From Pakistan to 7-Figure Insurance Empire | Dan Pascone with Saad Janjua | Ep #13

Saad Janjua is the president of Saad Insurance and Financial Services. He says he's originally from Islamabad, Pakistan, and moved to the Fargo-Moorhead area in 2014 to attend Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he studied English and communications. He says he didn't speak English when he arrived, used a lot of hand gestures and credits the patience of people in the Midwest for making him want to stay and invest in the community.

He sells home, auto, life and health insurance, and says the agency serves both Minnesota and North Dakota in an area of about 250,000–300,000 people. His team is about 8 people using what he calls a generalist model: most people either bring in new business or service existing customers, and an office manager decides how roles are split. He also invests in multifamily real estate, from single-family homes up to buildings with 10–15 or 20 units, and says he does much of the underwriting, finds deals and makes offers himself.

Saad says his ideal client is anyone in the community who needs insurance, which he notes is state-mandated for many types of coverage. Because many people only come in on a bad day, such as after an accident, he says the agency focuses on touch points: a pleasant-smelling office, a greeting from everyone on the team, coffee or cold water, and candy or small toys for kids. He says the team documents life events, so if a customer's child turns 18, the agency may call before they come in.

He says the team is encouraged to write handwritten thank-you cards, and that some customers have stayed through 30–40% rate increases because of those connections. [VERIFY: guest claim] Dan observed that where others compete on price, coverage or riders that are hard to understand, how you make clients feel can be a differentiator.

Saad says the biggest challenge for customers right now is the sheer cost of insurance, which he links to snowballing inflation. His approach is to be empathetic and transparent: when a homeowner's premium rises, he says he explains the why, including the cost of replacement and what he sees as the consequences of shopping around too often, and then lets the customer decide. He says he tells his team not to be motivated by premium numbers or "one more sale" but by doing the right thing, and he believes what's in the customer's best interest is in his own.

Dan noted that this is a lesson for any business: if you do right by the customer every time, it tends to pay off over the long haul.

Saad says he looked at the numbers and found that internet leads and paid Google marketing converted at roughly 1–10%, while referrals from places like car dealerships, school events and a local toy drive converted at roughly 50–70%. He says the agency builds referral requests into its process and has 315 five-star Google reviews. [VERIFY: guest figures]

On referral partners, he says the secret is giving first, with nothing expected in return. His examples include spending $1,000 at a new local shop and giving it a shout-out, bringing breakfast to car dealerships, handing out treats at dog daycares and sponsoring kids' wrestling and basketball teams. He credits the book Referrals Done Right by Scott Grates, an insurance professional, for changing his view that everything has to be transactional. He says it took about 6–8 months to see results, and that his agency now has more leads than the team can handle. He also says the agency has grown its Instagram following to about 10,000 by partnering with other local businesses.

Saad calls AI "the best thing that could have ever happened to us" in the industry. He says his team uses it for scripts, emails and professional communication, and that he uses it to clean up spreadsheets and build processes, turning tasks that took hours last year into minutes with the right prompts. He says carriers are using AI to process applications and conduct surveys, and expects it to grow much bigger.

More broadly, he says the insurance industry has been through a market correction, much like real estate, and that he believes it's closer than ever to recovering. [VERIFY: guest opinion] Dan agreed that insurance is well positioned to weather market cycles, and noted that virtual assistants and AI could help with the labor involved in signing up a client.

• Coffee or tea: Coffee, "all day."
• Cats or dogs: Dogs.
• Technology he can't live without: His AirPods, mainly for audiobooks.
• Favorite quote: "Take calculated risks," a mindset he credits to a mentor.
• Favorite books: Alex Hormozi's $100M Leads and $100M Offers. Dan said he went through a big Hormozi phase too.
• Personal hack: Speak people's love language. He means taking genuine interest in what your team cares about, like asking about someone's workout or a child's recital, and budgeting 5 minutes to do it. He says it has helped him retain talent.
• Bucket list item accomplished: Coming to America.
• Current milestone: Reaching $100 million. He didn't say how he'd measure it.
• Advice to his younger self: Take more risks. He says risks have paid off for him.

• A rate increase is a prompt to review coverage: Saad's point about replacement cost matters. The cheapest policy isn't always the one that covers what it would cost to rebuild or replace. Periodically comparing options is reasonable too, and the NAIC has a helpful annual insurance check-up guide.

• Insurance costs are part of your plan: Premiums are a cash flow item that can rise faster than your income, so they belong in your expense planning. Our post on how to inflation-proof your finances covers how rising costs show up in a plan.

• Referral and review tactics don't travel across industries: What works for an insurance agency can be subject to different rules in investment advisory and other regulated businesses, including rules about paying for referrals and using client reviews.

• Rental property is a business: Saad underwrites deals and has a team. Vacancy, repairs, leverage and illiquidity are real risks, and it takes time. Our post on passive income for busy executives looks at the trade-offs between active and passive approaches.

This hypothetical is for illustration only. All figures are assumed, aren't projections or recommendations, and policy terms vary widely by insurer, state and policy type.

Assume an executive with $600,000 in household income pays $4,000 a year for homeowners insurance. A 30% increase raises that by $1,200 a year, or $100 a month, to $5,200.

• Option A, shop purely on price: A cheaper policy could save part of the $1,200, but only if it provides comparable coverage.
• Option B, review the coverage first: Suppose the home is insured for $700,000, but the cost to rebuild is now $850,000. In a total loss, that's a potential $150,000 gap, far larger than a year of premium increases.

The lesson isn't to avoid shopping around. It's to compare coverage limits, deductibles and what's included, not just the price. A licensed insurance professional can help with the details.

We use Life-Driven Planning, a 6-phase plan covering Cash Flow, Retirement & Hybrid Retirement, Risk, Expense & Goal, Tax and Legacy. Insurance sits in the Risk phase, where we look at how coverage fits with the rest of your plan, and rising premiums show up in Cash Flow and Expense & Goal. Coverage decisions should what to do if you're tired of corporate but don't want to retireld be made with a licensed insurance professional. Our video on explains Hybrid Retirement, our approach to stepping back from full-time corporate work gradually.

Life Driven Investing (LDI) builds a portfolio backward from your life using the Four Liquidity Bands: 0–2 years, 3–5 years, 6–10 years and 10+ years. Real estate is illiquid and belongs, if at all, in the 10+ year band, and a down payment shouldn't come from money you need in the next 0–2 years. If you'd fund it by selling company stock, our Equity Compensation Playbook, a set of structured rules for RSUs, options and ESPPs, helps us plan around the taxes. Under our Quarterly Strategy Rhythm (ongoing plan updates, decision reviews and rebalancing), we revisit whether coverage and investments still fit. This episode is educational and isn't an endorsement of Saad Insurance and Financial Services or any company, book, strategy or investment discussed.

This episode is for corporate executives and senior professionals in their 40s and 50s with $500k+ in household income and complex compensation who want to understand rising insurance costs, how to evaluate the professionals they work with and what to consider before adding rental real estate to their plan.

If you're a high-earning executive weighing risk, insurance costs and investments within the rest of your plan, we'd be glad to talk it through. Book a free Wealth Strategy Call with us, and we'll look at your situation together.