Estimated RWI Cost Calculator
Estimate the total all-in cost of an RWI placement with WolfTRI, compared with a broker that collects both the insurer-paid brokerage commission already in the premium and a separate retail broker fee.
Illustrative only. Choose a deal type and coverage limit. Figures include policy premium, underwriting fee, and surplus-lines taxes and fees; they are not a quote or binding indication.
WolfTRI path
Typical retail path
Review modeling assumptions+
Same premium path. Different brokerage economics.
The comparison is not carrier quality or counsel’s form. It is whether a second brokerage fee is layered on top of the insurer-paid commission already inside the premium.
- Premium includes insurer-paid commission
- No separate retail broker fee
- WolfTRI is paid from that embedded commission
- Premium includes insurer-paid commission
- Plus an extra retail broker fee (often sized to a percentage of the coverage limit)
- Total brokerage pay = commission + that fee
Wholesale pricing means you pay what the wholesale market already charges for the placement — without a second brokerage fee stacked on top. Wholesale infrastructure is compensated from the same commission pool, subject to minimums.
What is a wholesale insurance broker?
If you have never worked in specialty insurance, “wholesale” can sound foreign. It is simply the institutional channel between a client-facing producer and the insurers that write complex risk.
Most people meet insurance through a retail broker: the firm that sits with the client, learns the deal, and owns the relationship. For ordinary commercial lines, that retail firm may go straight to insurers. For specialized products — including Representations and Warranties Insurance and other transactional risk — the market is often reached through a wholesale broker.
A wholesale broker does not replace the person you hire. It is the intermediary layer that specializes in hard-to-place and specialty coverage: deep carrier relationships, product expertise, surplus-lines infrastructure, and the operational machinery to move submissions, bind policies, and service the book at national scale. Retail producers use wholesalers every day when the risk sits outside standard admitted markets or needs specialty underwriting.
Working with WolfTRI is designed to feel familiar if you are used to a large national retail brokerage. You still get senior client-side attention — and, through a leading national wholesale distributor of specialty insurance products and services, access to the same institutional market intelligence, carrier relationships, and placement capability that sophisticated specialty placements require. The model changes brokerage economics and who sits with you day to day; it does not put you on a side street away from the real market.
WolfTRI’s licensed producer places coverage through licensed U.S. wholesale-market infrastructure. Platform and wholesale compensation is generally paid from the insurer-paid commission pool already in the premium, subject to disclosed minimums — not as a second retail broker fee layered on top.
Detail, when you want it.
Open a section only if you need industry context on why the fee model looks this way — and what does not change.
What is a limits-based retail fee?
Many U.S. RWI placements are brokered on a limits-based model: total brokerage compensation is set as a fixed percentage of the coverage limit. That total is usually the insurer-paid commission already inside the premium plus an additional fee that fills the gap up to the limits-based number.
WolfTRI does not charge that additional fee. Compensation is the insurer-paid commission already built into the premium. Wholesale-market infrastructure is compensated out of that same commission pool — not as a second charge to the client, subject to minimums.
Is the policy different?
No. The policy WolfTRI places is the same kind of RWI placement you would expect on a limits-based retail path: same institutional RWI market, same wholesale infrastructure, same premium path. Counsel still owns the form. Underwriting still sits with the insurer.
What changes is the brokerage economics — not the carrier panel, not counsel’s role, and not claim handling under the policy.
Why did RWI often carry commission and a fee?
On most commercial lines, brokers earn commission or a negotiated fee — not both. RWI developed differently. The policy is typically on the law firm’s preferred form, and counsel negotiates the wording, yet the market often layered an extra fee on top of commission.
Historically that fee tracked manual placement hours: data-room review, diligence summaries, underwriting prep. Much of that mechanical work has compressed. Judgment still matters — exclusions, retention, the underwriting record, shepherding to bind — and that is what the embedded commission fairly pays for. The extra fee paid for hours that largely no longer exist. The savings pass through to the client.
What does the broker still do?
Counsel owns the policy form. The deal team still needs speed of response, pattern recognition across fact patterns, and steady process from first call to bind — plus transparency through binding and appropriate post-binding coordination by WolfTRI’s licensed producer.
The pricing model changes brokerage economics, not underwriting or legal review. Policy terms remain subject to insurer appetite, underwriting, deal facts, negotiation, and counsel’s review.
Fee math is only half the comparison. Seller indemnity can mean adversarial recovery against a counterparty that may already have distributed proceeds. RWI converts covered breaches into a claim against an insurer under defined notice and proof rules — retention, exclusions, and final policy terms still apply. Not automatic, but a different counterparty and enforcement path. How WolfTRI approaches claims
Run the numbers on a live file.
Send non-confidential or NDA-safe transaction parameters. Hire the firm at info@wolftri.com — principal-led placement with wholesale pricing and no separate retail broker fee.
Principal direct: scott@wolftri.com