Question 1:
Tell us about your background. Where did you grow up?

Andrew:
My dad was a pastor, so we moved all around North Carolina. I moved probably six times before I was in high school and was on the road quite a bit. I didn't like it as a young kid, but I appreciate it now.

Question 2:
Just you…any brothers or sisters?

Andrew:
I'm a twin. Not identical—fraternal. And I also have a brother who's 10 years younger. We called him, “The Mistake” for the first six years of his life. But he's not a mistake.

Question 3:
We’ve heard that you are a new father to a 4-month-old son, and we have a question for you. How are you? We know Mom and Baby are doing fine. How are you?

Andrew:
Sleep is an enigma for me right now. I take the night shift. My wife is a nurse practitioner, so she's got to be on her game a little bit more than maybe even I do during the day. I've got to be on my game as well, but she's got people's lives in her hands. So not a lot of sleep right now, but we love him. He’s a great addition to our family and we're blessed.

Question 4:
How many years have you been working in the insurance industry?

Andrew:
17 years. I started straight out of college in 2003 at Smart Choice. I started on the accounting side and worked my way up. I moved over to sales about 10 years ago and worked that for four or five years, and then became president of Smart Choice about five years ago.

Question 5:
When you were younger, did you want to go into insurance?

Andrew:
When I was in college, I wanted to be a NBA basketball player. I went to Chapel Hill and played basketball every single day. But I was not gifted athletically and never made it to where anybody would take a look at me for the team. I transferred out of Chapel Hill and played college ball in a small little private school in South Carolina. So when I was young, insurance was not on my mind. I'm blessed to be in the industry now.

**Andrew coaches basketball at his church.**

Question 6:
Tell us about the relationship between Smart Choice and AgencyKPI. What's happening there?

Andrew:
I was introduced to AgencyKPI through INA, Insurance Network Alliance. As a network, we have 8,000 agencies, so we have to use technology to manage 8,000 storefronts across 42 states.

Once I heard about AgencyKPI, we sat down for a demonstration and we realized that it's the next level for us. Salesforce is a great tool, but for our territory managers, we need something that's a little bit easier for them to digest the numbers and something that displays numbers for a network. That's what Bobby and Trent showed us.

Obviously, we're still in beta, but from our perspective, we walked away from the initial demo of the product very impressed, because it was developed by people that worked for networks.

So often in my 17 years, when you deal with software companies, you're dealing with people that have no idea what we do. They understand technology. They understand that side, but when you talk insurance, when you talk breaking commissions apart, their eyes sort of gloss over and they're missing it. So that was really a neat way to start a relationship. You're mentioning things and the people across the table from you are going, "Oh yeah, we had that issue too." The relationship's been good.

Question 7:
Are new technologies like AgencyKPI and others vital to Smart Choice's future and the industry itself?

Andrew:
Technologies like AgencyKPI are vital because carriers are looking for expense savings. One of our big value propositions for a partner-carrier is, "Hey, we can do some of those activities that you were having sales reps or local reps in the field do. We can handle that. We can manage the data for you, or we can slice and dice the data that you already have." So it's becoming an integral part of what a network brings to the table for a carrier.

From an agency perspective, it’s the same situation. These are small, medium, and, in some cases, large agencies across the country. There are usually one or two locations in an agency. We are an 8,000-agent network. We can give them data trends. If we can use companies like AgencyKPI, we can slice and dice that data and give that information back to a local agency. They may know what's going on in their specific area, but we can give them trends at a much larger level than what they can do on their own.

Question 8:
Let's jump back to your son. We didn't hear his name. What's his name and why'd you pick that name?

Andrew:
It's Asher. It's Asher Whitt Caldwell. Funny thing, I'm a twin and my wife is a twin. I'm a fraternal twin. My wife's an identical twin, and her sister got to name the middle name, and then my wife, Amber, and I picked the first name.

Question 9:
Last question: We hear that you plan your meals around the dessert menu and sometimes you eat dessert first. Is this true?

Andrew:
It is true and it's not sometimes! I always eat dessert. Every meal. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Typically, it is always first. I have a huge sweet tooth, but now that is changing. We all have to grow up. I am a father now. My wife did make me go to the doctor. I am going to have to cut back on the desserts. Maybe just one a day instead of three.

9 Questions with Andrew Caldwell, President of Smart Choice