Your Broker Got Too Big, and Nobody Calls You Back

A homeowner with a seven-figure house on the Gulf Coast called us last week. He has a top-tier private client policy. It comes through one of the largest brokerages in the country. He couldn't get anyone there to care about his account, so he went looking for someone who would.

That's the whole story, and I'd bet it's familiar. If you're paying private client premiums in Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch or Bradenton and you can't remember the last time the same person answered twice, this post is for you.

What changed

Insurance agencies got bought. A lot of them. A deal-tracking firm, OPTIS Partners, counted 695 insurance agency mergers and acquisitions in 2025, and private equity backed or hybrid buyers made 73 percent of them. I wrote about what that does to Florida owners last month.

Here's how it plays out for a client. The agent who knew your house gets bought. Maybe he stays a year, maybe he doesn't. Your account moves to a service team. You get a name, then a different name. Then an 800 number.

I'm not claiming a conspiracy. It's math. A firm that size runs on thousands of files per person, and your house is one of them. Nobody decided to ignore you. The system just isn't built to know you.

What it costs you

Not a bad renewal on its own. Everybody gets those in Florida. What you pay for is the stuff nobody looks at.

• The renewal arrives with a big increase and no one explains it. Nobody went back out to the market. They renewed it.
• The boat, the golf cart, the art, the second home sit on separate policies or on nothing. Nobody lined them up.
• Flood was never really looked at. A standard homeowners policy doesn't cover it, and a house on the water needs a real answer, not a default.
• The umbrella doesn't match the underlying limits. If your auto and home liability limits sit below what the umbrella requires, you've got a gap you don't know about until you need it.
• Roof questions get handled badly. Age, material, last inspection. The answer you got was a form letter.

Any one of these is fixable. The problem is that nobody is looking at the whole account at once.

What a boutique broker does differently

I answer my own phone. That's not a slogan, it's the number on this site, and it rings through to me.

I look at the whole account. Home, flood, cars, boat, umbrella, the second house. Together, because that's how a claim hits you. A fire at the house and a lawsuit from the driveway land on the same family.

I take it to market every year. Admitted Florida carriers, private client carriers, and the surplus lines market through wholesale partners when a house needs it. A good renewal can stay put. A bad one gets shopped. Either way you hear from me before the deadline, not after.

A few Florida facts that matter

Roof age matters more than almost anything else on a Florida home. Many markets treat a tile roof very differently from a shingle roof, and the same house can look better or worse depending on who's reading it. An older roof doesn't automatically mean you're stuck, but you need someone who'll tell you straight what the options are.

Flood is usually its own policy. If your home sits near the water, ask who decided your flood limit and when. I covered the basics on our flood page.

And a house this size is not a Citizens house. State law caps what Citizens will write, so the market you're in is the market you need to understand. I broke that down for Longboat Key, and the same logic applies across Sarasota and Manatee counties. Our high-value home page lays out how the private client side works.

When it's not worth switching

If your broker returns your calls and knows your name, stay. If they walked you through your last renewal and told you why the number moved, stay. If they've looked at your flood, your umbrella and your cars in the same conversation, you're ahead of most people I talk to.

Switching has a cost. New paperwork, new inspections, a new relationship. It's only worth it if what you have is clearly not working. Sometimes the answer after I look at it is "you're fine, keep it." I'd rather tell you that than quote you something you don't need.

What to send me

Send your declarations pages. Home, flood, auto, umbrella, and anything else you carry. I'll look at the whole account and tell you plainly whether something better is worth your time. I can't promise a price or that a carrier will accept you before I've seen the file. I can promise you'll talk to me. Send it 45 to 60 days before renewal if you can, so there's room to take it to market.

Start with the home application, or call 941-957-2796. If you'd rather skip the form, email or text the dec pages and I'll go from there. Related pages: homeowners, flood, umbrella, auto.

This is general information, not a quote or a promise of coverage. Availability and pricing depend on your property, your claims history and the carrier's underwriting.

Sources

• OPTIS Partners 2025 agency M&A figures, via Insurance Business (full year 2025)

Coverage descriptions are general. Actual coverage is governed by the terms, conditions, and exclusions of the issued policy. Availability varies by carrier and by state.