This well-diversified commercial lines agency produces $14.3 million in revenues with 90 employees—70 in Dayton and 20 in Cincinnati. It has a high concentration of service people to producers and utilizes a knowledge-based sales approach, bolstered by the professional background of its employees. For example, the agency has an in-house loss control specialist, and its bond department includes three CPAs.

Brower has been around since the ’30s, but its evolution in recent years has been dramatic, particularly in employee benefits, where its eight benefits producers account for 25% of the firm’s revenues. The benefits practice includes a 401(k) specialist and a human resources consultant whose services are offered to clients on a fee basis. Ownership is distributed among 14 principals, none of whom are related. Producers are motivated by the opportunity to obtain an ownership interest. Non-producers are eligible for a bonus plan tied to agency growth and profitability.

Agency principal John Watson says that as the agency has grown, it has been devoting increased attention to internal management to assure that service standards continue to be high and consistent throughout the organization. This has led the firm to several recent hirings including a chief operating officer, a training compliance coordinator, an HR professional, and a customer service manager. Among the agency specialties are construction, tool and die manufacturing, health care, trucking, municipalities and school districts.

Established in 1879, Starkweather & Shepley celebrated its 125th anniversary last year with completion of the largest acquisition in its history. The agency purchased the MVI Insurance Group of Companies on Martha’s Vineyard, increasing its presence in the Massachusetts marketplace and boosting revenues to more than $25 million. The acquisition continued a growth plan started in the 1980s that added strategic acquisitions to supplement internal growth. Fred Tripp, president, notes that “the acquisition combined with strong growth served to make 2004 our best year ever.”

The agency features a unique perpetuation plan that was put into place by stockholders in 1935 to alleviate the costs of ownership succession. Under the plan, ownership of the agency resides with a trust, with the trustees responsible for maintaining the goal of the trust—to run the agency for the benefit of the employees.

The agency is sales driven, with the commercial department set up in four sales teams. It is able to offer both traditional insurance and alternative market solutions to its clients. Three of the teams do service and retention work and the fourth team pursues new business. The teams are comprised of marketing people, account managers and producers. The approach is aggressive and proactive with new business sales meetings every Friday and a general sales meeting every other Monday. The agency is an Assurex Global Partner.

When William J. Roby, Sr., and Thomas Barrett acquired this agency in 1988 it was a 75-year-old property/casualty generalist producing about $600,000 in revenues with 10 employees. Today, the agency has 40 employees and $5.5 million in revenues. Half its revenue now comes from employee benefits. Roby and Barrett divided the firm’s production effort into specialties, instituted a cross-selling program and established “a team approach to sales in all disciplines,” says Roby. “When a producer is out of the office, his or her client still can talk to a member of the team and get answers.…”

Langan also established partnership relationships with several outside service providers, including wellness programs and compensation specialists. These specialists then work with Langan clients, sometimes at discounted rates. A long-term growth goal, established three years ago, is to double revenue within five years. All employees participate in monitoring the progress toward this goal, and when Langan reached the halfway point toward meeting the goal, it celebrated by taking all employees on a three-day weekend retreat. If the five-year goal is met, employees will be treated to a cruise or other bigger trip. The agency has been recognized as a Best Practices Agency by the IIABA for each of the last four years and by the local business magazine as one of the fastest growing businesses in Louisville.

When an agency’s owners include members of a family whose forebears founded the firm more than 80 years ago, there are proud traditions to uphold. But tradition can take you only so far. Thomas J. Rutherfoord, Jr., and Thomas R. Brown were forced to aggressively redefine their firm’s mission in the early ’80s after a confluence of events jolted the agency’s traditional business model. The agency lost some significant long-standing accounts connected to the railroad industry when these businesses formed their own captive. At the same time the soft market was squeezing revenues, and high interest rates were hurting its construction accounts. Rutherfoord hired a risk control specialist and established a claims and risk control company. Today that company includes 17 claims people and eight risk control specialists. Among its projects is managing a Bermuda-based captive, which Rutherfoord established six years ago.

Agency revenues have grown from $7.3 million in 1994 to $31.3 million in 2003. In those same 10 years the share price of the agency’s ESOP has grown from $355.60 to $1,426.08. Rutherfoord has 225 employees and maintains four offices in Virginia, two in North Carolina, and one each in Atlanta and Philadelphia. Among its creative ventures is providing voluntary benefits for the United Nations in a joint venture with a French insurance agency. Rutherfoord rewards producers and support people with annual agency-paid trips for the employees and their families.

When Bud Brown became the sole owner of Hoffman Brown Company in the mid-’60s, he decided on an agency management philosophy of “do the right thing every day and success will follow.” His 40-year “experiment” in which all staff members are salaried—the idea being that salaried people sell only what a client needs—has proven to be a success. Because of the agency’s unique sales approach and superior service, clients provide frequent referrals that contributed to the agency’s $7 million in revenues in 2003—derived from commercial lines (60%), personal lines (30%), and benefits (10%).

Each of Hoffman Brown’s 40 employees shares in the agency’s success. Annual cash bonuses are occasionally augmented by other tangible tokens of appreciation for the employees’ efforts. In one instance, Hoffman Brown purchased complete top-of-the-line computer systems for the employees’ families, acknowledging that the families contribute to the success of the agency as well. Appreciative families yield committed employees who provide top-notch service to clients who refer friends and associates to the agency.

“Doing the right thing” extends into the community as well. Each year the employees decide on what charities the agency’s outreach efforts will support. For the last five years, the agency has provided food for the needy families in the Los Angeles area. In 2004, the agency feeding program provided more than 70,000 pounds of food.

With roots dating back to 1909, Cragin & Pike Insurance has grown into an organization with 44 employees and gross written premiums in excess of $50 million. The agency’s quote-to-write ratio for 2003 was 86%. That success is the result of the agency’s carefully selecting its niches (gaming and construction—the two largest industries in Las Vegas) and its being an Assurex Partner. The four agency principals have a total of nearly 90 years with the agency. Thomas F. Kerestesi has been with the agency for 30 years; Mark McKinley, 25 years; Greg McKinley, 20 years; and Thomas J. Burns, 12 years. Additionally, Tom Burns is the sixth person from the agency to serve as president of the Nevada Independent Insurance Agents. Previously, he was the legislative chair for the NIIA. The other principals are also active in the NIIA, the Southern Nevada Association of Insurance Agents, the Nevada Surplus Lines Association, and the Nevada Insurance Guaranty Association, which helps the agency be proactive with clients when changes are coming. This enhances the agency’s “trusted advisor” status with its clients.

Cragin & Pike has loss control specialists on staff who act as advocates for the agency’s gaming and construction clients. One of the agency’s construction clients has been with the agency for 54 years, which exemplifies the agency’s philosophy that “our current customer is more important than the future customer.”

“We set out to redefine the insurance brokerage system,” says George E. Norcross, III, chairman and chief executive officer of Commerce Insurance Services. At the very least that’s a lofty goal, but the agency is serious about achieving it. The agency’s parent, Commerce Bank, is open seven days a week from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Going the bank one better, the agency offers its clients true 24/7 service, with trained insurance professionals available to help them. A formalized apprentice program, modeled after the bank’s Commerce University, provides top-notch training to employees for periods ranging from 6 to 18 months. The facility is staffed with five full-time training professionals who teach both technical knowledge and customer service skills.

Commerce Insurance’s commitment to client advocacy is evident in its approach to claims. “We believe it is our responsibility to procure an appropriate and fair settlement for our clients,” Norcross says. For every claim, regardless of size, the agency assigns an individual claims person who works with the insurer on behalf of the client.

Employees’ commitment and service are honored each year at the “WOW Awards,” an extravaganza sponsored by the bank that last year featured surprise visits by Donald Trump and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. From receptionists to high-performing producers, the agency’s extraordinary performers are rewarded with stock options. Growing both organically and through acquisitions, Commerce Insurance Services today is the 24th largest broker in the country, with annual premium volume of more than $800 million.

No automobile bodily injury insurance ... no workers compensation ... few liability lawsuits ... virtually no punitive damages. For buyers, this might sound like insurance heaven. But for agents, the revenue sources are severely restricted. And such a place actually exists to the north of us. Canada has a single-payer health care system and a government-run auto BI program, resulting in an insurance environment that’s vastly different from that in the United States. Thriving in this landscape is Charlebois Trepanier Assurance and Risk Management, based in the French-speaking province of Quebec.

Majority stockholder Michel Drouin joined the firm’s predecessor organization in 1975 when it was a small brokerage. After a period of healthy growth, the agency hit a plateau in the late 1990s, and Drouin was sufficiently discouraged that he considered selling the firm. It was then that he began to go south of the border to learn about what he describes as “the most competitive insurance market in the world.” Drouin’s visits to the United States brought him into contact with such American insurance gurus as Roger Sitkins and George Nordhaus, as well as Rick Bauman, who owns the Canadian rights to Sitkins’ Vertical Growth(™) program. Drouin also was introduced to The Greenwich Group, an organization of leading U.S. independent agencies, and became the group’s only Canadian member. Drouin is chief executive officer for Groupe InterNotions, a coaching company he established to introduce vertical growth marketing to agencies in Quebec. He’s even translated Roger Sitkins’ materials into French. “I’m really having fun with this, and I get to both coach and practice what I preach,” he says enthusiastically.

Tracing its origins back to 1924, MBAH Insurance Agency has always focused on a “customer is always right” philosophy. In recent years, the multiline agency has further differentiated itself by identifying unique “strategic competencies” in areas where it could add value, be different and be difficult to copy. Construction—particularly homebuilding—was one area where MBAH excelled in expertise and service. Homing in on this niche, the agency redefined the commercial area into construction and all other. Agribusiness is another strategic competency at MBAH.

After redefining the commercial area, MBAH decided to refine the operation even further, breaking it into five divisions: The Special Construction Insurance Center focuses on large contractors; the Construction Business Insurance Group addresses both the business and personal insurance needs of smaller contractors; the Special Commercial Accounts Department services large non-construction business; the Family & Business Insurance Group serves the business and personal insurance needs of family-owned businesses; and the Commercial Accounts Sales & Services handles small individual policies for clubs and associations.

MBAH’s success and growth is due in part to its emphasis on hiring and educating employees. The agency develops young producers, recruiting many new producers out of college who have athletic backgrounds, indicating a competitive drive. The agency provides in-house training to help employees gain additional insurance education.

While the current maxim in the industry is work only with larger accounts and don’t cold call, Nixon & Lindstrom Insurance has taken a counterintuitive attitude that has resulted in a premium growth from $11.9 million in 2001 to $28 million in 2004. In 1996, Nixon & Lindstrom principals initiated an aggressive approach to grow the 50-year-old agency. Producers remained on straight commission and all profits were rolled back into the agency. The funds were used to recruit, hire and train a new producer every six months. The agency also began to target small to mid-sized accounts, which were largely ignored by the competition.

The agency found that most successful hires came from outside of the industry—specifically the hospitality business—because there are no preconceived ideas about the job. New producers were expected to make upwards of 500 cold calls the first week and achieve the CIC designation within six months. In order to “warm up” the cold calls, Nixon & Lindstrom launched an aggressive television and business publication advertising campaign for image enhancement. Agency President Luke Nixon went out with each new producer on every call for the first six months. Eleven of 13 new producers who have gone through this arduous training program are still with the agency. Nine of the agency’s 13 producers are 35 years old or younger—creating a high level of enthusiasm and energy.

The largest independent insurance agency in Oregon, this 132-year-old firm is a sales and profit powerhouse, with 89 employees and revenue in excess of $15 million. That’s $168,000 per employee and a $78,000 spread per employee. The pre-tax profit is approximately 22%. More than 80% of JBL&K’s new business is based on a broker-of-record letter. Just four years ago, the scene was quite different—73 employees and revenues of about $6.9 million, for a revenue per employee of $92,500. The spread per employee was $22,300 and the pre-distribution pre-tax profit was about 4%. To survive and perpetuate itself, the agency committed to a complete culture change.

To achieve that goal, JBL&K created a strong marketing department and a true sales culture, while continuing to emphasize service. Experts in various disciplines such as safety, claims, and loss control were also developed. Despite the greater than normal turnover during this time, these monumental changes were successful because the management team, employees and board bought into the vision and mission. Reinventing JBL&K involved improving technology, refurbishing the workplace, giving salary increases and bonuses, and developing a stock-purchase plan. The agency also moved to a team concept, covering specific business disciplines such as public sector, construction and nonprofits. JBL&K is now active in the program business, insuring most of the state’s temp agencies and is moving into long term care professional liability.