Finding value in pursuing emerging niche
markets and tech-forward strategies
By Anurag Shah
The past several years have brought opportunities for independent agents amid a hard market, evolving carrier appetites and shifting client expectations. During this time, resiliency has been a throughline for agents.
As 2026 approaches, independent agents and their clients will benefit from stabilizing rates across policies and carriers increasing access to coverage options. Conversely, many agents will see competition pick up, incenting them to strategically diversify their books of business, champion untapped niches and expand revenue drivers.
Resiliency will, as in the past, be a critical factor in addressing these challenges.
Emerging niches for independent agents
As independent agents endeavor to differentiate themselves and seek out profitable growth opportunities, niche markets can offer an effective path forward. Here are a few emerging niches independent agents should have on their radar:
- Small and mid-market business cyber liability. Cyber concerns continue to be a growing risk for businesses of all sizes. Small and mid-sized businesses are being increasingly targeted by cybercriminals, while operating underinsured. Such businesses require comprehensive cyber coverage to ensure that they are addressing their growing cyber exposures.
- Green and sustainable businesses. The rise of green and sustainable businesses has shifted the insurance needs of businesses across the board. Green operations require specialized coverage, such as carbon or solar panel insurance.
- Specialty transportation and mobility. Electric vehicle fleets, autonomous delivery service and drone logistics are just a few ways the transportation and mobility market has expanded over the last decade. These new modes of transportation present business owners and operators with complex liability and compliance challenges that an informed insurance professional can help address.
Claiming to be a niche expert
too early can backfire if the team is unprepared.
How to approach a new niche
Interest in a niche is just the beginning of expanding the resiliency of an independent agency. Entering a new niche market requires agents to prepare, train and network:
- Prepare. Identify two to three potential niches that make sense for the agency, the states it serves and the access it has to clientele. Online resources, industry research and conversations with agents or industry peers can offer invaluable insight on the opportunities within a niche, competition and carrier activity.
Such information can help agents decide which niches are worth allotting resources toward and developing a plan to effectively serve those markets. Some niches may also open the door to other revenue generating cross-selling opportunities.
- Train. If an agent’s team is not prepared to serve a new niche, it will not be successful. Agents must train their teams on the nuances of serving a particular niche, what carriers are looking for in these markets, how to communicate with the communities the niche impacts, and more. Regular training, including carrier and industry resources, ensures that incoming business is served consistently and professionally.
Claiming to be a niche expert too early can backfire if the team is unprepared.
- Engage with the community. Once an agent chooses a niche, they should get out in the community and make connections within that sector or industry. Joining trade organizations, attending conferences, and participating in committees within a niche will help establish agents as a resource in those communities and prove to potential clients that they truly understand their risks.
An important aspect of implementing a niche includes considering how this new work might disrupt the agency’s current workflow and book of business. Effective preparation and a clear communications and marketing strategy can help limit the potential of current clients noticing any shift in the agency’s operations.
Consistent client touchpoints can help ensure that their needs continue to be a priority. Such touchpoints could also reveal that the client is a prospect for an agency’s new niche offering, aiding in client retention and revenue growth.
Using technology in niche markets
Gone are the days of agents relying strictly on personal relationships and local connections to grow their businesses. Today, technology has decimated the barriers to entry for agents looking to pinpoint worthy niche markets, evaluate opportunity and carrier interest, and analyze the potential benefits of a niche for an agency.
Consider the following ways technology assists agents with identifying, planning for and implementing a new niche:
- Identifying a niche. Analytics tools can identify underserved markets in high demand, allow agents to align with what carriers are seeking, and access insights that position agents as experts in the markets they serve.
- Analyzing an agency. Such tools can analyze an agency’s current book of business to ensure that there is a balance between personal and commercial lines, best positioning the agency to navigate fluctuating market cycles. Personal lines, for example, traditionally enter hard markets faster and rebound slower, whereas commercial lines tend to be more stable.
Today, technology has decimated the barriers
to entry for agents looking to pinpoint worthy
niche markets, evaluate opportunity and
carrier interest, and analyze the potential
benefits of a niche for an agency.
Striking the right balance in an agent’s book of business helps them instill resilience throughout their operations.
- Serving a niche. Technology and analytics tools can also help generate leads, monitor market trends and automate tasks. From predictive and historical analytics to data management, technology can help agents find the right prospects, determine the types of coverage needed and assess carrier appetite to better inform client interactions.
Technology also enables cross-selling or upselling opportunities to existing clients, expanding new coverage areas while reinforcing client relationships.
With the launch of SIAA NXT and its Intelligent Distribution Platform, network members are using next-gen business intelligence system AgencyIQ to identify potential niche markets and coverage gaps compared to industry benchmarks and to build credibility within their sectors.
Using artificial intelligence (AI) and business intelligence (BI), agents are leveraging tools like AgencyIQ to make more informed decisions about what markets to spend time and resources on. These data-driven insights also help agents better serve those communities, get ahead of competition, and grow their agencies.
Market fluctuations are inevitable in the insurance industry and agents who prioritize resiliency will be best positioned to thrive regardless of which way the market sways. Niche markets allow agents to grow their expertise, expand their books of business and get ahead of their competition.
But understanding what niches make sense and how they fit within your current operations relies, in part, on data as much as determined resiliency. With an effective, thorough plan to implement a new service line into an agency, along with technology that informs how an agency best serves a new market, agents can build resilient, successful independent insurance agencies.
The author
Anurag Shah is chief data officer for SIAA and has over 15 years of technology, software, and systems development experience in insurance and related fields. SIAA is the nation’s leading network for starting, growing, and evolving independent insurance agencies with over 5,200 member agencies writing more than $17 billion in total written premium. Learn more at siaa.com.
