By Mike Witte, CEO and Co-Founder of Equal Parts

When we founded Equal Parts, we set out with a clear mission: to acquire best-in-class insurance agencies and supercharge them with technology that amplifies — rather than replaces — their human touch. 

Our first acquisition, Lumen Insurance, specializes in serving VC-backed startups and technology companies. While future acquisitions will bring expertise in other industries, this partnership reveals a lot about our approach within the broader insurance landscape.

A Crash Course in Insurance Frustration

In those first few months, I quickly got a refresher on the pain of being a startup seeking insurance. We went from launch to fundraise to first acquisition in under 60 days, moving at typical startup speed. 

But if there’s anything I’ve learned about insurance – it doesn't move fast.

Before acquiring our first agency, we needed our own Errors & Omissions coverage. We made eight calls looking for quotes. Only one person picked up the phone, and just one other called back.

The first broker told us: "There's nothing anyone can do for a company leveraging AI to buy insurance agencies.  Nobody is going to be comfortable with that risk."

I’ve now come to appreciate what he was really telling me: “You’re a small company. This is going to take a lot of work. And I’m not going to make much money.”

The second broker eventually found us coverage, but then sent a Word document I had to print, sign, and scan. I literally had to hunt down a printer.

This experience confirmed what we already suspected: the insurance experience is broken — not because of bad people, but because agents are operating in a fragmented, highly manual ecosystem that makes it nearly impossible to deliver great service.

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What Excellence Looks Like: Dave Perez and Lumen Insurance

Through our acquisition of Lumen Insurance, I've witnessed what excellent insurance service actually looks like – and why the human element remains irreplaceable.

Dave Perez, who founded and runs Lumen, is the epitome of our vision: equal parts innovation and relationships. Watching him work with clients over the past month has been revelatory. He picks up the phone when people need something. He battles for his clients. He understands the venture cycle, having served startups through booms and busts.

When I asked Dave about his biggest challenge, his answer was revealing: it's hard to provide great service to technology companies because they need to move fast. He mentioned coming off a week where he put in countless hours trying to get coverage for a very small new referral from a VC that was in a bind.

When I asked why he'd invest that kind of time, his response stuck with me:

”If the investors we work with believe in them enough to invest their dollars. We should too, by investing our time.”

That philosophy has allowed Lumen to work with some of the fastest-growing tech companies in the country—clients now doing $100M+ in revenue, but who started as small startups. And what's remarkable is that Dave has built these relationships despite the constraints of the traditional insurance ecosystem, not because of it.

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Our Vision: What If Great Agents Had Great Infrastructure?

From the first time I met Dave, I couldn't stop thinking: What would happen if insurance professionals like him weren't buried under a pile of administrative tasks?

What if they:

• Didn't have to spend hours battling outdated workflows just to get a client a quote?
• Could focus on relationships instead of manual data entry?
• Had smart technology working for them, instead of against them?

The answer to these questions is central to what we're building at Equal Parts.

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This is AI, Purpose-Built for Human Empowerment

Perhaps the most common narrative surrounding AI is that innovation in this space is about eliminating the human element entirely. We're taking the opposite approach. We don't believe in black-box algorithms that force clients to interact with chatbots and web forms instead of real people.

We're creating the infrastructure to support great agents, and amplify their capabilities. Not to replace them, but to make them more effective than ever.

This is a deliberate rejection of the "type in information and never talk to a person" model that dominates much of the insurance landscape today. We believe insurance is fundamentally about relationships and trust, and that technology’s role should be to enhance these ingredients, not replace them.

By automating away the administrative burden, we're empowering our agents to move at startup speed while increasing their capacity to provide the personalized guidance and advocacy that clients need. When your business pivots, your insurance should adapt strategically, and without friction. 

By combining purpose-built AI with seasoned agents, we are making that vision a reality.

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An Open Call to Founders

If you're a VC-backed startup looking for insurance — I can confidently recommend David Perez at Lumen Insurance is the example I point to for what good looks like in this space.

Start the relationship now. Because as Dave says, "Everyone starts small. Not everyone stays that way."

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Mike Witte is the CEO and Co-Founder of Equal Parts, which acquires exceptional insurance agencies and empowers them with cutting-edge AI tools designed to enhance, not eliminate, the human touch. Previously, he founded and scaled energy services leader RigUp (now Workrise) from a startup to a $2.9 billion company.

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