Built by someone who sat next to agents and watched them work.
HarborIQ started over lunch with an independent agency’s leadership team. They showed us what quoting actually looks like. We’ve been building the solution ever since.
How it started
One lunch, one laptop, two hours of quoting.
The conversation
Andy Sertler runs an independent insurance agency in the Chicago suburbs. Over lunch one day, he pulled out his laptop and showed what quoting actually looks like.
The problem
Open Progressive. Type in the customer’s name, address, DOB, vehicle info. Get a quote. Now open Geico. Type it all again. Now Travelers. Same data, different forms, different terminology. Two hours later, three quotes for one customer. Then there’s the prospect from last month who said “call me in six months.” They fell through the cracks. No pipeline. No follow-up system. Just sticky notes and good intentions.
The insight
Andy said: “If someone built a tool that did pipeline tracking, quoting automation, and social media posts for me, I’d pay for it today.” That conversation is where HarborIQ started. The gap was clear: every tool in the market did one piece. Nobody was building the full operating system.
The solution
It needed someone who’d seen Fortune 500 tooling up close but knew how to build for a 5-person office where every dollar has to earn its place. Every feature in HarborIQ comes from watching agents work and listening to what they actually need. Not what a software company thinks they should need.
Today
Andy’s list was long, so we began with the two pieces an agency touches every day: one place for clients, pipeline and renewals, which is the free CRM, and answers from the carriers you write, which is Intelligence.
The name
Why "Harbor"
A harbor isn’t just a place to park a boat. It’s where ships come in from open water to find shelter, get resupplied, and set out again stronger. That’s what an independent agency is for its clients: the safe port between life’s risks. And it’s what HarborIQ is for the agency itself: the protected, organized home base that keeps the chaos of the open market manageable. We didn’t pick the name because it sounded nice. We picked it because it’s the job.
Why "IQ"
Intelligence is built into the foundation, not bolted on as a feature. HarborIQ doesn’t “use AI.” It thinks. It knows which fields map to each other across carriers, even when the terminology doesn’t match. It knows which prospects are going stale and which quotes are about to expire. That’s the IQ: real intelligence woven into every workflow so your team is always one step ahead.
The people
Justin Mayer
Founder and CEO
A mechanical engineer with an MBA and nine patents. Justin led product at Honeywell and Life Fitness and co-founded an AI company that was acquired. He started HarborIQ after watching an agency spend two hours on one quote.
Justin on LinkedIn
Sertler & Associates
Founding design partner, Illinois
Andy Sertler and Alex Ricketts have shaped HarborIQ through weekly feedback from a working agency, since the first conversation.
sdabrokers.comHow we operate
Not how software vendors usually do it.
01
We publish our price.
It is on the website. You do not need a call to learn the number.
02
We do not charge per seat.
Hiring a producer should be a growth decision, not a budget conversation with your vendor.
03
We do not sell your own data back to you.
See every record and export all of them, free, on any plan. Intelligence adds reporting on top. It is never the price of your own data.
04
Renewal is not a trap.
We email you before it renews, and cancelling takes a click, not a sixty-day notice.
See whether it beats what you do today.
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