AM Best's Review just listed me as one of their Preferred Influencers in the May 2026 issue.

Same issue. Same pages. CEOs of Zurich, Chubb, Marsh, AIG.

127 years of insurance industry credibility behind that publication.

I'm not going to pretend that doesn't mean something.

But more than the recognition, I want to talk about what I actually told them.

Because it's the same stuff I've been saying for years, and it's worth saying again.

 

The lies are still winning

The insurance industry has a lie problem.

Not fraud. A different kind of lie.

The kind that gets passed from one agency owner to the next like it's conventional wisdom.

"You need a lot of carriers to make a lot of money."

I've heard it forever. We've disproven it forever.

3 to 5 strategic carrier partners you actually know, where you understand their underwriting guidelines cold, will beat 30 carriers you have a surface relationship with.

Every time.

In agencies I've worked with, that's not a theory. That's the result.

The lie sounds like safety. It's actually just noise.

 

This is not the fax machine

I said it to AM Best and I'll say it here.

What's happening with AI right now is not the fax machine. It's not even the internet.

Fax to email to internet to social... those changed how we did business.

AI is changing what business is. It's affecting our lives. It's affecting our kids.

And some agency owners are still earning a comfortable living thinking they can sit this one out....

They can't. Not for long.

That's exactly why I wrote the AI2030 Future-Ready Manual.

74 pages. No sponsors. No vendor pitches. More than 2,300 agents have downloaded it.

The idea was simple: everybody in this industry keeps writing about what worked in the past. Best practices from 2018. Nobody was writing the manual for 2030.

So I wrote it.

The cocoon problem is real

Here's what I told the reporter and what I genuinely believe.

Agents are stuck inside their agencies like a cocoon.

We don't get to hear the good ideas because we never leave our own four walls long enough to find them.

That's why Agency Intelligence exists. That's why the podcast network sits at 80,000 to 90,000 listeners a month. That's why I bring guests on who say things agents don't normally get to hear.

Good ideas travel when you build a place for them to land.

What this recognition actually means

AM Best has been the financial strength standard in this industry since 1899.

When they put you in the magazine next to the people running the biggest insurance operations in the world, you take that seriously.

I do.

And then you get back to work.

The AI2030 Future-Ready Manual is free at agencyintelligence.com

Just the operating manual I wish someone had handed me five years ago.