InsurePodcast

Jeremy Stepp runs the property and casualty side of Synergy Wealth, Insurance and Planning, an independent agency in Coolidge, Arizona — a rural town of about 20,000 people in Pinal County, halfway between Phoenix and Tucson. The agency began with his wife Tonya's life and health practice during the COVID shutdown of 2020. Jeremy added P&C in September 2024, partly as a "low-hanging fruit" entry point that could lead clients into life and health, and partly because he was tired of feeling backed into a corner financially. He still works full-time as a special-education teacher while building the agency on the side.

In this conversation we get into the texture of starting an agency from scratch in a small town: the slow grind of getting carrier appointments through the Pacific Crest Services aggregator, the particular logic of writing E&O for new life insurance agents in his wife's network, and the rule-of-three approach Jeremy uses for shopping markets when EZLynx isn't enough. We talk about why customers fall out of the sky in a town of 20,000 — the A-frame sign on Central Avenue, the Coolidge High School football sponsorship, the Casa Grande newspaper ads. We get into the carriers he's actually using (Foremost Signature, Travelers, Progressive, Geico, Gainsco, Biberk, US Assure, Ergo/Next), the shift to Biberk for E&O when his aggregator required it, and the six-month hunt for a builder's risk solution that finally landed at US Assure.

We also talk about Jeremy's previous life running an eleven-year clock repair business inherited from his father and grandfather, what he learned about being a business owner that's shaping how he runs Synergy now, and his very specific vision for the future: an office on Arizona Boulevard built to look like the Glockenspiel in Munich, dedicated to his parents.

Show notes and transcript: https://insurepodcast.com/episodes/season-1/building-rural-insurance-agency-jeremy-stepp

Jeremy and Synergy Wealth, Insurance and Planning: synergywip.com

Kelly Bishop runs Montana Legacy Insurance from Livingston, Montana. She started in insurance at 18, spent 20+ years with Farmers, kept an independent book for another decade, then took a detour through real estate and a stint as a Shelter agent in Las Vegas. When Shelter pulled out of Nevada, she came back to Montana and decided that if she was going to do insurance again, she'd do it independent. Montana Legacy is the result — about a year old, now writing through 60 carrier appointments, focused on commercial and farm-and-ranch with personal lines on the side.

In this conversation we get into the texture of running a small independent agency in rural Montana — including the placement process for commercial accounts (sometimes submitting to twelve carriers), why wildfire scoring is reshaping the homeowners market, why she joined Montana Agency Alliance / SIAA for appointments, and the EZLynx-to-Semsee journey that's reshaped her commercial workflow. We also get her honest take on the technology paradox: that despite all the automation, she feels the work takes longer now than it did when she was writing 50–100 policies a month at Farmers.

We talk about the single-agent operation she runs with Bree, plans to expand into all 50 states, the cross-sell with her real estate practice, and what she'd want a virtual assistant to actually do.

Show notes and transcript: https://insurepodcast.com/episodes/season-1/wildfire-risk-rural-agency-growth-kelly-bishop

Kelly and Montana Legacy Insurance: montanalegacyinsurance.com