This post is part of a series sponsored by SWBC.

In the past two years, real estate investors have experienced a global pandemic, a nation-wide housing boom, outbound migration from urban centers, inflation reaching 40-year highs, and steep interest rate hikes that are now beginning to cool the housing market.

Taken all together, this has been one of the most disruptive periods the rental real estate market has seen since the housing market crash of 2008. Today, your real estate investor clients are focused on protecting their bottom lines while still growing their portfolios.

As your clients’ trusted insurance broker, is critical to understand the changing market and the challenges that come with it so you can provide the most valuable support when they come to you with questions or requests for referrals.

In this article, I’d like to share valuable insights from SWBC’s Chief Economist, Blake Hastings, on

This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync.

Georgia is contesting a federal challenge to its 1332 waiver, leaving the 2023 healthcare open enrollment period in flux while the state and fed duke it out.

If some of that sounds a little garbled, then have no fear: We’re here with the basics of what we’re talking about, what the heck a 1332 waiver even is, and how we got to this point.

To begin with, let’s do a quick refresher of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and set the stage for this healthcare drama.

The Affordable Care Act and state health exchanges

Circa 2010, Congress voted the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, which created a federal exchange, a one-stop shop of ACA-compliant plans that would follow federal guidelines for minimum healthcare coverage.

The law, also known as “Obamacare,” gave states the option to start their own healthcare

This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync.

AgentSync’s roots are in the insurance industry’s pain points: The premise started from insurance professionals looking at manual and repetitive producer license compliance processes and thinking “there has to be a better way.”

As we continue to grow and change, we will rely heavily on the voices of our customers as well as the shared experience of our team, who often are sourced from industry backgrounds and attracted by the premise that the industry’s backend processes could be easier.

Take, for example, Sandy Allen who is a Solutions Architect in the Insurance Vertical. She has been with us since our inception and just so happens to be our fourth employee (we’re now over 200). If you know AgentSync, you know Sandy Allen, a key employee who brings a wealth of insurance experience to our company. Sandy exemplifies all the qualities

This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync.

State by state variations of laws, compliance protocols, industry transparency, and general regulatory cultures can lend one the impression that keeping up with industry changes is a little bit like herding cats. So, what better way to wrangle some of the more localized insurance news than in a Regulatory Roundup?

On an ongoing basis, in no particular order or rank, we’re wrestling the various regulatory changes, compliance actions, and commissioner decisions into our roundup. As a disclaimer: There’s a lot going on at any given time in these here United States, so this isn’t a comprehensive picture of state-level action by any means. Think of it as, instead, a sample platter of regulation.

Health care sharing ministries face scrutiny

Health care sharing ministries (HCSMs) aren’t insurance. But, if someone were to try to untangle how to regulate them, the closest

This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync.

Open enrollment season for benefits, both employer-sponsored and private, is approaching. Brush up on some best practices to make the season smoother at your independent agency.

For insurance agents who work in benefits, the start of fall means more than pumpkin spice everything. It’s also the start of annual open enrollment periods across the U.S.

While some employee benefits plans renew outside of the traditional period – with strange renewal dates spanning from Feb. 1 to July 1, or beyond – the vast majority of health insurance plans renew on Jan. 1 each year. This is true of most employer-sponsored group benefit plans and those found on state and federal insurance marketplaces. That means, starting around Oct. 1, it’s open enrollment time!

Across the wide world of insurance, benefits are a niche that not all producers are licensed to sell.