The Future of Insurance Sales Isn’t About Price—It’s About People
Tropolis is an innovative insurance broker dedicated to empowering independent insurance agencies with the tools, technology, and support for accelerated growth. This article is part of a series featuring insights and stories from our valued Tropolis partners and employees.
My name is Jesse Wilk, and I’m a commercial lines producer with Tropolis Insurance.
I specialize in contractors, manufacturing, and habitational risks. What sets me apart as an agent is my ability to connect with people from all walks of life and take complex, technical information—like business insurance—and make it simple and understandable. To me, insurance isn’t a transaction; it’s about protecting the assets, livelihoods, and life’s work of my clients. This career isn’t just a job—it’s a lifelong journey I share with the people I serve.
That’s why I don’t see my role as just binding policies—I see it as protecting what truly matters.
Why I focus on protecting what matters, not just binding policies.
Most people think insurance is about selling policies. I don’t. I believe it’s about earning the kind of trust where, when something goes wrong, I’m the first call my client makes—not their last.
When someone chooses me as their insurance partner, they’re not looking for a stack of papers with coverage limits and exclusions. They’re looking for stability, security, and someone who will help them make sense of the risks that could threaten what they’ve worked for. My job isn’t to hand them a policy—it’s to take uncertainty off their plate and give them the confidence to move forward without second-guessing their protection.
The first thing I ask myself with every client is: What are they really trying to protect? It’s rarely just about a building, inventory, or equipment. It might be the livelihoods of their employees, the reputation they’ve built over decades, the continuity of their business after a disaster, or simply the time they can’t afford to waste if something goes wrong. I don’t assume I know—I ask questions, and then I ask better ones. The deeper I go, the more I can tailor their coverage so it’s aligned with what they value most. That’s when we shift from talking about what insurance costs to what it’s worth.
Data is an important part of my work. Loss histories, industry trends, claims patterns—they all help me assess risk. But numbers can’t tell the full story. Listening to a business owner explain the challenges they’ve faced, the growth they’re pursuing, or the mistakes they’ve learned from gives me insight no spreadsheet can match. My role is to combine that human perspective with data to design a plan that works not just on paper, but in real life.
Trust is built through those conversations. If a client only hears from me at renewal time, I haven’t done my job. I want to be the person they call when something feels off—before it becomes a claim. That happens when I’m proactive: checking in after a change in operations, reviewing policies when laws shift, or simply asking how business is going. I stay engaged because relationships don’t grow on autopilot.
And in a world where nearly anyone can pull an instant quote online, I have to ask myself: What makes me different from every other broker? For me, it’s that I’m not chasing the lowest premium; I’m chasing the best protection. I ask sharper questions, present clearer choices, and fight harder for my clients when it matters most. I’m not just “servicing” accounts—I’m advocating for them.
Technology helps me do that better. Tools like CRMs, data analytics, and automation make the process faster and more precise. But they’re there to support the relationship, not replace it. A renewal reminder in a system is useful—but it’s the personal call that matters. Automation can send a checklist—but it can’t hear the hesitation in someone’s voice and know to ask a follow-up question.
The future of insurance sales isn’t about selling more policies. It’s about understanding what protection means to each client and delivering it in a way that makes them feel seen, supported, and prepared.
That’s not just my business model—it’s my promise.