Marketing Agency of the Month

Now the fun begins

A post-Renaissance euphoria has this Denver agency
offering the Power of V

By Dennis H. Pillsbury

When viewed through today’s rose-tinted glasses, the Renaissance is viewed as a time of great achievement with everyone enjoying the changes that were sweeping through Europe. Well, that’s half right. It was indeed a time of great achievement, but it was also an unsettling time when beliefs and practices came under scrutiny and most people felt as if change were coming too fast. Even those people who recognized the need for advancement were not always happy about it.

The same has been true for Van Gilder Insurance Corporation, an independent agency based in Denver, Colorado. The agency had just entered its second century when the fourth generation took over the helm and recognized the need for a Van Gilder Renaissance to prepare the agency for another century of success.

Van Gilder started serving the insurance needs of the Denver community in 1905 and, like many independent agencies, was a generalist that responded to the risk management needs of the people and businesses in its marketing area. “We remained very much a generalist right up to May of 2006,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Van Gilder says. “We had a lot of good people trying to do their best without a lot of strategy behind it.”

Michael had just taken over the CEO position from his father, Dell Van Gilder Jr., who continues to serve as chairman of the agency. Dell had led the agency for 37 years and directed a great deal of the growth that turned the agency into one of the pre-eminent independent property/casualty and employee benefits brokerages firms in the Rocky Mountain region. When Dell joined the agency in 1963, sales volume was $500,000. By the turn of the century, it had reached $250 million.

“My father guided us through what I call our entrepreneurial run, which included both organic growth and a number of mergers,” Michael says. “And it is at the end of that run that a number of agencies either sell or bring in a new management structure. We chose the latter course and are in the process of repositioning ourselves for the next big run.”

The Van Gilder Renaissance

We have set out to transform the agency to one with a number of specialty orientations,” Michael continues. “We rebranded the entire company, with everything new, including our location. The first two years of that effort represented the Van Gilder Renaissance and it was indeed a time that saw a lot of changes. It was a necessary step to get the foundation where we wanted so we could achieve our goal of becoming the dominant player in each of our specialties.”

The first step in the process was to identify the areas in which the agency already had sufficient market clout to become specialty areas. Three criteria needed to be met. The specialty had to:

1. Be a driver in the economy.

2. Produce revenues in excess of $1.5 million.

3. Have a full team in place from sales to account management.

The agency initially identified eight areas that fit those criteria: six commercial P-C classes; employee benefits and retirement plans; and personal insurance and small businesses. The six commercial areas are: construction, aviation, executive liability, professional liability, oil and gas, and private equity. This year, senior housing was added as a specialty and “others are percolating,” Michael says.

“One of our goals for our employees is to have fun,” Michael continues, “and to be honest, those two years of change were not a lot of fun. People’s jobs and relationships changed as we organized into teams that focused only on their specialty. But our employees recognized that growth really helps. Success is a great catalyst for fun. I have to give them a tremendous amount of credit. They remained focused on the task, and today we’re settled in and have already achieved tremendous success.”

The Power of V

Today, Van Gilder has reached its initial goal of becoming one of the top three risk consultancies in their marketplace in every one of its specialty areas. “But our ultimate goal is to become the dominant player,” Michael says, “which is even better than number one. It means that potential clients in that niche come to us because we have become recognized as the risk management experts in that specialty. And we’ve already achieved that status in a couple of business units.

“That is what we’ve termed ‘The Power of V.’ The Power of V connotes the advantage our clients gain by tapping into the high levels of knowledge, innovation, and per-formance that serve as the context for everything we do,” Michael adds proudly.

Van Gilder presents itself as a risk consultancy that is “committed to helping every person we touch become more successful in his or her personal and professional pursuits,” he adds. They accomplish this by serving as trusted partners and advocates for their clients, working with them to find solutions to their most challenging risk management needs.

At the same time, Van Gilder has remained true to the core values that stretch back to 1905, which is expressed as a five-word vision statement: Ethics, Family, Balance, Passion, and Fun.

“At our monthly meeting with all our employees, we pick one of the five words and highlight it,” Michael notes. “We never want our people to forget the vision behind our efforts. We provide live examples of an individual or situation that highlights the featured word. We keep engraining that into our people as the basis for making decisions.

“For example, when an individual is at a crossroads, we want them to always choose the ethical high road, even if it means less revenue for the agency over the short run. We are in business for the long term, and remaining committed to high ethical standards will guarantee our long-term success.

“We make it clear that we cherish each person’s family as part of a broader Van Gilder family,” Michael continues. “We have a firm belief that the people you surround yourself with create an atmosphere, and we are very picky about the people we choose to bring into our family. The result is that we have an organization where people get together on weekends and there are a lot of deep friendships.

“We also show our concern for our Van Gilder family members by emphasizing wellness as part of our culture. We have a gym right here for our employees and provide fruit instead of candy and donuts for the frequent celebrations of success. And the new location also is right downtown, near a mass transit stop, as well as restaurants and sports teams, making it easy for employees to get together after work. And they do.

“We also emphasize that work is not the end all and be all. The three-legged stool of family, life and work represents an important balance that each one of our employees needs to keep in mind. We don’t want the job to become all-consuming. That only leads to short-term success but long-term frustration.

“We look for people who have passion and can bring that passion to those industry segments in which they choose to specialize. We want them to become immersed in their specialty and to zealously represent their clients in that field.

“The final ingredient—fun—is a natural output of success in the other four areas. Fun grows out of success and working and playing with people you like.”

Building for the future

While it was going through the dramatic changes that represented its renaissance, Van Gilder continued to prepare for the future by bringing in new talent. “In the last three years, we’ve added 13 new producers,” Michael says. “We focused on individuals who had a sales aptitude, rather than an insurance background. In fact, none of them had an insurance background. Several came out of industries where we had a niche presence and have integrated into those business units. Two came from real estate. We are looking to build a more robust real estate focus that could become one of our business units in the future.

“We tested these young people to determine if they had a sales aptitude, and then they went through an extensive interview process that really was designed to determine if they would fit into the Van Gilder family. Once they’re on board, we provide insurance training as well as requiring them to obtain the CIC designation. We also provide sales training that teaches them the routines and habits necessary to be successful producers. They also become immersed in their niche so they understand the unique risk management concerns faced by that industry.

“Although the training is a continuous process, new producers are expected to begin networking in their niche community after about a month.”

Giving back

The people at Van Gilder give back to the community that has supported it. “Our producers are expected to be involved in something,” Michael says. “We don’t have a formal program where we support a particular charity or group of charities because we want each individual to find the area where their passion is. That way they aren’t supporting the charity because they have to, but because they want to. Of course, that does result in Van Gilder being deeply involved in several dozen charities and organizations where the passions of a number of people coalesce. Those include the Boy Scouts of America, the Denver Chamber of Commerce, the American Red Cross, and the University of Colorado Denver Business School, to name just a few.”

The agency also is involved in several insurance industry groups. Dell is a past president of the Denver Insurance Association and of the Independent Insurance Agents of Colorado. “We also are involved in the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers,” Michael says, “which provides us with an annual networking opportunity to meet with insurance companies and other agencies. Those relationships are very important to us. The organization also represents our interests in Washington.

“Our membership in Assurex Global,” he continues, “provides immeasurable value. It provides us with opportunities to meet with peers around the world, including breakout sessions for CFOs, loss control specialists and international meetings for those individuals involved in international business. We get to review the best practices of successful agencies and I’m amazed at how willing they are to share their success. It also affords us the ability to compete for any size business. We have access to partners throughout the world who can help us deal with sophisticated multinational organizations.”

With more than $40 million in revenue, Van Gilder has become one of the largest independent insurance agencies in the country and a force to be reckoned with in the Rocky Mountain region, employing more than 200 people in its Denver headquarters and a branch office in Dallas. Its focus on becoming a dominant player in several niche markets should assure another century of success. We are pleased to recognize the firm as this month’s Rough Notes Marketing Agency of the Month.