Brokers and Carriers Can Only Solve Big Problems Together

As brokers and carriers gather for this year’s Employee Benefits Leadership Forum (EBLF), we face a shared reality: our industry is under pressure to deliver real solutions to complex client problems while achieving aggressive growth and profitability goals.

Employers are counting on us to address some of their most persistent challenges: rising healthcare costs, employee retention, and providing innovative benefit strategies that balance access and affordability. Neither brokers nor carriers can solve these problems alone.

We need each other more than ever, but neither side is fully stepping up to the challenge by modernizing their partnership.

In an earlier Leader’s Edge article, “Craft over Cramming,” I argued that the insurance industry’s outdated sales and client service practices lead to inefficiencies, missed deadlines, and financial losses. I urged the industry to modernize these processes and invest in comprehensive training to enhance broker-carrier partnerships, ultimately improving profitability and reducing stress for new and experienced employees.

The same need for modernization applies here. We must be intentional about broker-carrier relationships designed to help our mutual clients.

A Business Built on Relationships Risks Breakdown

For decades, brokers and carrier representatives knew precisely who to call to get things done thanks to relationships built through years of collaboration and trust. However, those connections fade as veterans retire and new professionals enter without a clear road map. Hybrid work, higher turnover, and frequent job changes leave fewer opportunities to pass down institutional memory, and less of it to pass down in the first place.

It used to be that you could pick up the phone, call someone you trusted, and ask for a favor—a fast clarification, a workaround, or an exception to get something done for a client. But without longstanding relationships, those calls are harder to make and harder to answer. We don’t have the same built-in credibility and trust across teams that we once did; that is costing us speed and flexibility when clients need it most.

The geographic challenges of hybrid and remote-first work environments are real. Carrier reps and brokers might live states away from the markets they support, weakening the local ties that once made quick collaboration possible.

That situation is made worse by patterns we can control: asserting “we’re too busy” to engage, hiding behind email, and overemphasizing sales relationships while undervaluing the client service and implementation teams that drive renewals, problem-solving, and new product adoption.

“We’re so busy” is an excuse for brokers not doing the hard but necessary work of building partnerships. If you’re too busy to build relationships that help your clients, you’re too busy to deliver the results you promised in the sales process.

Here’s the truth: brokers cannot grow without reliable carrier partners that deliver on their commitments, and carriers cannot hit sales and retention targets without brokers advocating for them. When a broker advocates for a carrier, they put their reputation on the line. Carriers make commitments during the sales process, offering promises around contract terms, client service responsiveness, and smooth implementation. If those commitments aren’t honored, the client feels the friction first, but the broker pays the price too, spending extra time fixing problems and managing client frustration. In a world where client experience is everything, even small breakdowns in execution can strain the broker-carrier relationship and stall growth for both sides.

Our mutual clients—the employers— must trust that their broker and carrier are aligned to deliver solutions to serious challenges. Rising healthcare costs, employee dissatisfaction, and the demand for better access and affordability require bold moves. In employee benefits, any change isn’t just a financial decision—it affects every benefit-eligible employee and their dependents.

That’s why trust between brokers and carriers isn’t just a nicety—it’s essential. Employers are being asked to make big, sometimes risky, decisions, and they will only do so if they believe their partners are aligned and capable of delivering. If we don’t know or trust each other, the client will feel that hesitation, and opportunities for meaningful change will be lost.

What We’ve Learned from 1,000 Client Service Professionals

In the GenuineShift Client Service Academy, we’ve worked with over 1,000 client service professionals from brokers nationwide. A major takeaway is that many brokers haven’t called or spent time with a carrier rep outside of a transaction in recent years.

But the relationship issues go both ways. To my carrier friends—stop focusing all of your energy on producers.

Many brokerage account managers and service team members quietly (or in some cases loudly) influence client retention, new feature adoption, and efficiency initiatives. If client service doesn’t believe you’re easy to work with, “competitive” pricing or close producer ties won’t save you.

Carriers need to pay closer attention to transitioning clients from sales to implementation to delivery, since this is where most B2B friction lives. Often, innovative solutions are delayed by fear of friction. If existing clients aren’t adopting your new features or partnering broker service teams aren’t sending new clients your way, get curious as to why.

Listening to client service concerns isn’t about slowing change— it’s about protecting the client, the carrier, and the future of the relationship.

I know from experience that in many EBLF partnership meetings, carrier leadership will be tempted to downplay client service “noise.” They do so at their peril. No broker has client service staff with extra time on their hands. If your teams are too difficult to work with, brokers will notice—and they’re starting to measure it. If client service can’t take on new clients because you’re creating unnecessary friction, it won’t matter how competitive your pricing is.

In this market, being difficult to work with is a growth problem.

What Great Broker-Carrier Partnership Look Like

In an ongoing LinkedIn series, we celebrate the carrier reps GenuineShift Academy participants value the most and why. The same characteristics routinely emerge in their answers.

Brokers highlight carrier partners who are responsive, proactive, patient, and willing to engage directly with clients. They value reps who stay involved beyond the sale, supporting smooth implementations, solving problems early, and strengthening long-term partnerships.

Here’s a sample of what participants shared about their partnering carriers:

• “…always so helpful…patient with all my questions…ease my concerns.”
• “…goes above and beyond…provides prompt and thorough responses… reaches out directly to clients to help resolve issues.”
•  “…super responsive and helpful… proactive during implementation… a great team that goes above and beyond.”

Just as brokers have a clear view of what makes a carrier partner stand out, carriers have strong views about what they need from brokers to succeed.

As part of an interview activity in our Client Service Academy, participants ask carrier representatives what they wish brokers would do differently. The feedback is remarkably consistent and revealing. Carrier partners aren’t just asking brokers to recommend them for new business. They want to be positioned for success after the sale.

The most common themes? Carriers wish brokers would stay more actively involved after the sale, pay closer attention to operational details like paperwork and billing, educate clients earlier in the process, and manage decision timelines more carefully to avoid last-minute crises.

Here’s a sample of what they shared:

• “One small delay in paperwork can throw off the entire implementation…”
• “Brokers often assume their job ends when the proposal is sent, but staying involved through onboarding is critical…”

It’s about recognizing that delivering on client promises requires consistent operational partnership, strong broker-carrier alignment, and respect for the complexity of successful execution.

Growth and Client Solutions Start With Us

The way brokers and carriers work together is changing, shaped by more than just retirements and turnover. Remote work, generational shifts, and new communication habits are redefining how partnerships form—and exposing just how fragile they are. If we’ve unintentionally made it harder to build real collaboration, that’s a problem worth confronting.

Our clients don’t benefit when brokers and carriers operate in silos. They benefit when we’re aligned and able to move quickly together.

As we leave EBLF, both carriers and brokers should ask: What are we doing daily to strengthen partnerships that deliver real solutions? Growth and client outcomes depend on it— and we can’t achieve either without each other.