Why You Have Permission to Make Insurance What You Want

That freedom to choose your own adventure gets even more exciting when you find the right community to collaborate with.

The acceleration of progress that you unlock could be described as breathtaking.

The key to it all however comes down to your decision-making ability and your dedication to them.

Rob Bowen, Founder of Patriotic Insurance, talks about a few of the decisions he's made that have brought him to this point of his journey.

Full Episode Transcript

Joey Giangola: Mr. Rob Bowen, how are you doing today, sir?

Rob Bowen: I'm well, Joey. How are you doing?

Joey Giangola: I'm doing all right. I am doing all right. Kind of wanted to do this before we really go anywhere. Do you have something that you have been trying to get rid of for longer than you care to admit, but can't seem to do it for whatever reason?

Rob Bowen: Yeah. I've been trying to get rid of my bad habit of eating too many jellybeans.

Joey Giangola: All right, all right.

Rob Bowen: Yeah, [inaudible], if there's something deeper than that, but that's one of my downfalls.

Joey Giangola: I mean, you can go as deep as you want reading into that. I mean, is this a problem that you've had for a long time or is this a new newly developed problem [inaudible]?

Rob Bowen: No. It's a long-term problem. It's a long-term problem. I'm trying to slow the consumption rate down. And I can sit there and just eat a whole bag of jellybeans without even thinking about it.

Joey Giangola: I mean, at least it's contained to jellybeans, at least it seems, so maybe that's something you got going for you?

Rob Bowen: Maybe.

Joey Giangola: For me, Rob, it was an old grill for the longest time. I put it out to the garbage one time. They didn't take it. And I was like, "What am I going to do with this thing?" It just kind of sat there. And I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to take it apart," after like maybe five years of it just sitting there. And finally, after that period of time, I was like, "Yeah, I'm just going to take it apart and throw it away in pieces," and then it finally worked.

So, Rob, I mean, I guess let's shift over to the agency world and let's talk about maybe if there's something going on in your life over there that maybe has been lingering that you thought, "Well, we've done this this way for so long, but maybe we should maybe look to re-examine things a little bit"? Is there anything that is going on in that area that you've kind of thought maybe it's time for a change?

Rob Bowen: It's a great time for you asking that question. We, over COVID, took a step back, brought in some new systems, and then about three, four months ago, I decided we're going to bring in different platforms to build a foundation off of [inaudible].

So we have changed our management system. We're in the process of changing our CRM system. We changed our VoIP system about 10 months ago. So it's chaos right now, and my team is ready to kill me.

But we're making progress. We're slowly learning the new systems. They're all great, as you know, in this [inaudible] insurance industry, shiny object syndrome, there are many solutions for many people. And so, I finally just said, "This is the direction we're going. We're going to get rid of all this. We're going to start over and get this done correctly."

Joey Giangola: I mean, was there something that really sparked the whole thing? I mean, was there something that sort of kicked it all off for you?

Rob Bowen: Yeah. We kind of a duct taped a bunch of stuff together. And COVID really gave us the opportunity, it gave me an opportunity really, to kind of step back and look at what are we doing? There's got to be a better way. So let me start doing some investigation. Let me talk to agents smarter, bigger, maybe better looking than I am, and find out what they're doing. And not talk to those agents that jump on the, "The only way to go is [inaudible]. The only way to go is [inaudible]."

And I appreciate that, and that's loyalty, but the agents that said, "Well, how do you want to use it? How big are you? Where are you going? What's your commercial, personal spread?"

So we kind of came to where we are, and I'm trying very hard to not continue to chase that shiny object. I am famous for it. I'll go to a conference and, "Oh, man, we need this. We need that." That's not how this works out. I can choose things all day long.

So we're now setting a longterm foundation for our agency to grow and not have to change. Maybe we add more pieces, but it's mutually exclusive pieces that we would add.

Joey Giangola: You brought up just the idea of talking and consulting with other agents a little bit. And that's something that when I got into the business, it was sort of a foreign thing. Even still to this day, I think depending on where you live and occupy in the space, that collaborative nature is something that is, I mean, I guess, maybe new. What was that like for you to reach out to those folks and to, like you said, go to the people that were actually going to give you some honest feedback and not steer you maybe in a one-sided direction?

Rob Bowen: It was actually easy. I've had the pleasure of meeting some very well-known agents in the insurance world, and they'll make introductions for me. I might listen to someone on a podcast, and I'll reach out to them on Facebook Messenger or whatever. And I got to say, 95% of them will come right back and say, "Hey, give me a call. I'll walk you through what I do. I'll explain what's good and what's bad. You walk me through what you do, and let's see what we can do for you."

But I have found that most agents out there understand that we're not competitors. We are here to help each other. And we all have different experiences. I might be able to help an agent who's 10 times my size just by something I say. And that probably hasn't happened yet. And that's the collaborative nature of the group that I'm trying to hang with, and how giving these people are of their time is amazing to me.

Joey Giangola: Well, and, I guess, has that been your experience throughout your entire time in the industry? Because I know you were dabbling outside of the industry. You had a previous career sort of before you got into insurance. But what is your experience, has that kind of been the way it's always been for you, or was there a time maybe where it didn't feel that way?

Rob Bowen: Well, I was a Farmer's agent for a while. So in the captive world, it doesn't work that way. It's a dog eat dog, everyone's your enemy. I had two very good friends who were Farmers agents [inaudible]. We did collaborate together, but in general, it doesn't work that way.

So my experience started about four years ago as I started to switch towards [inaudible]. And honestly, I've never had a problem. There's certain people that don't want to collaborate, and that's okay. Everyone has their own reasons for doing it or not doing it. But in general, most of the people do, Joey. It's great. It's like I learn a lot, and they're there for really simple questions that I might go down a rabbit hole if I don't ask it.

Joey Giangola: I guess maybe I didn't realize it's only been on the independent side for around four years then?

Rob Bowen: Yeah, right.

Joey Giangola: So what actually finally brought you over? What was the moment that said, "Hey, all right, enough of this one horse, one trick pony thing. I need more choices. I want more options in my life"?

Rob Bowen: It was I didn't see a way to grow the agency and actually make revenue. It just seemed like more stuff got dumped on us. My view of the world is the captive model, the answer to everything is hire more people because the systems don't change. It just wasn't sustainable. I just looked at it like this is not sustainable.

And we started writing a lot of excess surplus. We were not [inaudible] that side, commercial business. And that whole world opened up to me. I was like, "Holy Christmas, look at this." I have access to 50 carriers through RPS, for example. I have underwriters that actually want to help people in their business, and this is great. So yeah, that's just the way it's been.

Joey Giangola: Obviously like walking into sort of the mega store of insurance, the big box. There's so many things here, especially on, like you said, the wholesale side, because it gets very exotic and very, very specialized. Have you started leaning one way or the other? I mean, even being only four years in, there's agents that are 24 years in that have yet to sort of get an interest towards something. Is there something that has maybe jumped out at you as being sort of a fan favorite, per se?

Rob Bowen: Are you talking about a niche, sort of niche?

Joey Giangola: Yeah, just lines of business that you sort of enjoy writing, the clients you're running across, just the overall experience selling the policies.

Rob Bowen: Yeah. I work with real estate investors. I love doing that. We write quite a bit with them. A lot of it is educating real estate investors. And the way the market is right now, everybody's a real estate investor or everyone's a real estate agent, [inaudible] the market collapses. But we write under that.

And I work with small to medium sized businesses. I really enjoy that because I'm a business owner like they are. I have similar struggles that they have. We can have a very different conversation than trying to sell someone an auto policy. We can network with each other. We can help each other.

And a lot of small business owners, insurance included, you don't know what you don't know. When you talk to small business owners, they don't fully understand the insurance side, "Oh, I just need this. My landlord asked me for this." Well, yeah, that's true. But there's a couple other policies you probably want to have too because it will protect you from A, B, and C." So I really enjoy the small business conversations and the real estate investing clients.

Joey Giangola: I mean, it's interesting, sort of the common theme here is really not being afraid to throw yourself into the deep end and sort of open yourself up to more opportunities, more possibilities. Was that something that, I guess, maybe you were seeking at some point in time? Because a lot of times, agents will even, when they get in the independent side, when they look into a wholesaler, when they look into anything else, it just sometimes feels overwhelming like they're sort of getting away too much from what they know.

But it seems like you sort of, you kind of embraced that every time that you've had that opportunity. Is that something that maybe is intentional in some ways?

Rob Bowen: Yeah. I believe that it's easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. Sometimes it gets you in trouble, but generally, my experience is, "Hey, let's try it." As long as you're doing right by the client. You don't want to write something, you really have no idea what you're doing, but that's where underwriters come in. That's where the relationships that I have with wholesalers and large carriers, and I have people that keep me honest.

I heard of agents that pick a niche and die for it and do very, very well. I think that's hard to do. We've kind of stumbled into our niches, and then we focus on them. Because you never know, and we are still a small agency. This is not the end game. It's like that first job out of college. You're probably not going to have that job when you're in your 50s.

So let's keep trying, let's keep exploring, and maybe we've stumbled upon something. Maybe we find a niche that, like the first guy that walks in. So let's just give it a shot, we have nothing to lose. As long as I feel comfortable that we're, again, insuring the client correctly and doing right by the client, I'm willing to go down that rabbit hole if we can.

Joey Giangola: I don't know if there's really an answer to this question, but we'll give it a shot. I mean, was there any way that you were to maybe find a way to be comfortable in that sort of environment, to not necessarily have all the control, be okay not having the answers, and like you said, trusting the people that do and not necessarily relying on your insurance ego in a lot of cases where some people feel the need to have all those answers in a lot of cases?

Rob Bowen: What was the question again, Joey? I missed the beginning of that [inaudible]?

Joey Giangola: I don't know if there's a question necessarily. It's just, I guess, is that something that you've maybe been okay with? How did you become comfortable in that sort of environment versus having that opposite reaction to those scenarios?

Rob Bowen: Yeah. I don't know. I've always felt that, a lot of it comes from my military background where I'm a believer, let's just make a decision and go for it. No one's going to die. Military, someone could get hurt. In the business world, no one's going to die, so let's do it.

The struggle with that is you got to be able to have enough self-awareness to take a step back if you make a bad choice and step back out of it. But in general, if you don't make a decision, you've made a decision. And I think that's what people struggle with, "Well, let's analyze it again. Let's have another meeting." I just go.

I'm not saying that's the correct way to do things because that can come back to bite you sometimes, but let's just go down the path and see what happens. If you never try it, you'll never know. So I just think that's who I've always been.

Joey Giangola: I would imagine more often than not you end up being relatively okay, like you said. I bet you can count on one hand the number of times that it has come back to bite you versus the countless of times that it has not. Would that be a correct assumption?

Rob Bowen: That's a correct assumption. And even when it does bite, it's usually not that big of a deal. I mean, I'm not saying you go out and pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into something without really doing an investigation and understand it. But a lot of our decisions in the insurance world are [inaudible] decisions. "Do you want to go this way? Okay, let's try that this week," or try that this month. If it doesn't work, there's plenty of other options.

I'm very blessed that I have a lot of people with a lot of experience who I can reach out to like I'm talking to you. So if I'm starting to feel like it's not working, I can call them, and they can go, "Well, yeah, that's typical. Keep going," or stop or try this. And they do, they're giving me good advice. But I tend to just let's just do it, and we'll figure out the aftermath later.

Joey Giangola: You kind of alluded to sort of the stakes surrounding the decisions, and coming from the military. I've always been fascinated with people that have, obviously, had to make that transition because it is such a dramatic downshift in terms of the severity of whatever you're doing, right?

Rob Bowen: Yeah.

Joey Giangola: And how do you even come close to acclimating? But I guess, of most industries, insurance does have some real stakes. Like you said, as long as you're doing right by the client, because if you do screw up something, there are generally real consequences that could have some ramifications. Was that at all sort of an allure to kind of bring you towards this industry, or what was the story there?

Rob Bowen: It was more about I spent some time on Wall Street after I got out of the military. And I worked in 2008, which was a blood bath with the mortgage market collapse and everything that happened there on Wall Street. I had some other jobs, sales jobs. And then at 50, I said, "I want to start my own business. I want to do something... I want to be my own boss."

That's a double-edged sword, as we all know. But as I got done with this corporate thing, I said, "Let's start an insurance agency." You can make it whatever you want. That's what I've learned. I didn't know that in the beginning. But you can be a lifestyle agency, which is a term I've heard. You can grow. You can have niches. I mean, you can do anything in this business. You can decide every day what you want to be and go for it.

Some days, that's terrifying, honestly. But it's fun, it's exciting. Every day is different. Every day is a new adventure. You never know what's going to happen that day. A claim comes in or a client's upset or whatever, I mean, every day is different. [inaudible]. It's not that boring 9:00 to 5:00 job by any stretch of imagination.

Joey Giangola: So you said at 50, you decided to kind of step out on your own. Was there ever a moment where you kept saying to yourself, "I've missed my window. I'm just kind of this is where I'm going"? Or what was it that made you say, "No, this is it. I'm going to be able to do this. Now's the time. It doesn't really matter"?

Rob Bowen: Yeah. I think it's probably like we talked about before. I just said, "Let's do it." I probably didn't think it through as much as I should of, honestly. But let's do it, and then figure it out, and keep pushing, keep learning. That's the key to this is to keep learning, keep putting good people around yourself. Don't be the smartest guy in the room. That's not hard for me to do. But keep looking for people better than you.

And as long as you keep going forward, I think you can do pretty well in this industry. As you and I both know, in the last, let's call it two years, pre-COVID and smack into COVID, this industry's changed a lot. We've accelerated technologies. We've accelerated in a lot of things because we had to, and that's exciting.

I mean, people can bash the insurance industry, but we're still fast and we're still doing this. We're still in that. Okay, but a lot of people are not doing that. I mean, this industry is changing dramatically. Just in the last two years, it's amazing how quickly people have pushed towards certain things.

There's so much out there. There's so many new shiny objects. There's so many new entrants into the insurance world. And that says a lot, I think. I mean, there's big money coming into this industry, and that says a lot. People like this industry.

We have that thing called recurring revenue, which most businesses don't have. We're obviously pandemic proof. People did struggle, but in general, did pretty well, I think. I mean, I don't look at those numbers, but the insurance industry didn't fail. A lot of agents didn't go under, so I guess, again, that recurring revenue. So it's just building that asset and that's what's exciting.

And you can retire, and I'll put air quotes around that, at any point. I mean, when is retirement when you own an insurance agency? You work five hours a day. You work part-time. You go to travel for a month, but you have a laptop. There's a lot of ways to do this, and I like that. I've got a ways to go until retirement, but now I have a lot of options, and that's very different than having that 9:00 to 5:00 job.

Joey Giangola: From all that last two years, last five years of getting on the independent side, maybe what has surprised you the most in terms of what has changed or what you maybe didn't anticipate being sort of at this moment in time?

Rob Bowen: That's a good question. I think what surprised me at most in the beginning was kind of how archaic a lot of things were. A lot of the processes were, "This is the way we've always done it." And that drives me bananas. That's driven me bananas my whole life.

But what I liked over the last two years is I've seen some companies, some vendors, wholesalers, really step up to the plate, figure this out. I mean, they really have resilience. They really said, "Okay, we got a problem. We have this thing called COVID. How do we keep going? How do we serve whoever we're serving?" And I think a lot of the indie tech or insured tech, whatever we want to call it, there's a lot more of that coming out of the woodwork now.

And I say to all of them as they call my office almost on a daily basis, just do one thing well. It's all I want you to do. And there are vendors out there that do one thing and only one thing, and they do it really, really well. As long as I can integrate you in or integrate you in my system, I'm good. Don't try to be a Jack of all trades. And I think that's where a lot of these guys fall down.

So I've seen a lot of these, I don't want to call them siloed because that tends to have a negative connotation, but I've seen these guys, "Here's a pain point in the industry. We're going to fix that one pain point." Not that we're better than anything else, all the noise around, let's just fix it. And I think those vendors will do well. And I've seen a lot more of that in the last couple of years.

Joey Giangola: All right, Rob, I've got three more questions for you, sir.

Rob Bowen: Okay.

Joey Giangola: First one, very simply, what is one thing you hope you never forget?

Rob Bowen: I hope I never forget how much I enjoy what I do because there are days where I'm like, "What am I doing? Why am I here?" I get eaten up by something or it's just a long day or a lot of stuff happens. Because I don't want to forget, this is a great industry. I love what I do. And I don't want to forget from where I came because I started scratch, started out with nothing, no customers, no revenue. Opened the doors, and as everyone jokes, "Hey, open door, and they all come in." That's not how this works. So I don't want anyone to forget how much I enjoy what I do despite maybe a bad day or a busy day or whatever because I love what I do.

Joey Giangola: All right, now, on the other side of this, and this might not be a problem, but let's try and get something specific, what's one thing you still have yet to learn?

Rob Bowen: Not at all. The one thing that I'm focusing on right now is really how to run a business, not an insurance agency, how to run a business. I have some good people around me helping me do that, but that's one thing I really have to learn.

I really have to learn a business is a business. I mean, our revenue sources are different and the balance sheet might be different, but how do you run business? I kind of know how to do it. I've honestly been learning it a lot of the time. We've done pretty well. But I really need to learn how to run a business correctly, and that will help us grow. And that will help us as we get bigger too, run the business as efficiently as possible.

Joey Giangola: All right, Rob, last question to you, sir. If I were to hand you a magic wand of sorts to reshape, change, alter, speed up really any part of insurance, what is that thing, where is it going, and what's it doing?

Rob Bowen: I think it goes back to what I said before. I wish that vendors as they try to come to market to solve a problem in the insurance world would just do one thing and do it well. I work with some vendors, they do a simple task. It makes my life so much easier.

To that same vein, I wish people would stop looking at technology as an expense. Everyone's looking for R on their I. Don't look at it that way. How much time is it saving you? If you're still collecting checks, pay 20 bucks a month. If you only collect one check, how much is your time worth? You have your vendors do one thing, do it well, and sell it correctly. They don't sell a lot of their stuff correctly. Sure, you can do that. I mean, we were all sales people at some point in our lives, "So yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah, we're great. Yeah, yeah, yeah." You just sell it correctly, stick to the points you're good at, don't try to be a Jack of all trades.

Joey Giangola: Rob, this has been fantastic, sir. I'm going to leave it right there.

Rob Bowen: Thanks, Joey. I really appreciate it. Have a great afternoon.