What Agencies Look for in an IMO: A Buyer's Checklist

November 4, 2026 · Nohl

Look for an IMO the way you would any vendor that touches your floor: verify the operating support in writing before compensation comes up. Set your scorecard weights first, send eight questions in writing, watch a live demo of the technology, and have a lawyer read the agreement. If the answers are promises with no owner, no document and no demo, keep looking.

This is the agency's side of the table. For how IMOs win agencies, read how IMOs recruit agencies: the pipeline and the pitch. For what a well-run hierarchy does day to day, read how to run an IMO: operations, visibility and downline support.

The eight-question vetting checklist

Send these in writing before the first call. Written answers can be compared side by side and can be pointed to later. Verbal answers on a call can't.

What will my producers have on day one: leads, a script and playbook, technology, and a named person? Show me the document that says so.
Who sources leads, how are they routed to agents, and what do I control versus what you control?
How do you handle lead rules across the agencies in the hierarchy, so my leads are not pulled into someone else's queue?
Who do my producers call when a compliance question comes up on a live call, and how fast do they get an answer?
What written training and playbook do I get, who delivers it, and over what period?
Which technology is live today, which parts are on the roadmap, and will you put that distinction in writing?
How will I see how my agents are doing without asking you for a report?
What does leaving look like: notice period, chargeback handling, and who owns the book of business and the customer records?

Read the answers for three things: a named owner, a document, and a date. An answer with none of the three is a promise.

Start with the floor, not the pitch

Most IMO conversations open with carriers and compensation because that is what the IMO wants to talk about. Flip it. Before you take a call, write down what your floor needs in its first 90 days.

Floor need	What to write down before the call	What to ask the IMO to show
Leads	Sources you trust, the volume your producers can work, your cost ceiling per lead	The routing process, in writing
Playbook	Scripts, objection handling, call review standard	The actual playbook and who maintains it
Technology	Dialer, CRM, recordings, reporting you need on day one	A live demo with your use case
People	Who answers when a new producer stalls	Names, roles and response times

Then ask the IMO to show how each of the four reaches your reps. Not how it reaches the agency owner. How it reaches the producer on the phone at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday.

Score the answers before compensation comes up. Once a commission schedule is on the table, every other answer gets graded on a curve. Keep the order: floor first, money second.

Build the weighted scorecard before the first interview

Set the weights before you talk to anyone. If you set them after the demos, you will weight whatever the best presenter was good at.

Category	Weight (you set, total 100)	Score 0 to 5	Weight × score	Evidence you saw
Leads	W1
Playbook and training	W2
Technology	W3
People and support	W4
Compliance support	W5
Contract terms	W6

Formula: Total = (W1 × S1 + W2 × S2 + W3 × S3 + W4 × S4 + W5 × S5 + W6 × S6) ÷ 5. With weights that add to 100, the total is out of 100.

How to score each category:

0: No answer, or an answer with no owner.
1 to 2: A promise with no document and no date.
3: A document exists, but you could not see it working.
4: A document plus a demo or a reference you can check.
5: All of the above, plus the IMO put it in the agreement.

Add a knockout rule. Pick one or two categories that are must-haves for your floor. If an IMO scores 0 or 1 in one of them, it is out, regardless of the total. A high total can hide a hole you cannot live with.

Score each IMO separately, ideally by two people on your side (you and your sales manager), then compare. Big gaps between your two scores tell you which answer was vague.

Ask how leads actually reach your reps

Leads are where an IMO's support turns into your producers' daily output. Ask these specifics:

Who sources the leads? The IMO, a vendor it contracts with, or you? Get the name of the arrangement, not a brand slogan.
How are leads routed to agents? Round robin, by producer tier, by state, by who asks first? Ask for the rule in writing.
How does the IMO handle lead rules across agencies in the hierarchy? If a lead program serves many agencies, your agency's volume and ordering depend on a rule you did not write. Find out what that rule is.
What do you control, and what does the IMO control? Can you assign leads to your own reps? Can you pause a source that is not working? Who decides when a source is dropped?
What does a lead cost you, and who sees it? If the IMO passes cost through, ask how you will see what you paid and what each source produced.

A good answer sounds like a process: here is the source, here is the rule, here is what you can change, here is where you see the result. A weak answer sounds like a relationship: we take care of our agencies.

Ask who answers the compliance question

Compliance is where an IMO's support is hardest to verify and most expensive to find out was missing. Do not ask "do you help with compliance?" Everyone says yes. Ask the operating questions:

Who do my reps call when a compliance question comes up on a live call? A name or a desk, not "we're always available."
How fast is the answer? Ask for a response time and what happens when the person is out.
What training and written playbook do I get? Ask to read it. Check that it has a date and an owner.
How does the IMO review calls? Is there a sample reviewed against written standards on a schedule?
Which compliance decisions stay with my agency? For scripts, lead sources and how your reps work their lists, ask: which of these does the IMO handle, and which stays with you? Then have your own counsel confirm that split.

An IMO that tells you it takes care of compliance for you is telling you something that cannot be true. Ask the IMO to state in writing which compliance tasks it performs and which stay with your agency. What a good IMO provides is a written standard, training, someone to ask, and a review process.

Check the technology in a live demo

Ask for a live demo, not a slide. Hand them a scenario from your floor and watch them run it:

A new producer joins today. Show me how they get into the system and what they see first.
I have 200 new leads and four producers. Show me how I assign them.
A producer's calls got worse this week. Show me how I find out and how I review them.
I need to see what happened on the floor yesterday. Show me where.

If the IMO provides technology, it should be able to answer all four live. Stay away from "we can set that up" as an answer to something that should already work.

For reference, here is how a demo should feel when the product does what it claims. Mogul lets agency owners assign leads and manage their reps from one place. That is a specific claim you can test: ask a vendor to do your lead assignment and rep management live, in front of you, and compare the answer to whatever the IMO's platform shows.

Then ask the roadmap question directly: which parts are live today and which are on the roadmap? Get the answer in writing. Features on a roadmap have no date you can hold anyone to unless you write the date down. If a capability matters to your decision, it should be live at signing or named in the agreement.

One more point. Ask whether you are required to use the IMO's technology, or whether you can bring your own. Some IMOs require one platform for reporting and recordings across the hierarchy; others let agencies choose from an approved list. Either can work. What matters is that you know which one you are signing up for, and what it costs you to switch later.

IMO vs FMO for insurance agencies

The labels IMO, FMO and MGA overlap, and different organizations use them differently. Do not choose on the acronym. Choose on what the organization actually does for your floor:

Does it hold the carrier relationships you need for the products you sell?
Does it run its own lead programs, or point you to vendors?
Does it provide training and a playbook, or only contracting?
Does it provide technology, and which parts of it?
Who is your day-to-day contact, and how many agencies does that person support?

The last question matters most and gets asked least. One success manager supporting many agencies gives each agency less attention. Ask for the ratio, and ask what happens to your support when the IMO signs ten more agencies.

Read the agreement for the parts that cost you money

The agreement is where every promise either shows up or does not. This checklist is in general terms. It is not a substitute for a lawyer, and you should have one read the document before you sign.

Item	What to look for	Question for your lawyer
Commission schedule	How it is set, when it can change, and whether changes need your consent	Can the IMO change the schedule unilaterally, and with how much notice?
Chargebacks	Who bears them, how they are calculated, how long the window runs	What happens to chargebacks if I leave or if a producer leaves?
Termination notice	Notice period for each side, and any cost to leave	Can the IMO end the agreement faster than I can?
Book of business	Who owns the book and how it is handled after termination	What happens to my existing clients if I leave?
Customer records	Who owns the records, who can access them, and what you can export	Can I take my records with me, and in what format?
Support commitments	Whether the onboarding plan and support are written into the agreement	Are the support promises binding, or only in the sales deck?

Two habits help. First, take every promise from the sales conversation and ask where it appears in the agreement. If it does not, ask for it to be added. Second, ask what happens at the end: leaving costs are the cheapest thing to negotiate before you sign and the most expensive thing to discover afterward.

This guide does not discuss commission amounts or overrides. Those figures vary by carrier, product and contract, and you should get them from the IMO in writing and from your own lawyer or advisor.

Signals that should stop the conversation

Some answers are not worth scoring. Stop and walk away, or at least pause, when you hear these:

No written onboarding plan. If the IMO cannot show you what your first 90 days look like, it does not have one. See how to onboard a new downline agency: the IMO's 90-day plan for what a real plan contains.
Support described only as a promise. "We're here for you" with no names, no response times and no documents.
No way to see how your agents are doing without asking. If you have to request a report to know what your own floor did yesterday, you have given up visibility you need.
Pressure to sign before you have the agreement. If you are asked to commit before you can read the document, that tells you how the relationship will go.
A demo that only shows slides. If the technology exists, it can be shown live.
Vague answers on who owns the book and the records. This is the most expensive question to leave open.
Refusal to put anything in writing. If a promise is real, it can be written down.

One stop signal is not a verdict, but two should end the conversation.

Where Nohl fits, and where it does not

Nohl is software for phone sales: a dialer, CRM and video meetings in one place, with live coaching for reps during calls. Mogul is the agency owner's side of it, where you assign leads and manage your reps from one place. For how the dialer, CRM and video meetings fit together for a team, see team visibility for agencies.

Carrier contracting and commissions come from your IMO, FMO or carriers. Software does not replace the contracting relationship, the lead program or the people who support your floor. It is one of the things you evaluate in the scorecard above, under technology.

A fair way to use this guide: score the IMOs you are considering, then check what technology each provides and whether it meets your floor's needs. If an IMO's technology is strong, good. If it is weak or optional, you can evaluate software on its own. Either way, you decide with the scorecard, not the pitch.

What to do this week

Write your floor's first-90-day needs in leads, playbook, technology and people.
Set your scorecard weights and your one or two knockout categories.
Send the eight questions in writing to every IMO on your list.
Schedule live demos with your own scenarios.
Score each IMO separately with a second person on your side.
Give the finalist's agreement to a lawyer before you sign.

If you want to see how an agency owner assigns leads and manages reps from one place, see Mogul for agencies and IMOs.

Have a lawyer read any agreement before you sign.

This is general information, not legal advice. Check your state's rules and talk to your compliance team or an attorney.

Frequently asked questions

How do I choose an IMO for my insurance agency?

Write down what your floor needs in its first 90 days (leads, playbook, technology, people), set weighted scorecard categories before you talk to anyone, send eight questions in writing, watch a live demo and have a lawyer read the agreement before you sign.

What questions should I ask an IMO before signing?

Ask what your producers get on day one, who sources and routes leads, who answers a compliance question on a live call, what training you receive, which technology is live today, how you see your agents' activity, and what leaving looks like, including chargebacks and who owns the book and customer records.

What is the difference between an IMO and an FMO for agencies?

The labels overlap and organizations use them differently. Judge each one on what it does for your floor: carrier relationships, lead programs, training, technology and the support ratio, meaning how many agencies each success contact serves.

What support should an IMO provide to agencies?

Look for a written onboarding plan, a playbook, a lead program with stated routing rules, a named person for compliance questions, technology you can see working in a demo, and visibility into how your agents are doing. Ask for each one in a document, with an owner.

What are red flags when joining an IMO?

No written onboarding plan, support described only as a promise, no way to see your agents' activity without asking, pressure to sign before you have the agreement, slides instead of a live demo, and vague answers on who owns the book of business and customer records.