Differentiation is the Beyond Insurance word of the month, and if you think it lives only in your marketing, you’re looking in the wrong place.
Your culture is already differentiating you. The question is whether it’s doing you any favors.
Culture shows up in how producers listen. In whether people ask curious questions or rush to answers. In whether your team talks about clients like problems to be solved or people to be understood.
You can’t fake that.
Agencies love to say, “Our people are our greatest asset,” but culture isn’t slogans or pizza Fridays. It’s what you reward, what you tolerate, and what you train.
- Do you develop judgment or just product knowledge?
- Do you hire for curiosity or just resumes?
- Do you teach people how to think about risk, or just what to sell?
Culture-driven differentiation happens when your entire agency speaks the language of decisions, not just coverages. When producers feel empowered to slow down conversations instead of rushing to close. When asking better questions is celebrated more than delivering faster quotes.
That kind of culture compounds.
Clients notice consistency. They notice when every interaction feels thoughtful, not transactional. They notice when anyone on your team can hold a real risk conversation, not just the “top producer.”
And internally? Culture is how you keep good people. Especially the ones who don’t want to spend their careers chasing price shoppers and apologizing for markets they didn’t create.
In 2026, differentiation won’t come from having one star. It will come from building a bench of advisors who think, listen, and lead the same way.