First and foremost we are agents. Integra started with a premise. That smaller agents, regardless of growth rate, were at a competitive disadvantage. To grow, agents need strong carriers, but to attract the carriers requires significant premium.
The options were to write all your business with a single carrier (which is not really what the Independent Agency system is about), or make promises that you may not be able to keep, which most of times ended up with agents losing a couple of contracts a few years later.
We know. It happened to us. So, in the late 90's we decided to talk with other agents and discovered that there were several other agents in the same position that we were in. The end result was a model that allows agents to grow and access the competitive markets they need without the requirement of "putting all their eggs into a single basket".
A few years later, we discovered an unknown by-product to our little plan. If we select the right agents and build partnerships with those agents and our carriers, we can become a significant contributor to the perpetuation of the Independent Agency system. Today we continue to search out quality individuals that have a passion for insurance and the desire to build and grow Independent Agencies.
