Finding a Home for Hard-to-Place Risks: How a Goosehead Agent Uses Pathpoint for Commercial E&S

A Goosehead agent placed a coastal rental account for about $26,000 when the next-best quote was $43,000. Now his toughest commercial risks go to Pathpoint.

Case study at a glance

Agent: Giovanni Bolden, Enterprise Sales Specialist, Goosehead Insurance

Focus: Complex commercial accounts that need E&S

Standout result: South Padre Island short-term rentals placed at about $26K vs. a $43K next-best quote

Risk types: Coastal habitational, houses of worship, mercantile, office

Pathpoint experts: Kristine Welchert (Account Manager), Karlton Williams (Underwriter)

With Pathpoint since: November 2025

The challenge: Good accounts with nowhere to go

Giovanni Bolden is an Enterprise Sales Specialist at Goosehead Insurance, where he writes both personal and commercial lines. With Goosehead’s carrier network, he can place most personal lines business almost anywhere. The commercial side is where excess and surplus (E&S) comes in. "It just so happens that I get all the very interesting commercial accounts that require a bigger thinking cap," he said.

Giovanni had only a few places to go for hard commercial accounts. Then Goosehead's Director of Commercial Insurance gave him access to Pathpoint, figuring it could be a big deal for the team. Giovanni sat on it for about three months, admitting he didn't know what it was until someone encouraged him to try it, pointing out that Pathpoint could help place the risks Goosehead’s markets usually couldn’t. He has placed 28 policies through Pathpoint since.

The account: Coastal rentals on South Padre Island

"I will never forget that client," Giovanni said of a short-term rental property on South Padre Island, a set of duplexes about 380 square feet each, right on the Texas coast. Coastal rentals are hard to place anywhere, and the underwriters had questions about everything, elevation levels included.

The client's best alternative was a $43,000 quote. Giovanni placed it through Pathpoint for about $26,000, nearly 40% less.

The placement took three and a half weeks of back-and-forth between Giovanni, the client, the realtor, and the underwriting team. Without Pathpoint, he noted, it "would have taken even longer, if I even found anything else."

Beyond one account: Price wins and new appetite

Giovanni keeps seeing Pathpoint come in under direct carriers in regions like California and Houston, and the pricing still surprises him. One California liquor store came in around $8,000. Every other option he could find ran $12,000 or more. "Many times, Pathpoint is winning without any fight back," he said.

Churches are harder. Many that Giovanni writes are 6,000 to 8,000 square feet and were built in the early 1900s. Public records show gut remodels, but the buildings have changed hands so many times that nobody can prove it.

Before Pathpoint had a dedicated option, his account manager, Kristine Welchert, and his underwriter, Karlton Williams, helped him place his first two. By the time he brought a third, Pathpoint had added appetite for churches and houses of worship.

The new application asks more questions upfront, which meant no follow-up emails chasing what was missing. "The application got longer, but the turnaround for a quote got shorter," Giovanni pointed out.

The partnership: A team that knows his book

Giovanni talks with Kristine regularly. "She’s almost like a second mom at this point," he joked. "I annoy her to death." They pull up properties together, and she tells him which submissions to push and how to set up the stranger risks so underwriting can take it from there.

Karlton keeps his quotes moving. "He’s amazing," Giovanni said. "Sometimes he can get me a quote in just a couple hours." Turnaround matters because clients call around, and in Giovanni's experience, by the third agent they've usually stopped listening.

His advice: Light up every avenue

For colleagues on the fence, Giovanni suggests, "don't leave a stone unturned just because you've never used it. It costs you nothing to do a quote."

"Everybody knows it's more expensive on the front end," he said. Even so, he wants to present every option to his clients. "You want to have every avenue lit up," he added, "so they can walk down the path that they deem the best for them."

Have a commercial account that doesn't fit your usual markets? Pathpoint is the full-service E&S wholesaler that combines smart technology and expert E&S guidance for commercial brokers and agents. It's free to use, with no volume or premium commitments. Run your next tough submission through Pathpoint.