Over the Labor Day weekend, I had the opportunity to spend some time fishing with my 6-year-old son and 7-year-old nephew off the Garden City Pier in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.
While catching a lot of fish such as pompano and Spanish mackerel was very exciting for us all, as I had the opportunity to take a few steps back and look at my surroundings, what amazed me the most was the reaction of the people on the pier who saw the same six to ten large sharks circling around the pier.
Seeing a shark in the water in the wild so close to the beach and swimmers is certainly exciting. In the benefits world, we can equate the sharks to the large accounts that everyone gets excited about landing.
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As we caught the smaller fish like the pompano and Spanish mackerel, what is normally a very mundane process of throwing the fish that are not big enough to keep back, turned into a life and death situation.
As soon as the fish hit the water, the sharks would swarm. If the little fish was not quick enough to swim away, the sharks enjoyed a quick meal.
This reminded me of the larger brokerages that continue to swallow up the smaller agencies. Once that shark had you surrounded, there was nowhere to go. The larger insurance brokerages are continually looking for their next meal!
With the majority of the people on the pier fixated on the sharks, my son and nephew remained focused on “keeper” Spanish mackerel. On Friday, there was only one keeper. The sashimi that night was pretty good.