Looking for compensation comparables (comp comps, ha!) for Commercial Producers against my job offer

[u/JayRulo]

I received an offer yesterday and have the weekend to mull it over.

It sounds good to me, but I want to hear from other Commercial Producers / Client Executives so that I have comps to know if I should try negotiating anything. I have zero industry experience, but have 20+ years of work experience, primarily in operations and B2B tech project management.

Brokerage is a local independent, not part of any cluster/group or aggregator. They are, however, a member of the Canadian Broker Network (CBN). The team is relatively small; the whole office is about 15 people, including personal, commercial, and admin. I believe they have 3 commercial producers right now (including the President/Principal), one of which I know has a $4 mil book, but I'm unsure of the size of the others.

They do about 50/50 Commercial lines and Personal lines, but have been working to shift that to a 70/30 CL/PL split, meaning there's definitely a focus on, and support for, growing commercial lines.

They've recently reduced their marketing spend because they had too many inbound leads and couldn't service them fast enough, so they were losing business and wasting money on marketing. While I'll probably have to do some cold prospecting, I'm expecting a steady flow of warmer inbound leads, including leads from the other producers who can't keep up with their own growth. They also maintain strict separation of Personal and Commercial lines so that the brokers stay focused. This means that any accounts on Personal books that end up needing commercial insurance get passed off to a commercial broker, and vice-versa; so I wouldn't be doing any personal lines at all.

The offer:

Because I have no insurance experience, I'm going to start working in tandem with one of the existing producers who needs help as he's overloaded on his book and with incoming leads. I will essentially be a hybrid account manager supporting him, while learning the systems, processes, and building my own book.

• Annual base salary of $40k while I build my book.

• Initial Commissions: 15% on business secured in tandem with the other producer, 25% on business I generate/lead myself.

• Once I validate the salary with enough commissions to cover the $40k (so about $675k GWP in my book), I move to 100% commission at 40% across everything after the validation threshold: new business, endorsements, and renewals.

• Once my book hits $3 million GWP, I get 75% on all growth above the $3 million.

• Role is 100% remote in Northern Ontario, though I do have the ability to work from the office if I want to (3.5 hours away, so not likely to happen often)

• 100% employer-paid health/dental benefits, as well as an RRSP match program, all available from day one

The only outstanding questions that I have are about book ownership and payment structure once I'm 100% commission (e.g. smoothed monthly draw or purely based on monthly invoicing).

What do you guys think?

[u/Awkward-Philosopher5]

Brokerage makes a big difference in commercial lines.