We’re excited to kick off 2025 with new platform features that will continue to empower agency principals and agents to take their businesses to the next level. 

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We work with some of the fastest-growing agency partners in the business. We talk with them everyday while providing them with the modern technologies and services Spark has become known for. Last year, the average Spark agency partner grew their enrollment volume by 176%. Experiencing this rapid growth with them revealed two recurring painpoints: 

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1. Keeping track of and recovering hard-earned commissions. We know this is especially a problem for fast-growing agencies that deal with the complexities of large carrier portfolios, manage multiple subagencies, and a mix of LOA and street agents.
   
   
2. Getting new agents RTS fast. Agencies are often great at recruiting, only to have agents get deflated in the tedious onboarding process required for each carrier. New sub-agencies create even more complexity, and contracting teams need ways to manage all of the data. Finally, we know principals need visibility into all of these tasks that are happening. 

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Here’s a quick look at how Spark’s new features solve for these pain points. 
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Get agencies paid accurately

Our partners work hard to win and keep their clients, and too often they’re not getting fully compensated for the business they’ve written. I haven’t met a single agency owner who is confident they get paid 100% accurately. There’s no one person to blame for this — it’s just part of the complexity of running a large, fast-growing agency. 
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Trust every override commission payment

Auditing overrides is a time-intensive task, and our partners’ time is better spent connecting with their brokers. To ensure our partners get paid for every policy they’ve written, we’re offering a new service to detect and recover unpaid overrides directly from carriers.

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This service is fully handled by Spark’s finance team, meaning agency principals no longer have to wonder if they’re being paid accurately or carry the mental load of figuring out how to secure their payments. We’ll do the heavy lifting and provide updates via email as we recover the overrides.

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This new service is part of our larger goal of helping brokers automate post-enrollment service and commissions — giving them more bandwidth to deepen their client relationships. 
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Get agents RTS fast

Spark’s agency partners are the top recruiters in the industry, growing their downline agent teams more than 50% each year. But for recruiting to really pay off, subagencies and agents need an efficient way to complete their contracting and onboarding. 
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Reduce contracting errors 

We know the top reason agencies don’t change hierarchies is the fear of contracting transfers — a tedious and frustrating task where small mistakes can lead to big problems down the road. That’s why every Spark partner now has smart contracting forms that:

1. Only show their contracted carriers
2. Ensure downlines complete the relevant form (subagency, field agent, or LOA agent)
3. Auto-populate with correct agent data via our NIPR integration
4. Are agency-branded
   
   

The result? Agents spend less time filling out forms and make fewer mistakes, getting them RTS faster. 

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Guide agents through onboarding 

Completing carrier contracts is only the first part of getting new agents up and running. We’ve heard from our partners that there needs to be transparency into the entire onboarding process: completing contracting, setting up marketing, and uploading books of business. These necessary steps ensure agents can take advantage of the features that empower them to double their production year over year.

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With the new onboarding tracker, agency principals, subagencies, and Spark know exactly where new agents are in the onboarding process and what they have to do next. Agents get a seamless onboarding experience; principals get a happier, more productive team.

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Smart contracting forms and the onboarding tracker will save our partners time and money. These features bring us a step closer to our vision of one-click contracting and set the standard for fast and frictionless onboarding. 

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In 2024 we onboarded 6,000 agents and completed 20,000 contracts — 16,000 in the three months leading up to AEP. With these new features, just imagine how big those numbers will be at the end of this year. 
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Our commitment to serving every agency, broker, and client 

We’re excited for our partners to start using these new platform features that will help take their businesses to the next level. Smart contracting forms and the onboarding tracker will roll out on the platform in February. The overrides audit service is live and facilitated via email. As always, we welcome feedback and are available to answer any questions. 

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Spark is an NMA offering technology and services on a single, industry-leading platform. Book a demo to see how Spark can help you build the insurance business of your dreams. You can also follow Spark on LinkedIn to stay up to date on platform innovations and hear success stories from the industry’s top agents and principals.  

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