MARKETING AGENCY OF THE MONTH
LaMair - Mulock - Condon is largest
agribusiness writer in Iowa and Illinois
By Dennis H. Pillsbury
Roger Hoyt, CPCU, ARM, Chairman and CEO of LaMair - Mulock - Condon Co., West Des Moines, Iowa.
LaMair - Mulock - Condon Co. (LMC), West Des Moines, Iowa, traces its roots back to 1865 under the original name of Hawkeye Insurance. Since that time, it had grown organically in Iowa only until 1998, when the new leadership of Roger Hoyt, CPCU, ARM, chairman and CEO; Mark Lyons, CPCU, MBA, chief financial officer; and Greg LaMair, CPCU, ARM, president, decided to embark on a program of key acquisitions designed to expand product offerings and geographic spread.
"We made three key acquisitions since 1998," Roger says. "One was a firm that specialized in qualified retirement plans, an area we had planned to enter in response to the needs of our commercial clients." Another acquisition involved the largest writer of agribusiness in Illinois. "We are the largest writer of agribusiness in Iowa and had decided to begin to expand this specialty into other states." To further support this important niche, LMC set up Agri-Business Insurance Services (ABIS) to handle all of its commercial agricultural accounts and crop insurance.
"Agribusiness represented about 20% of our total commercial book and, because of the complexity and uniqueness of the coverages, required a focused commitment and expertise," Roger explains. "Setting up ABIS also allowed us to brand ourselves as the agricultural expert, making it easier to market to local and national agricultural accounts. This is an underserved market with limited competition, so we saw this as an opportunity for us to grow and expand. In addition to Illinois, we are looking to establish an LLC in Nebraska and, ultimately, to establish a national program.
"Agribusiness is particularly complex and requires strong understanding of the risks involved as well as the best ways to mitigate those risks. It's a very tough business with exposure to grain dust explosions, pollution, biotechnology concerns, and potential for terrorism that requires an understanding of these issues. We're very active in all those areas. We see an enormous opportunity in this field for an agency with the expertise and the insurance markets--and we have both."
The LMC sales team outside the corporation headquarters in West Des Moines.
LMC and its affiliate, Agri-Business Insurance Services (ABIS), have grown from a one-state operation to a large multi-state agency with 100 insurance professionals in its employ in offices in West Des Moines; and Farmer City, Illinois. The agency provides insurance services to more than 1,700 commercial clients and 2,600 individual insurance and investment clients. Mark states that total revenue from commissions and fees is around $14 million. Sixty-five percent of its revenue comes from commercial property/casualty insurance, 34% from benefits including qualified plans and 1% from personal lines. (Personal lines is written as an accommodation for commercial clients.)
In addition to agribusiness, LMC also has large books of manufacturing businesses, insurance entities and construction. "Des Moines is a large insurance center," Roger notes, "LMC is fortunate to include many of the city's leading insurance carriers as our clients."
Introducing a sales culture
In addition to the acquisitions, Roger, Mark and Greg also moved the organization to one oriented around a sales culture. "We'd always been very solid in that regard," Greg says, "but our real strength and focus was on service and maintaining our book of business. We were highly regarded for our technical expertise and our service. However, our sales and marketing was fairly conservative.
The LMC management team.
"That isn't to say that we have abandoned service and technical expertise. In fact, they are essential to our sales approach. We sell our history of strong service and professionalism. We're very proud of the fact that our agency is one of the top agencies in the country when it comes to percentage of people with professional designations. At one point, we were well over 80%. That has dropped a little as we've grown and brought in new, young people who haven't had time yet to earn those designations. We continue to strongly encourage professional development, providing time off of work for study and paying for educational related expenses."
Mark states that the major change has been "an increasingly disciplined approach to sales management. We have monthly sales meetings where we go over the activity and sales reports as well as reviewing our goals and plans for the year."
"It is a fine line that we tread," Roger continues. "We want to foster entrepreneurship and allow our producers to be self-motivated. However, our size demands that we have a little more uniformity."
Risk management expertise
Mark adds that the same approach has been used in the risk management area. "We have a separate risk management department with three people in safety and loss control, three in the claims area and one support person," he says. "The department is very proactive and has goals and objectives, including achievement of certain minimum levels of expertise in the risk management field."
Greg notes that "LMC is very active in the alternative risk financing area. We work with group captives in the Caymans and Bermuda. These captives all are owned by other companies, but we also are currently doing a feasibility study on a captive for agribusinesses, as well as a single-parent captive for one of our larger clients.
"We've been able to find both the fronting and reinsurance capacity to make these operations possible," Greg continues. "One of the things we're waiting for is a second decision on the allowance of employee benefits in group captives. One ruling has been favorable, but we, like a lot of others, would like to see a favorable decision on ADM before making a move."
The agribusiness team supports the agricultural niche that is now served by a separate unit. LMC set up Agri-Business Insurance Services in 1998 to handle all its commercial agricultural accounts and crop insurance.
The agency also is actively involved in enterprise risk management, primarily for its insurance entity clients. "The financial industries were early adopters of the enterprise risk management concept," Mark points out. "They had many risks that fell outside of traditional 'insurable' risks, including some financial risks that needed to be transferred in nontraditional ways or mitigated or eliminated."
LMC also is an Assurex Global partner, which "allows us to provide international coverage for our clients," Roger says. "We have some large, publicly held customers who have overseas exposures. Being an Assurex partner gives us the leverage and resources of a truly international firm, while still providing the personal service that only a privately owned, entrepreneurially driven firm can deliver."
Community involvement
Community involvement is very important for LMC. Each stockholder is required to serve on at least one nonprofit board. "We do very little advertising," Roger points out. "We do run an ad every two weeks in The Des Moines Register, but that's about it. So it's vital that we are known and respected in the community. The fact that we've been here so long helps, but we also feel that we need to be involved not just because it makes good business sense, but because we should give back to the community that has supported us."
Mark is involved in the local Rotary Club, is a Junior Achievement classroom volunteer and currently is running for the school board. "Both my folks were educators," Mark notes. "It seems to be in the blood." Mark also is involved with the state Big "I."
Roger has served on the boards of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, Oakridge Neighborhood Services, the YMCA, Junior Achievement, the Downtown Community Board, and the faith-based Serve Our Youth.
Greg is involved with the Rotary, the Better Business Bureau, YPO, Youth Homes of Mid America and many other nonprofit organizations.
In addition, nearly everyone is involved in the United Way, where Roger serves as a board member. "Our agency has been a strong supporter of that organization," Roger says.
LaMair - Mulock - Condon has built its success on the strong roots of service to its clients, to its insurers and to its community. They are richly deserving of recognition as our Marketing Agency of the Month. *