Keystone Insurers’ Kentucky Derby and Where It’s Going Next

Pennsylvania-based insurance agency franchisor Keystone Insurers Group has more than 200 agency owner-partners and it’s not done yet, says Colin Buzzard, Keystone’s executive vice president of sales and marketing.

Currently, Keystone has agency partners in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Ohio. Since January, the franchise operation has added another 14 member agencies – all from Kentucky-and Keystone still expects to add more in Kentucky.

It also has its sights on a neighboring state.

The process of finding the right new members depends on finding a few core agents and then relying on their recommendations of others.

“And my goodness, the recommendations they came with is a who’s who in Kentucky.,” says Buzzard “[G]reat agencies know who they want. Yes, it might be somebody that they’ve competed with in the past, but they also know that 5, 10, 20 years out, that’s the agency that’s going to make Keystone strong.”

Why Kentucky? Keystone members aren’t interested in expanding in states with negative insurance climates (sorry, Florida). They saw Kentucky as a growth opportunity. Also, there was something else growing in the Bluegrass State that impressed Buzzard: the state’s young agent movement.

“There are certain states where the associations, the PIA, the Big “I,” have really worked on growing agents, on attracting young people into the business,” he says. “Some of those states, by the way, have schools that have insurance curriculums, such as Appalachian State down in North Carolina, or Ball State in Indiana. Kentucky has that model. I mean, they really recruit people into the business and it shows. There’s nothing I like more than seeing youth come into this business. So, that’s a huge attraction. If it were the only attraction, we wouldn’t go, but again, it’s one of those things.”

Keystone has a simple method for deciding when it has enough partners in any state.

“We put an extreme amount of confidence in what our partners say. When they tell us this is enough, that’s enough. Why are you going to go against your partner’s interests? It makes no sense,” says Buzzard.

Keystone expects to add more Kentucky agencies, but Buzzard isn’t resting at there.

“I’ve started the process of looking in Tennessee. That’s probably been going on for six months.”

Listen to the Insurance Journal podcast, Why Agents Who Join Keystone Insurers Stay, in which Keystone’s Colin Buzzard speaks with Insurance Journal’s Andy Simpson (https://www.insurancejournal.tv/videos/3537/).