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MARKETING AGENCY OF THE MONTH Fertile ground Regional broker brings in top-notch performers from the big guys By Dennis H. Pillsbury Finding talented people is one of the most often-mentioned concerns for agency principals. An agency can improve its automation and workflows, introduce a sales culture and prepare for growth, but finding new people who can carry those efforts on to the next generation and beyond is a problem that is nearly universal in the agency system. And there are almost as many solutions and attempted solutions as there are agencies in the country. For Moreton & Co., Salt Lake City, Utah, the solution turned out to be surprisingly simple in concept—be a great place to work and the talented people will join you. Moreton & Co. was founded in Salt Lake City in 1910 by James B. Moreton. It started out with two employees as a surety bond agency. Today, it still is a family firm, with President Bill Moreton representing the fourth generation. Bill took over from his dad about five years ago. But there have been major changes along the way. The firm now provides all lines of coverage and a variety of risk management and other consulting services. It has grown to become a dominant broker in Utah and Idaho and is well on its way in Colorado and Arizona. It opened its second office in Boise in the early 1990s, followed more recently by offices in Denver and Phoenix. Revenues total around $30 million, with one-third of that coming from employee benefits. Moreton & Co. employs 170 people, including 23 in the Denver office that it opened two years ago, and nine in the Phoenix office that was opened last year. The Denver office also houses Moreton Risk Solutions, a division that was started to specialize in providing coverage and services to large commercial clients. “Our goal is to become a dominant western U.S. broker by the end of the decade,” says Executive Vice President Daniel Jones. “Our plans call for the controlled opening of new offices throughout the West through organic growth or by acquiring existing operations.” Only the best Moreton & Co. targets middle and upper middle market commercial lines clients, as well as specializes in high net worth accounts in personal lines. In addition to property/casualty and employee benefits for commercial lines customers, the agency also offers life insurance and wealth planning through its Moreton Financial Services unit. “We’ve always been able to attract people with insurance expertise,” says Dan, who joined Moreton & Co. from Marsh one year ago. “The agency always had a philosophy of hiring good people, rewarding them for their efforts, and giving them the freedom to do their job. When I was at Johnson & Higgins, we would run into Moreton and always had a tough time competing against them or convincing their people to join us. That’s one of the reasons that I decided to join Moreton & Co. At J&H, we had always focused on relationships with clients and providing service above and beyond expectations. The philosophy was: ‘The client comes first.’ “That philosophy describes Moreton & Co.,” Dan continues, “And that’s the philosophy that has attracted so many excellent people to our agency. None of our recent hires have come here for a bigger salary. What they’ve really come for is the chance to put clients first again and the chance to be with a growing firm that offers almost unlimited potential. Last year, we had 15% growth in a softening market. When you couple that with the fact that we offer a non-contributory retirement plan that is based on profitability, you can understand why we have very low turnover and are very attractive to new talent. In fact, most of our people have been with the agency more than 15 years. “Over the last two years,” he adds, “we’ve been able to attract a lot of people from the large brokers. The head of our Phoenix office came from Marsh Phoenix. The heads of our Phoenix and Denver offices were senior managers with Marsh. The head of Moreton Risk Services came from Aon. We’ve built a D&O team with unparalleled expertise by attracting people from ABD, Aon and Marsh. We’re gradually building that area by stressing to potential clients that our ‘A’ team is our only team. They won’t just meet with the experts until the account is written and then find themselves being passed down to the ‘B’ team. That can’t happen. We don’t have a ‘B’ team.” Strength on top of strength “I certainly don’t mean to imply that Moreton & Co. didn’t have expertise before,” Dan quickly adds. “We did. We probably were the most knowledgeable broker in the area in the construction and public sector markets. We also handle a lot of health care and high tech business. We’ve always had a reputation for being excellent problem solvers for our clients, and that has allowed us to bite off some pretty big challenges.” Probably the best-known assignment that Moreton & Co. landed was the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. The agency became the first independently owned broker to handle all the risk management and insurance needs for any of the Olympic Games. And it went off without a hitch. “We handled everything as the sole broker for the games,” Dan points out. In addition to the Olympic Games, Moreton & Co. is the insurance broker for the Utah Jazz, and has a list of clients that reads like the who’s who of Utah and Idaho businesses. “Our people have dealt with very complex risk management challenges,” Dan continues. “And we’re not afraid to toot our horns. The addition of large broker talent has allowed us to add to the already impressive expertise and to compete for some larger accounts, although we stay away from Fortune 500 companies, at least for now. Our team now includes professionals, who, in former lives, have been account team leaders on firms such as Johnson & Johnson and Unilever.” Strength behind the strength “The producers we bring in have one common ingredient—they are all relationship-oriented producers,” Dan says. “That’s very important, but it can also be difficult if you try to make them fit into a mold. Everybody has a different way of relating with people and developing those close ties that lead to business relationships that last. So we just bring in the right kind of people and give them a lot of latitude. “To make that workable, we have the best support staff in the area and the best tools. None of this would be possible if we didn’t have great people,” Dan points out. “The producers go out and develop the relationships, and the support people make certain that the service we provide exceeds expectation. That’s why our retention rate is better than 96% in a competitive marketplace.” In addition to the people, the agency also provides the best in automation, including its own online employee benefits software—Benefitfactor. “We thought it was good,” Dan says, “But you’re never certain there isn’t something better out there until someone comes and tells you how great it is. We had that happen when we hired our first Arizona benefits producer. She came to us from Mercer. When we showed her our online product, she was beaming and told us that Mercer didn’t have anything like it. Additionally, we have an in-house benefits underwriter and an in-house attorney who specializes in benefits and will work with our clients on benefits and human resources concerns. Our clients love these services. “We also have excellent relationships with our markets,” Dan says. “We are the largest regional broker for St. Paul Travelers in Denver and also have excellent relationships with most of the regional companies. They really like local brokers. Some of them won’t even work with the global brokers. They give us very strong support, which translates to better service for our clients.” A good citizen “We’ve been in Salt Lake City for 97 years and have been heavily involved in the community,” Dan points out. “We raise money for the symphony and opera and have a major company foundation that distributes money around town. Our employees work with ‘Meals on Wheels.’ Our roots are here. We’re a private firm that has benefited from the success of this community. If there’s a worthy cause here that needs help, we try to find a way to say, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ This is our community and anything we can do to make it a better place to live is good for us.” Moreton & Co. lives by a philosophy that exemplifies the best in the independent agency system— “The client comes first.” And the agency has succeeded by putting that philosophy into practice. The plans call for the agency to move from prominent to dominant in the Intermountain West over the next few years and we at Rough Notes are certain this will happen. We are proud to recognize Moreton & Co. as our Marketing Agency of the Month. * |
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