, quoting, follow-ups, and performance tracking.

Whether you’re independent, captive, or franchise-backed, your early habits will define your growth trajectory. Focus on building strong referral relationships, using every opportunity to quote, and making data-driven adjustments using dashboards and CRM tools.

You’ve already explored the foundational elements in this series—how to start Article 1 (How to Start an Insurance Agency), which model to choose Article 2 (Which Insurance Agency Model is Right for You?), how to evaluate your fit Article 3 (Self-Assessment Tool), what hidden costs to expect Article 4 (The Hidden Costs of Starting an Insurance Agency), how compensation works Article 5 (How Insurance Agents Get Paid), and the support you’ll need Article 6 (What Support Do You Need to Start and Grow an Insurance Agency?).

Now, it's time to execute.

Track your metrics. Learn from every quote. Strengthen your network. Improve your process.

And when you're ready to scale with a proven platform that provides carrier access, technology, and ongoing support, explore the Brightway franchise model to see if it’s the right fit for your goals.