Small and mid-sized businesses aren’t just struggling with rising premiums – they’re also shifting into riskier territory to stay profitable. For brokers, that means a lot more than placing policies. According to Jake Hovinga (pictured), commercial lines manager at Mitch Insurance, advisory work now takes center stage.
“Ever since COVID, you’ve seen a lot of businesses diversify their revenue streams,” Hovinga said. “You don’t have just your basic contractor so much anymore.” Landscapers are moving into snow removal, framers into roofing – industries with much higher exposure and underwriting scrutiny.
What many small business owners don’t realize, Hovinga said, is that expanding into higher-risk work can have an outsized impact on overhead. “It may be great to get offered the big hundred-thousand-dollar snow removal contract, but do you know how that’s going to affect Mitch Insurance?” he said. Minimum premiums for those operations can start at $20,000. “There’s a big premium associated with those.”
These changing client behaviours are forcing brokers to take on more strategic roles. It’s no longer just about matching businesses with policies – it’s about framing the business correctly to insurers. “Our role becomes more of a storyteller role than just an interaction role with the company,” Hovinga said.
That includes helping clients understand the true cost of new contracts before they accept them. “We come in [by] making them understand the risk-reward of the premium they’ll pay versus that contract they may take on,” he said. With tighter markets, that advice can be the difference between profitability and a pricing mismatch that puts a dent in margins.
While tech platforms have streamlined quoting and placement, Hovinga said they haven’t replaced the value of broker guidance – especially in commercial lines. “I see it going to a hybrid model,” he said. “AI is going to free us up from those mundane tasks – to be better risk advisors, better risk managers, and to better educate our clients on their policies.”
At Mitch, the team uses an integration platform that pulls quotes from multiple insurers and compares coverages. That allows brokers to show clients a full coverage breakdown before recommending a product. “It makes a very detailed presentation to the client… coverage disadvantages and advantages between the companies,” Hovinga said.
With the commercial space evolving, Mitch Insurance is also pushing its team to develop deeper expertise in high-opportunity sectors like e-commerce, clean tech, and private health care. These segments have highly specific coverage requirements – from employment practices liability to surety needs under evolving employment laws.
“Me being a manager at Mitch Insurance, I try to encourage my brokers to become thought leaders and to very much educate themselves in niche industries,” Hovinga said. “You have to keep yourself very addressed. The market evolves with all those businesses, so does our education.”
The rise of private healthcare, for instance, has introduced complex risks tied to directors and officers liability, temp staffing, and compliance with changing labour laws. “There are some surety needs that have come out under the Employment Standards Act for temp agencies,” he said. These aren’t issues brokers can solve on instinct – they require staying sharp and continually building technical fluency.
As cyber exposure becomes more entrenched in underwriting conversations, brokers are expected to do more than sell a policy – they need to help clients actively manage their digital risks. “Cyber is almost the new pollution now,” Hovinga said. “Pollution was big, and now you’re into cyber.”
Underwriters are raising the bar on what’s considered basic cyber hygiene. Multi-factor authentication, secure firewalls, and vulnerability scans are becoming standard asks. Some insurers have even started offering website scanning tools to identify weaknesses that hackers could exploit. “It’s helping the client manage those types of risks,” he said.
