Where the Best Practices Study measures the top quartile's outcomes, the Agency Universe Study — a long-running, whole-universe survey funded by an industry-and-carrier partnership — measures the median agency's experience. In 2024 the two diverged sharply, and the gap is the most useful thing either one says. The top-quartile view is the BPS 2024 context; this is the whole-universe counterpart.
§ 01 · Two true picturesThe record and the grind.
The reconciliation is straightforward once the measurement is clear. The Best Practices Study reports outcomes for top performers — record growth, record margins, record shareholder returns. The Agency Universe Study reports experience across every agency — what it actually feels like to run an independent agency right now. The top quartile has the scale, capital, and pricing power to turn a hard market into a record year. The median agency is absorbing the same hard market with thinner carrier relationships and rising costs. Both are the industry; neither is the whole of it.
§ 02 · The pain pointsCarriers first, technology close behind.
Asked to rank what was extremely challenging in 2024, principals put carrier commitment at the top — carriers exiting markets, restricting appetite, and trimming commissions all register here. Technology friction and the personal-lines squeeze followed close behind.
| Top challenge | % calling it "extremely challenging" |
|---|---|
| Finding carriers committed to the market | 56% |
| Managing multiple carrier interfaces | 45% |
| Carriers addressing new personal-lines risks | 41% |
| Staff recruitment & retention | 41% |
| Growing personal-lines business | 32% |
Against that backdrop, 63% named operating efficiency the single most important activity for success, and the response was digital-first — roughly a third of agencies added digital service capabilities and a quarter increased digital carrier interactions rather than pulling back. The staff-recruitment strain (41%) is the same pipeline problem the top-quartile data shows from the other side: both cohorts confirm the producer engine is constrained.
The top quartile's record year and the median agency's grind are the same market read at two altitudes. Anyone pricing the industry off the headline benchmarks alone is reading the strongest agencies and assuming the rest look like them. They don't.
§ 03 · The direct-purchase fearA near-majority, on the clock.
The study's sharpest single number: 51% of agencies expected significant impact from personal-lines direct-purchase within two years. That is no longer a fringe worry — it is a near-majority treating online, carrier-direct buying as an immediate competitive threat. The universe splits on the question: roughly 48% believe the independent channel is extremely resilient while 34% are concerned about direct and online competition. Both can be right, because exposure follows line mix and geography — a personal-auto-heavy agency in a direct-friendly state faces real displacement risk, while a commercial-heavy agency in an independent-agency stronghold barely feels it. The structural access problem underneath this split is the brokerage gap.
§ 04 · The slow-rolling cliffSuccession, paced.
On ownership succession, the study supplies the pacing the demographic narrative usually lacks. Among owner-operated agencies, only 6% expected an ownership change within a year, while about 33% expected one within five — essentially flat against the prior wave. The read corrects a common overstatement: the demographic wave is structurally real, but it arrives as a multi-year supply curve, not a single-year shock. Material seller volume builds over a three-to-five-year window. That pacing is exactly what the silver tsunami describes, and it is the realistic timeline against which the whole supply story should be read.
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Terminology on this shelf
- Agency Universe Study
- A long-running, whole-universe survey of independent agencies funded by an industry-and-carrier partnership — designed to represent the entire universe, not a top-performer cohort.
- Whole-universe vs. top-quartile
- The Universe Study measures every agency's experience; the Best Practices Study measures top performers' outcomes — hence the divergence in the same year.
- Operating efficiency
- The process, technology, and workflow improvements that cut per-policy operating cost — the universe's #1 named priority for 2024.
- Direct-purchase impact
- The risk that personal-lines buyers purchase directly from carriers online, bypassing the agency channel.
- Hard market
- Rising premiums, restrictive underwriting, and reduced capacity — 2024 marked the seventh consecutive hard-market year.