For me, the most memorable quote came from a New York-based wholesaler: “Dance with the girl you brought,” he said, reportedly mimicking the advice imparted by his mother before a junior high school dance. “Dance with the people who got you where you are today,” he told fellow wholesalers. “These aren't the guys that provided us with premium in the soft market,” he said of the new retail production sources that were then calling on wholesalers and MGAs.

Oh, what a difference a softening market makes!

In this week's National Underwriter, we present a series of articles on agent-wholesaler relationships, featuring the viewpoints of retailers, wholesalers and MGAs (see pages 12-26). It's a departure from our usual special reports on the E&S market in several respects.

First, unlike most of NU's E&S/Specialty Market reports, this issue doesn't focus on a single product or class of business–such as employment practices liability (the subject of our June report), or the hospitality field (our focus in February).

Instead, the main subject is what market participants who contributed to this issue agree is the foundation of the marketplace. “It's all about the relationships,” one retail broker executive simply said.

Whether the article is authored by a retail broker, a wholesaler or MGA, or an NU reporter, you'll find the tenor of the remarks about relationships has changed.

Retail agents, who have intelligently thought through the problems of past years, are clearly setting down their own rules for navigating the E&S market. They have carefully developed guidelines for selecting wholesale brokers and MGAs, and have pared down their lists of potential partners to ensure there's enough room on their dance cards to keep everyone boogying until the music stops.

In a final departure from our usual special reports, many of the articles contained in this issue are highly subjective. Written by your agent and broker peers on the wholesale and retail sides of the E&S market, they don't report on market trends like a journalist would, but set forth opinions on making relationships work. They detail individual successes, and they postulate “Do's and Don'ts” for peers and partners.

Leading off on page 12 is Peter Taffae, a uniquely positioned former retail broker, who discusses how he would–and did–build a specialty wholesale brokerage operation from the ground up.

How would you build a wholesale brokerage if you had the opportunity? It's an interesting question both for retailers who want to find the best partners to access the E&S market, and for wholesalers and MGAs who think it might be time to get more in tune with the needs of the retail broker.

So sit back and let your peers take you through their experiences and offer suggestions on how to make the best of this softening market.