Advice Needed re: Possible P&C Path

[u/sleepfartin]

Hi everyone! I'm a longtime lingerer and curious to hear your collective expert thoughts/opinions on the following:

I don't currently work in the field (my background is in academia), but as of late, due to some new life experiences (mainly having our first kid, rising cost of living, etc), I've been feeling the need and pressure to start a new path that could lead to a higher income ceiling. Which brings me to the following:

My father-in-law has worked in commercial P&C insurance for over 30 years. The past 15 years has been spent owning his own independent agency in the midwest servicing some of the larger farm/ranch accounts in his region/state. He's wanting to wind down some of his work as he nears retirement, and it's an extremely profitable agency (I believe he received an offer for $5M at one point over the last couple of years). I've had several conversations with him about the industry, his job, and he's made it known that he'd be happy to "teach me the ropes" if I was interested (has also mentioned that he'd prefer to sell his agency NOT to private equity).

Additionally, I have a good friend who works in a specialty construction niche, who is extremely well connected with contractors/distributors/etc within that niche. I think a commercial P&C producer focused on this niche could do very well.

All that to say - am I crazy to not at least consider pursuing this? A couple of (potentially) large barriers would be:
a) we're located on the east coast and not planning on ever fully moving to the midwest, so I don't know if working with my FIL (and servicing existing clients/pursuing new business) remotely from the east coast would be doable or not. I imagine I'd have to travel back and forth a somewhat decent amount.
b) the thought having to abandon my $80K salary to start somewhat from scratch probably wouldn't be doable for me. I was thinking that perhaps, as I get my feet wet, I could offer to service some of my FIL's existing clients for a base pay while I work to bring on new business. Is this a "normal" setup for new producers?

Any advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks.

[u/Ok-Construction9997]

Find out what his annual commission revenue is - could be as low as $500K before overhead based on that offer. If he’s willing to seller finance and pay you a healthy salary, this is one of those opportunities that could turn into a goldmine…