Chris Burand
Chris Burand is the Owner/Founder of Burand & Associates, LLC. Chris is the only insurance agency consultant with an Institute of Business Appraiser’s Certified Business Appraiser Accreditation and one of the very few who are certified by the two largest E&O carriers to provide audits for agencies. With more than 35 years of experience in the insurance industry, Chris is acknowledged as a leading consultant and is a nationally recognized speaker and author. His broad experience and wealth of knowledge have enabled him to work with hundreds of agencies, taking great care to learn the client’s goals and understand their needs while developing a solution for their specific situation.
Chris combines education, experience, and knowledge from multiple perspectives at proven levels that few other consultants or educators can provide. This enables Chris to provide holistic solutions. Chris’s services help agencies, individuals, and carriers identify strengths and opportunities, optimize productivity and profits, implement real-world strategies, leverage resources, and develop realistic plans of action in order to maximize profitable growth.
Chris established Burand & Associates in 1992 (originally known as Growth Planning). As a consultant, Chris has consulted with hundreds of agencies and many major insurance carriers. He built and now facilitates two insurance agency networking associations. He is also a featured speaker across the continent. To date, he has presented more than 400 seminars and educational programs, and his articles have also been published more than 500 times. He is a monthly columnist for The Insurance Journal, a past columnist for American Agent & Broker for eleven years, and his articles have appeared in Rough Notes, The National Underwriter, A.M. Best, many regional insurance publications, and many other trade publications. He also publishes Burand’s Insurance Agency Adviser for independent insurance agents.
Areas of Expertise
Insurance Agency Appraisals: Chris Burand’s professional services include appraisals for Acquisitions and Sales, Buy/Sell Agreements, Mergers, Dissolutions, and Perpetuation Planning.
Contingency Contract Analysis: Contingency contracts offer opportunities to increase compensation through negotiations and strategically placing business. Chris Burand’s Contingency Contract Analysis® service provides the information agents need to take advantage of those opportunities.
Note: Chris Burand and Burand & Associates, LLC are advocates of agencies which constructively manage and improve their contingency contracts by learning how to negotiate and use their contingency contracts more effectively. We maintain that agents can achieve considerably better results without ever taking actions that are detrimental or disadvantageous to the insureds. We have never and would not ever recommend that an agent and/or agency implement a policy of, or otherwise advocate, increasing its contingency income ahead of the insureds’ interests.
PEP® (Productivity Enhancement): Chris’s innovative statistical algorithm method for identifying procedural consistency, compliance, activity cost, and opportunity cost savings.
Carrier MD® Stability Analysis: A unique analytical method for creating opportunities to learn negotiating points and insurance carrier stability from an agency’s perspective.
Producer Compensation Plans: Chris Burand develops plans that increase profits and motivate producers.
E&O and Hard Markets: How Trying to Keep a Client Might Cause Trouble
What you don't know can hurt you, especially in a hard market where agents must find new carriers to replace coverage for many clients. Chris Burand is bringing this new session all about the E&O exposures that are created because an agent has to find a new insurance carrier to write policies due to hard market conditions.
Hard Markets, Wildfires, and More. A Panel Conversation
A hard market cycle unlike anything we have seen in recent history, the 2024 hurricane season, and 2025 CA wildfires are all making their impacts on the insurance market in the US. We have brought together two insurance thought leaders in Chris Burand and Fred Fisher to discuss these topics and more in a fast-paced hour including their thoughts on these topics and more. You won’t want to miss this conversation.
Predicting 2025: Company Appetites, Underwriting, Competition, and Capacity
Are you struggling with managing your carrier relationships? Are you frustrated by their seemingly random actions? Are you frustrated with their inconsistency? Do you ever wonder how, if their predictive modeling is so good that now they must raise rates by 30% because they’re surprised by global warming?
Staying ahead of your carriers’ actions is difficult even in good times, much less in the hardest of hard markets. In this presentation, Chris will discuss five keys to understanding and getting ahead of your carriers’ actions. Your carrier relations don’t need to be shrouded in mystery. Join Chris to learn how to take proactive control of your carrier relations.
Emerging E&O Risks for Agencies
There is no shortage of people who are willing to discuss how to avoid an E&O claim, but there aren't many as qualified as Chris Burand to truly bring a deep understanding of the E&O issues that agents face. Join us as Chris brings this new session about the changing E&O landscape to help agents understand their risks and manage them properly.
The E&O of E&S: Avoiding the Pitfalls of the Surplus Market
When the market is hard or the risk is hard to place, the surplus lines market is often a viable alternative to placing a risk with an admitted carrier. That isn't to say that it isn't complicated. It's very complicated. It's not like picking between two personal auto carriers, whose rates and forms are so similar that they would require hours of painstaking review to determine the differences. Join us as Chris Burand brings his take on working with the surplus lines carriers and brokers and what the implications for an agency might be.
Agency Perpetuation: Ownership Transition
Every business owner must eventually face the prospect of transitioning out of their business, and handing it over to someone else to steward and care for it. The transition from one owner to the next is a difficult time for any business, but with the right planning and preparation, the transition can be handled smoothly. Join us as agency perpetuation expert, Chris Burand brings us this important session.
E&O Issues You Didn't See Coming: A Two-Part Series
The insurance world is a place of emerging and evolving risks. Just because insurance agencies serve their clients' risk management and insurance needs doesn't mean that their risk management needs are being met. In this special two-part session, Chris Burand brings us an update on the E&O issues that the insurance world is facing today.
How to Hire and Develop New Producers (2-part series)
After real estate, people are usually the largest expense normally incurred by businesses. Add to that, the cost incurred when the wrong person is hired, the right person is hired but isn't trained well, or the team isn't led well. That's why Chris Burand is bringing us this 2-part class on hiring and developing producers.
If you are hiring now, or you're planning to hire soon, you need to join us for this class.
Why Becoming a Boutique Agency is Critical for Your Success
This presentation is based on the importance of agents learning their coverages deeply so they can be true advisors to their clients because the alternative, simply placing insurance that may or may not be adequate will be done by software and agencies earning materially less commission in the near future. Join us as Chris Burand brings his expertise on coverages to this highly timely topic.
Why Titling Yourself as a Risk Manager is an Invitation to be Sued
What's in a name? Much and in many ways, especially if that name is risk manager and you're really not one.
Join us as Chris Burand helps agents idea that they are probably not risk managers and why it's important that they avoid calling themselves such.