Connect with us

Technology

Darkhorse Releases Inaugural Insurance Agent Independence Index, Revealing Biggest Barriers to Agency Ownership

Published

on

The survey of 1,001 U.S. insurance agents finds financial risk and operational burden are equally significant obstacles to greater independence.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Darkhorse Insurance Brokers, an agency ownership platform for insurance professionals, today released the 2026 Darkhorse Index of Insurance Agent Independence, a new recurring benchmark measuring how U.S. insurance agents view income, autonomy, agency ownership and the future of the industry. The first Index registered a score of 66.2 out of 100, establishing a national baseline for tracking changes in agent sentiment over time.

Darkhorse Insurance Brokers, an agency ownership platform for insurance professionals, today released the 2026 Darkhorse Index of Insurance Agent Independence, a new recurring benchmark measuring how U.S. insurance agents view income, autonomy, agency ownership and the future of the industry.

The national survey, conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Darkhorse, reveals a notable gap between agents’ interest in greater independence and their readiness to pursue it. Over half of non-owner agents say they are likely to explore greater independence or agency ownership if the right platform, support system, and resources exist. Among the 427 respondents who rated themselves likely to explore greater independence or agency ownership, 85% selected a timeframe of one to five years when asked when they would most likely act if they pursued such a move.

Operational concern is as significant a barrier as financial concern, with each category accounting for 32% of the barriers agents report. The risk of losing current income or stability is the leading individual barrier at 20%. The financial and operational categories reflect Darkhorse’s grouping of individual survey responses.

“Insurance agents are not short on ambition. What many are missing is a support system that helps them navigate the transition to ownership and replace the operational infrastructure they currently rely on,” said Dan Garzella, founder of Darkhorse Insurance Brokers. “The Index gives the industry a clearer picture of what agents want, the barriers they face, and where better infrastructure and support could make ownership more attainable.”

Key Takeaways

Agents are more confident in reaching their professional goals than satisfied with their current agency models: 79% of agents are confident in their ability to achieve their professional goals, but only 66% are satisfied with their current agency model. The gap widens from 13 to 17 points among captive and semi-captive agents.Most agents associate greater structural freedom with greater earning potential: 78% of agents believe they could earn significantly more with greater flexibility over how they operate, grow, and serve clients.Agency owners reported the highest level of satisfaction: 91% of agency owners are satisfied with their current model, compared with 63% of captive and semi-captive agents and 57% of independent non-owner agents.Owners see industrywide obstacles to building meaningful ownership: 59% of agency owners agree that the insurance industry makes meaningful ownership difficult to build – the highest share of any agent segment.Operational burden rivals financial risk: Operational and financial concerns each account for 32% of reported barriers. Operational barriers include running an independent operation, hiring and retaining talent, obtaining back-office support, accessing carriers and implementing technology and systems.Most agents likely to explore greater independence or ownership select a one-to-five year timeframe: 85% of respondents who rated themselves likely to explore greater independence or ownership selected a timeframe of one to five years when asked when they would most likely act if they pursued such a move.

Building a Better Path to Agency Ownership

The findings suggest that ownership remains attractive, but the path to it presents substantial friction. Financial risk and operational complexity emerge as the two broadest categories of concern. Darkhorse is designed to reduce those pain points by providing carrier access, operational infrastructure, onboarding, training, and ongoing agency-success support – reducing the burden of building and operating every component of an independent agency alone.

“The agents who have reached ownership are telling us two things at once: the outcome is worth it, and the process is harder than it should be,” said Garzella. “Our goal is to remove unnecessary operational friction so qualified agents can build something of their own without having to construct every part of the business from scratch.”

The Darkhorse platform supports agents across critical functions that can otherwise make ownership difficult, allowing agency owners to focus more of their time on clients, growth, and long-term enterprise value.

The full 2026 Darkhorse Index of Insurance Agent Independence, including detailed findings and methodology, is available at darkhorseinsurance.com/insurance-agent-independence-index. Insurance professionals interested in evaluating their readiness for agency ownership can visit readiness.darkhorseinsurance.com.

Methodology

The 2026 Darkhorse Index of Insurance Agent Independence is based on a survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Darkhorse Insurance Brokers. The survey was conducted through computer-assisted telephone interviewing from June 17 to July 7, 2026, among 1,001 U.S. insurance agents. Results from the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The sample included 480 captive and semi-captive agents, 347 independent non-owner agents, and 174 independent agency owners. Results are unweighted, and subgroup margins of error are wider.

About Darkhorse Insurance Brokers

Darkhorse Insurance Brokers is an agency ownership platform that helps qualified insurance professionals build, own, and grow independent agencies. Darkhorse combines carrier access, operational infrastructure, onboarding, training, business guidance, and ongoing agency-success support to help owners move forward with greater clarity, confidence, and momentum. Agency owners build and operate under their own brands while benefiting from the resources, guidance, and support of an experienced partner. Learn more at darkhorseinsurance.com.

Media Contact

Shayna Zeigen, Darkhorse Insurance Brokers, 1 619-608-4300, shayna@perceptionprllc.com, https://darkhorseinsurance.com/

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prweb.com/releases/darkhorse-releases-inaugural-insurance-agent-independence-index-revealing-biggest-barriers-to-agency-ownership-302884522.html

SOURCE Darkhorse Insurance Brokers

Continue Reading

Technology

Lumos Launches MCP Governance to Provide Agent Runtime Security

Published

on

By

Security and IT teams get visibility and control over MCP usage and agent tool calls, starting with Claude Code and Codex.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Lumos, the identity management platform for the agentic era, is releasing MCP Governance for Claude Code and Codex. MCP Governance checks an AI agent’s permissions at the moment it acts, and blocks the action if policy does not allow it.

Enterprises are rolling out AI coworkers faster than they can govern them. An agent inherits the permissions of the person who launched it, and then works at machine speed. A single employee might delete one Salesforce record by mistake, but their agent can delete a thousand in seconds.

“We spent twenty years learning to govern humans, and we still have not finished,” said Andrej Safundzic, CEO and co-founder of Lumos. “Now we have agents doing the same work ten times faster. Just here at Lumos, with fewer than 200 employees, we measured over 450,000 agent actions in a single week. That kind of scale is impossible to track with old methods.”

The industry has answered this problem with inventory, but registering every agent only tells a security team that an agent exists. It does not tell them what that agent can reach, and it does not tell them what it did.

Lumos is taking a different position. Permissions set the upper bound of what an agent is allowed to do. What the agent actually does happens at runtime, and until now identity teams have had no way to govern that moment. MCP Governance moves the decision to the point of action.

“The teams I talk to are not trying to slow AI down. They are trying to say yes,” said Safundzic. “One customer would not turn on an integration for their marketing team because too many people had access to the underlying tool. That decision cost them pipeline. Governance at the moment of action is how you turn that no into a yes.”

“Identity has always governed what someone is allowed to do,” said Leo Mehr, co-founder of Lumos. “It has never governed what they actually did, because humans move slowly enough that review after the fact was good enough. Agents changed that. By the time you review an agent’s activity, it has already made a few thousand decisions. The only place left to govern is the moment before the action runs.”

MCP Governance extends the work Lumos has already done on non-human identity. Lumos maps every identity and permission across human, machine, and AI identities. MCP Governance covers the other half of the problem, which is control over what those identities do.

MCP Governance is available today for teams running Claude Code and Codex, with support for more agents to follow.

Learn more about MCP Governance by scheduling a demo today.

About Lumos

Lumos is the first identity platform built around autonomous agents, not manual workflows. Security teams use Lumos to give every human, machine, and AI agent a living control layer that watches and governs access in real time. Traditional identity governance was built for human workflows and periodic reviews. AI makes the problem bigger, messier, and faster: more identities to protect, more permissions to govern, and less time to catch abuse. Lumos helps teams at companies like Mars, Netskope, Assurant, and GitLab move faster, reduce risk, and prove compliance, all while keeping humans in control.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lumos-launches-mcp-governance-to-provide-agent-runtime-security-302886418.html

SOURCE Lumos

Continue Reading

Technology

Ande Raises $52M Seed and Series A to Launch The First Entertainment Operating System For Enterprises

Published

on

By

Ande brings corporate entertainment into a single platform and gives venues a direct channel to enterprise bookings.

NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ande, the AI-native network for corporate entertainment, emerges from stealth with more than $52 million in seed and Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Duration Ventures, and Sierra Ventures, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures.

Enterprises spend an estimated $325 billion a year on entertainment from client dinners and team outings to catering, sporting events, and gifting. Yet the booking and expense management behind it is fragmented across credit cards, AP systems, and consumer apps creating an extremely manual reconciliation process for finance teams.

Ande brings structure to one of the last unmanaged categories of enterprise spend by giving teams a single platform to book entertainment effortlessly, while finance and legal teams keep full visibility and control over every dollar spent.

Ande’s agentic workflows surface venue availability, book experiences, route approvals, execute contracts, and reconcile expenses automatically. Executive assistants, office managers, field marketers, GTM teams, and their managers all work together in a single, multiplayer workspace in order to book team offsites and deal-closing dinners, while the agents move each request through approval, signing, and payment.

More than 60 enterprises already run their entertainment on Ande, reporting savings of 12 to 15 percent. Customers like Cloudflare, Salesforce, McGraw Hill, Netskope, Navan, Sigma Computing, Monday.com, Workato, Semgrep, Checkout, Rillet, and many more contribute to over $400 million in entertainment spend flowing through the platform annually.

“Entertainment is one of the most important things a company does. It builds culture, closes deals and deepens the relationships that matter most. Yet the infrastructure to manage it is broken on both sides of every transaction,” said Lohit Sarma, CEO and co-founder of Ande.

“Ande is the first enterprise channel between corporate buyers and the world’s best entertainment vendors. Part of the reason this is such a hard problem to solve is that venues and entertainment providers don’t have a centralized distribution system to plug into. We had to build it. We’ve spent two and half years working with venues to digitize their data, and train models and agents for these workflows that are unique to enterprises,” continued Sarma.

For venues on the other side of the transaction, Ande is the corporate sales and marketing channel that never existed. Venues have historically had no pipeline into the corporate market. Ande gives them a platform to market to, engage with, and transact with corporate buyers at scale. Among the current partners are 1,600 hospitality venues including some of the largest and most decorated hospitality groups like Altamarea Group, Che Fico, Gracious Hospitality, JKS, The Mina Group, MML, Nobu, Riviera Dining Group, Tao Group Hospitality, Unapologetic Foods, Bacchus Management Group, Wish You Were Here, and Wolfgang Puck. Over 93,000 entertainment venues are on Ande’s network today.

“Our programs are high stakes and high visibility, with our executive leadership team and key customers at the core of each event we host,” said Vicky Chung, Director of Corporate Events at Netskope. “My team and I trust Ande’s platform, and especially the team behind it. I have real-time visibility into what’s happening across every event, and when I need something done right, I know it will be. My team is now focused on reaching the executives that matter and scaling the program vs. worrying about the logistics.”

“Entertainment is every enterprise’s biggest expense line that is not yet well managed. For that reason, there are financial inefficiencies and a poor experience,” notes Arif Janmohamed, Venture Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Co-Founder of Duration Ventures. “Ande is the connective tissue, the perfect handshake between corporations and venues. Lohit is an exceptional founder, and the size of the market opportunity is largely unbounded.”

Redpoint Ventures Managing Director Alex Bard notes, “Particularly when we invest in an early-stage company, our confidence has everything to do with the founder and their ambition. Lohit has both startup DNA and the enterprise experience to solve this problem. His vision for Ande is bold and ambitious.”

About Ande

Ande is the AI-native network for corporate entertainment. Over 60 enterprises, including Cloudflare, Salesforce, and McGraw Hill already book, manage, and measure every experience through Ande, moving more than $400 million a year through a network of 93,000 entertainment providers across 90+ cities. For the vendors on the other side of the transaction, Ande is the dedicated corporate channel that’s never existed. Learn more at ande.ai.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ande-raises-52m-seed-and-series-a-to-launch-the-first-entertainment-operating-system-for-enterprises-302885220.html

SOURCE Ande

Continue Reading

Technology

Ascensus Appoints John Shapiro as Chief Product Officer

Published

on

By

Experienced product leader to help strengthen client-centered innovation and advance the company’s next phase of growth

DRESHER, Pa., Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ascensus, the engine at the center of America’s savings ecosystem, today announced that John Shapiro has joined the company as Chief Product Officer and a member of the executive leadership team. Reporting directly to CEO Nick Good, Shapiro will shape Ascensus’ enterprise-wide product vision and strengthen how the company develops and delivers products, makes decisions, and sets priorities across the business.

As Ascensus continues to enhance the client experience and position the company for its next phase of growth, strong product leadership will play an increasingly important role in helping connect client insights, business priorities, and technology to create more integrated solutions and better outcomes. Shapiro will lead the Product organization and help foster unified, client-focused, and outcome-oriented approaches to product development across the enterprise.

“Ascensus has tremendous momentum, and we’re investing in the capabilities that will help drive our next phase of growth,” said Nick Good, CEO of Ascensus. “Delivering an exceptional client experience is central to that strategy. We want to make it easier for clients and partners to do business with us while creating more connected solutions and better outcomes. John brings a powerful combination of client focus, product leadership, and business acumen, and I’m excited about the impact he will have as we continue to grow and evolve.”

“Ascensus stands out for its clear purpose, talented team, and unique position in the market,” said John Shapiro. “I’m thrilled to join the company at such an important time and help build on its strong foundation by creating solutions and experiences that deliver greater value for clients, partners, and savers.”

Shapiro joins Ascensus from Lightspeed Commerce, where he served as Chief Product Officer. Earlier in his career, he held product leadership roles at Wayfair, Intuit, and Adobe Systems. Throughout his career, he has built and led large-scale product organizations, bringing new ideas to market and helping businesses serving millions of users accelerate growth.

Shapiro earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.

About Ascensus
Ascensus is the engine at the center of America’s savings ecosystem. The company makes saving easier by bringing together intuitive technology, AI, and high-touch service to support better financial outcomes for savers, small- to mid-sized businesses, state governments, and leading corporations and financial institutions. Ascensus offers comprehensive qualified and nonqualified retirement plan solutions, third-party retirement plan administration, 529 education and ABLE savings program administration, corporate- and bank-owned life insurance solutions, as well as fiduciary and total rewards services. The company supports over 16 million savers1 and oversees more than $1.3 trillion in assets under administration2 as of August 3, 2026. For more information, visit ascensus.com.

1 Figure includes American Trust Retirement recordkeeping participants
2 Figure includes AmericanTCS AUA

Contact:
Greg Winter, SVP of Communications, Ascensus
gregory.winter@ascensus.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ascensus-appoints-john-shapiro-as-chief-product-officer-302886387.html

SOURCE Ascensus

Continue Reading

Trending