Selling your Commercial or Personal Insurance Agency

With a New Year upon us, many insurance agency owners are hoping to sell their agencies this year. Regardless of the bad economy, Insurance Agencies are still in demand and there is no shortage of buyers. There are a few things to remember when selling your insurance agency but your number one priority is preparation. Every business for sale has one or two legitimate buyers come along at any given time. (Hopefully early in the process). When an agency isn’t prepared to sell, you can lose a qualified buyer which will prolong or perhaps void the chances of you ever selling your agency. How do you prepare? below are a few tips:

• Have a set asking price for the agency
• Have insurance carrier and GA commission statements organized for the past 3 years
• Loss Ratios for key carriers
• An Income and Expense Report
• A Brief Profile on the agency

These few items will help initiate the selling process and keep potential buyers interested. One of the most difficult parts of selling an insurance agency is keeping it confidential. Agency owners don’t want employees, marketing reps, vendors or clients to know they’re for sale. One way to keep the sale of your agency is to hire a Business Broker to help you sell the agency. Although most Business Brokers don’t know a thing about insurance agencies, Ganisco has 20 years experience in the industry and can help you prepare, negotiaite and sell your insurance agency.