Welcome to the Friday edition of The Max Revenue Letter, recapping the news, trends, and top producer insights from the week. Today: 3 briefs, 2 podcasts, 1 article. LFG🔥

A few weeks back we flagged Marathon Strategies' 2024 data: 135 nuclear verdicts, $31.3 billion, a 52% jump. That was the setup. Here's the sequel: Marathon just released the 2025 numbers, and it’s bad. Nearly 200 nuclear verdicts this year, up 40.7% over 2024, the highest count since 2009. Total value: $25.6 billion, with 40 cases over $100M and four over $1 billion. “I’m not panicking, you are!”

Florida is the cautionary tale buried in the numbers worth understanding. Tort reform dropped the state to 10th in nuclear verdicts in 2024, everyone assumed the fix had worked. It came roaring back in 2025 with $2.5 billion. As Marathon put it: "a state can change rules in the courtroom, the court of public opinion is another matter entirely."

Our hot take: Until something changes societally, this is the new norm. Corporate mistrust, social pessimism, generational shifts in how jurors see big companies, no statute fixes that on its own. Double-check your excess and umbrella accounts. Make sure none are on auto-pilot since 2023. They were set against a world with roughly 40% fewer nuclear verdicts than today.

According to ATRI’s latest research the average cost to run a truck hit $2.336 per mile in 2025, the highest ever recorded. Carriers responded by making their biggest capacity cuts since the 2022 freight recession began, shrinking truck counts and cutting non-driver staff by nearly 8%. It still wasn't enough. Most sectors are barely profitable, and flatbed carriers actually posted a loss for the year. “Breaker breaker one-nine, we've got a pile-up, and it's not on the interstate.”

Our hot take: To be honest, it looks bleak. Tort reform and TPLF regulation are necessary, but not sufficient. They're the biggest structural levers available, and still worth every bit of the fight to pass them. But Florida is proof that even a state doing everything "right" legislatively can still see verdicts spike right back, because the real driver isn't just the rules in the courtroom. It's corporate mistrust, social pessimism, and a generational shift in how jurors see big companies. No statute fixes that on its own.

New Ignition Benefits data on companies with 10-250 employees is a head-scratcher, and honestly, an opportunity. 39% of SMBs say they took a double-digit health insurance increase last renewal, with 9% hit by 20%+. Nearly half (48%) said they paid the number quoted with no pushback, and only 31% said they got a clear breakdown of what actually drove their cost increase from their broker. That’s a problem.

Another interesting number worth knowing: 63% of employers surveyed said GLP-1 coverage is quietly reaching a breaking point. Admitting they'd restrict or drop it if it pushed renewals up another ~6%, with manufacturing, construction, and trades most likely to pull it back first.

Our hot take: Dear EB bros, this data is basically begging you to pick up the phone and prospect. Nearly half your competitors' clients paid whatever number they were handed, most with zero explanation of what drove it. Loyalty, shmoyalty. If you can walk a prospect through their renewal and show them where the numbers actually came from, you've already out-serviced their current broker before you've even gotten going.

In this episode, Trey and Micah break down how producers can future-proof themselves and beat the tech bros at their own game. They dig into a real call Micah had with a prospect who left his traditional broker for an AI broker, why he said he did it, and how to prevent the same happening to you.

In this episode, Trey and Micah sit down with Brian Crisp of Element 22 to talk all things habitational. Why E&S is beating admitted markets right now, and what's going on with builder's risk and wind buy downs. If you write property this one’s for you.

Who wins the AI race in the middle market?