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Lots of activity coming from the middle market over the last couple of days. Here's a quick snapshot:
Barney & Barney L.L.C. said it has expanded its presence into Europe with its first-ever international position.
Client Executive Bevin Melody, who has been a member of Barney & Barney's San Diego-based international practice for the last two years, recently relocated to Stuttgart, Germany, where she will focus on new business development and international reverse flow business from her home office.
“Belvin's international presence and ability to meet fact-to-face with parent companies within Europe will serve as an invaluable resource to clients,” said Craig Tabor, a principal and international practice leader for Barney & Barney, in a statement. “Her in-depth global insurance knowledge will provide clients with a thorough understanding of Barney & Barney's international capabilities through the Assurex Global network,” he said.
Keenan & Associates' health care division recently partnered with TelaDoc to provide clients 24/7 physician telephone consultations to diagnose, recommend treatment and write short-term prescriptions, the Torrance, Calif.-based broker said.
The service provides treatment for minor illnesses such as sinus infections, respiratory infections, urinary tract infections, allergies, bronchitis and sore thoart. It's an efficient, cost-effective alternative for minor medial problems, Keenan said.
William Gallagher Associates has promoted Executive Vp Mike Kearney to lead the firm's life sciences practice, the Boston-based broker said. Amy Sinclair, a senior vp with WGA, was named co-chair of the practice. WGA serves the risk management needs of 700 companies in the life sciences industry, it said.
And HUB International Ltd. recently introduced “an integrated suite” of insurance products for middle market technology companies. Underwritten by CNA Financial Corp., HUB Technology Solutions offers a wide range of coverage options including industry-specific property endorsements covering research and development restoration expenses; management liability coverage on a multi-line package or stand-alone basis for employment practices, D&O, and fiduciary liability and information risk and first-and third-party cyber coverage.
With the way brokers are jumping ship and joining competitors in London I'm starting to wonder if anyone is working over there or if everyone is on garden leave.
In the latest moves, Aon Ltd. said Monday that it has lured away a number of aviation experts from various competitors to join its London-based general aviation team.
Joining Aon in alphabetical order are: Jeremy Chase, a specialist aviation broker formerly with Marsh; Shannon Christie, a client manager formerly with Willis; Matthew Morris, a client manager formerly with Amlin; Simon Brunsdon, a client manager for Americas business formerly with Sturge Aviation Agency; and James Whiter, an aviation broker formerly with HSBC Insurance Brokers.
The hires come a little more than six months after a trio of aviation brokers—Bill Smith, John Cruse and Steve Turner--left Aon Ltd. to join Jardine Lloyd Thompson's aviation practice in London.
Aon Ltd. said that is has attracted 20 people to its airline and aerospace team within the last nine months
During a presentation on the keys to success for the managing general agency business at the recent Peak Performance Insurance Ski Conference, Fabian Burstyn of QBE Specialty Insurance, noted the use of iPhone applications as a way to offer clients an additional channel of customer service.
He specifically mentioned GEICO's new “GloveBox” app as an example, and said he thinks more companies in the insurance industry will turn to such mobile technology in the future.
Not being familiar with GEICO's GloveBox, I looked it up online. I have to admit, it's pretty cool. Customers who download the app not only can pay their bill and look up id cards on their iPhones, they also can get tips on what to do if they are in a fender bender, find a local taxi or rental car service, and get instructions on how to change a flat tire.
GEICO is not alone. Nationwide and Progressive offer similar mobile apps to their auto insurance customers, but go a step further by allowing them to submit claims at the scene of a car accident.
While such mobile technology makes sense in the personal lines arena, is it right for the commercial side of things and more specifically commercial insurance agents and brokers?
Absolutely, contends Peter van Aartrijk, CEO and managing director of insurance branding firm Aartrijk and Rick Morgan, a senior associate and insurance technology expert with Aartrijk.
While they say they are unaware of any commercial agent and broker at this time that's created an iPhone app, Mr. Morgan noted “it will only be a matter of time.”
Mobile technology is “just mushrooming,” he said. And one of the ways in which this technology will become useful in the commercial insurance space is with real-time video.
“Imagine walking through a new commercial account and streaming video back to an underwriter who is able to ask questions live,” he said. “A claim can be done the same way.” It not just about an app, it's about using mobile technology to submit information on a risk or a claim.
Mr. van Aartrijk added that he could see “large, savvy” commercial agents and brokers creating mobile apps for some of their best accounts similar to what they did about 10 years ago when they created proprietary portals for their customer on their Web sites. Just as those clients now access certificates of insurance online via their brokers, so too could they do that from their mobile phones.
“From a consumer demand stand point and the way people are going with hand-held devices today, it's just inevitable” that the commercial insurance industry will embrace the technology, Mr. van Aartrijk said.
After luring away a team of executives from Aon Ltd.'s Financial Services Group earlier this month, London-based broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group has found itself on the opposite end of some employee defections.
Per the Insurance Insider, Lloyd's broker Price Forbes has persuaded senior energy casualty brokers Simon Edwards and Julian Wilson to leave Lloyd & Partners Ltd., the London-based wholesale and energy specialty arm of JLT, and join Price Forbes.
Messrs. Edwards and Wilson reportedly resigned from Lloyd & Partners Monday and were sent on garden leave Wednesday. Both have 12-month notice periods in their employment contracts.
Another senior member of the Lloyd & Partners' energy casualty team, Peter Burton, is still on garden leave following his resignation last year, according to the Insider. Mr. Burton is reportedly joining Arthur J. Gallagher International's two-year-old energy wholesale start-up Alesco Risk Management Services.
Much could be at state for JLT as the Lloyd & Partners energy casualty teams' clients include such energy giants as Houston-based Helix Energy Solutions Group, Houston-based Cal Dive International Inc., Carlyss, La.-based Global Industries Ltd., San Francisco-based URS Corp. and Houston-based Rowan Cos. Inc., per the Insider
Insurance Office of America Inc. has been named the “Official Insurance Broker” of the New Jersey Devils professional hockey team.
Newark, N.J.-based Devil Arena Entertainment L.L.C., operators of the NHL franchise and the Prudential Center, said in a statement that it reached a five-year deal with IOA, under which the Longwood, Fla.-based agency will provide insurance services. The two also will partner together on various marketing and branding initiatives
The Devils, which won the coveted Stanley Cup in 1995, 2000 and 2003, join the likes of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars and the NBA's Orlando Magic in becoming an IOA client.
The privately held insurance agency--No. 31 on BI's Top 100 list, plans to launch a national branding campaign using sports and entertainment as its lead platform for strategic growth, the statement says.
A few interesting broker tidbits recently caught my attention.
New York-based broker Tanenbaum-Harber Co. Inc. has officially changed its name to a much simpler T&H Brokers Inc.
In a Jan. 26 letter to clients and partners, President and CEO Walter L. Harris said the broker wanted to encompass all of the different businesses in which it is engaged under one name.
The origin of Tanenbaum-Harber dates back to 1844 when 20-year-old Isaac Tanenbaum started selling fire and sprinkler leakage insurance to his clients, Mr. Harris said in the letter.
And on a different note, both Hylant Group and Alliant Insurance Services Inc. recently made employee benefit acquisitions.
Cincinnati-based Hylant said Tuesday that it merged with the W Group, a privately held employee benefits firm. Combined, the brokers will form one of the largest employee benefit firms in the greater Cincinnati area, Hylant said.
And Newport Beach, Calif.-based Alliant Insurance Services said last week it acquired Almond Valley Insurance Services Inc., a regional employee benefits firm based in Chico, Calif., for an undisclosed sum.
Not everyone is pleased with Willis Group Holdings’ board of directors’ decision to extend the employment contract of its chairman and CEO for another two years.
As we reported last week, Joe Plumeri’s employment contract has been extended through July 7, 2013. It was originally set to expire in April 2011. The former Citigroup Inc. executive joined Willis in 2000 and is credited with re-energizing and growing the brokerage following its initial public offering in 2001.
Following the announcement of his contract extension, however, analysts from Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. Inc. said they were removing Willis from their “select list” and reducing the broker’s 12-month stock target price to $40 from $44.
The analysts said they have “two primary concerns” over Mr. Plumeri’s extended tenure at the helm of the London-based brokerage.
“Although we respect (Mr. Plumeri’s) consistent opposition to contingent commissions, we believe that this stance leaves money on the table if…the relevant regulators ultimately allow Aon, Marsh and Willis to resume collecting fully-disclosed contingents,” they said.
Secondly, the analysts said they “regretfully believe the investor enthusiasm following Joe’s initial successes in reinvigorating Willis’ sales culture and expanding its margins has soured following several years of complicated earnings reports, withdrawn guidance, segment restatements (and) senior management turnover.”
It may sound strange, but John M. Wepler, president of Marsh, Berry & Co. Inc., said he thinks all of the challenges over the last couple of years including the economic recession, prolonged soft market, consistent exposure retrenchment, growing unemployment and individual net worth devaluation, will be looked upon as “the best thing that's ever happened” to the insurance distribution industry.
These challenges, he said, are forcing agency owners who want their agencies to survive, to make some very difficult decisions that heretofore they haven't had the guts to make.
At the Peak Performance Insurance Ski Conference being held in Avon, Colo., Mr. Wepler today said that many producers believe they are “untouchable” because they handle a big book of business, and that agency owners are afraid to hold them accountable for new business production and end up perpetuating that culture.
But given the ongoing economic and market conditions, what agency owners have finally realized, is that if they are going to survive and be able to perpetuate, they need to grow and be profitable and therefore they need to design a plan irrespective of what their producers' opinions are about how they should be managed, Mr. Wepler said.
As a result, agency owners are making tough decisions like requiring their sales people to hit minimum standards of production and then reducing their compensation if they don't meet the targets, Mr. Wepler said. Furthermore, owners are telling their producers that if they don't like it, they're welcome to leave.
“It's a refreshing change,” Mr. Wepler said. He likened it to someone who was living an unhealthy lifestyle who gets hit with a health scare. "All of the sudden they want to extend their longevity because they realize how precious life is and they try to get healthy by eating right and exercising."
A lot of these agencies owners realized that their agencies' demise or survival was being left to chance, Mr. Wepler said. They now have the fortitude to say “I'm going to survive and I'm going to make the tough decisions because I've seen the abyss and I don't want to fall into.”
The Insurance Insider is reporting today that London-based broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson has hired “a number” of senior members of Aon's UK Financial Services Group including its chairman Mark Wood, who was sent home yesterday on a 12-month garden leave.
FSG Executive Directors Sarah Hughes and Adam Codrington are among the other senior executives at Aon to have left for JLT, according to the Insider.
“In what is thought to be the biggest broker walkout on Lime Street this year, the three senior staff are set to be joined at JLT by at least three or four others who have relinquished their positions,” the article states.
I reached out to both Aon and JLT for confirmation, but have not heard back. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Aon and JLT have both confirmed the news. JLT will issue a formal press release with further information Wednesday.
Insurance companies that use brokers—and let’s face it, the majority of them do—view them as important partners. One truism in the insurance business is that the easier you make it for a broker to do business with you, the more business you are likely to see.
Aflac, a provider of voluntary insurance ranging from life to accident and disability products, learned this lesson. The insurer recently was named the preferred company for voluntary coverages in a survey of more than 350 brokers. In a similar survey last year, Aflac was fourth.
Why the improvement? One difference is that Aflac recently unveiled a program called “Aflac for Brokers,” which offers, among other things, a single point of contact for brokers, teams dedicated to serving brokers’ clients, new services that brokers’ clients can access and new products. There’s also a Web site created expressly for brokers.
Aflac famously uses a duck in its marketing programs (see video). With the new tools for brokers, Aflac is eager to make sure people can’t say, “You don’t know Quack.”
Sally Roberts is on vacation. Guest blogging until her return is BI Editor Regis Coccia.
Aflac commercial starring Quack the duck
