Bill Henry will sell you an insurance policy…eventually. The chairman and chief executive officer of McQueary Henry Bowles Troy, however, wants to make it clear that his life–and that of the agency he heads–is about much more than mere risk transfer.
"The last thing MHBT wants to do is sell an insurance policy," he told the National Underwriter. "We are in the business to sell insurance–make no mistake about it–but when we meet with a client or prospect, the last thing on our minds is selling insurance."
The agency's commitment to building a risk management relationship with clients and securing their trust was a key factor in earning Dallas-based MHBT an "Honorable Mention" in NU's 2006 "Commercial Insurance Agency Of The Year" award program.
Mr. Henry said one way to establish trust is to at times actually not sell insurance to a client. "Just last month, one of our producers did something that was not uncommon here–he declined an opportunity to sell insurance," he recalled. "Instead, he advised a client to stay with their direct writer for their commercial auto coverage."
Whatever the producer lost in commission, he more than made up for in credibility and respect, Mr. Henry contends.
"The marketplace is teeming with agents looking to sell someone–anyone–an insurance policy," he said. "An agent cannot rise to the level of a trusted adviser by focusing on a transaction that many buyers perceive to be a commodity. So we are more interested in building relationships, looking for areas of concern and solving problems."
A top priority for any MHBT producer is assisting the client in using insurance as seldom as possible. That, of course, means providing first-class risk management services–or, as Mr. Henry puts it: "We help our clients understand their risk, transfer it, avoid it, finance it–and, yes, insure it."
"We try to educate prospects about their total cost of risk–of which premiums play only one part," Mr. Henry explained. "When they understand how large a role losses play in their overall insurance costs, they are more willing to value our risk management services regardless of how hard or soft the market is."
"It all boils down to…how can we help them with needs they have, and even with those they never knew they had?" he said. "In every way, we try to act as an extension of our clients–their outsourced risk management department."
No one understands this concept more clearly than Michael Hoad, who serves as director of risk management at MHBT. His 30 years in the business have included a decade on the buyer's side as a risk manager for the Western Hemisphere at Houston-based Halliburton, as well as nine years in the same position for another oil and gas servicing company–Gearhart Industries Inc.
MHBT boasts a risk management consulting staff that includes four risk managers, eight licensed claims adjusters and two certified safety professionals.
"Our loss control engineers spend hundreds of hours every year walking in and around clients' properties and making detailed written recommendations for our clients about how they can avoid losses," Mr. Henry noted.
Numerous on-site classes for clients and employees on topics ranging from Occupational Safety and Health Administration compliance to fleet safety also help to keep client claims as low as possible, while providing a safer environment, he added.
Keeping up with numerous regulatory and legislative actions relevant to a client's insurance program is also a top priority at MHBT–and that is only one educational function. "We continue to participate in seminars and company-specific training sessions to educate companies about return-to-work, post-loss procedures, claims reporting, workers' compensation law and contractual liability issues," Mr. Henry said.
Under the rubric of financing risk comes not just mitigation and traditional risk transfer, but trips to the alternative markets as well, including assistance in forming captives for clients.
"We negotiate letters of credit and other collateral requirements, and stratify losses to find deductible or self-insurance retention levels that are most advantageous to them," according to Mr. Henry.
This is all part of MHBT's "consultative broking" approach, described in the agency's sample request for proposal as "viewing the entire insurance and risk management program from a systemic perspective."
Mr. Henry started out in the insurance business in 1972 as an account executive with Dallas-based Texas Employers Insurance Association. Eleven years later, he set up shop with another former TEIA official–Joe McQueary–who unfortunately passed away soon thereafter in 1987.
In 1996, while with McQueary & Henry Inc., Mr. Henry helped develop the agency's first captive insurance company and worked with the Texas Legislature and state regulators to improve the workers' compensation system and reduce the assigned risk pool deficit in the state.
Also in 1996, McQueary & Henry Inc. wrote $70 million in premium with a total staff of 37 people. That year, Mr. Henry also assumed the chairmanship of McQueary Henry Bowles Troy, LLP, following a merger with Bowles, Troy & Associates.
Today, the agency generates nearly $300 million in commercial lines premium volume with a staff of 169–including 28 commercial producers.
Such success is improbable in a firm filled with unhappy people, so it's no surprise that MHBT has been named one of the best companies to work for in Texas by Texas Monthly magazine, the Texas Association for Business and the Society for Human Resources Management.
In addition, the company was one of only two repeat winners of the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Excellence in Workplace Flexibility in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
MHBT is also used to being a role model for its peers–having been selected to participate in a three-year cycle of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America's "Best Practices" study, which includes only 195 agencies out of 900 nominated.
For Mr. Henry, success is assured by having employees who are both technically sound and service-driven. "To find both traits in one employee is rare. To find an agency filled with those kinds of people is remarkable, and has been what fueled our clients' growth and satisfaction."
That growth can be seen in the numbers–such as the agency's total income, which rose from almost $10 million in 1996 to nearly $36 million last year.
Property-casualty insurance isn't the only concern at MHBT, as the agency strives to service all of its clients' exposure needs. Indeed, "the fastest growing segment at MHBT today is in employee benefits," noted Chief Operating Officer Carla Sans.
Wade Nowlin, an MHBT partner who manages a large book of business, said the trend of companies today is to outsource risk management services to the point where some clients view MHBT as their "risk management department."
Performing these services only formalizes a trend that has long been in the making, he added. "Each client is different. Some risk managers utilize our services, including claims and loss control, more than others," according to Mr. Nowlin.
Meanwhile, all the attention paid to agent and broker compensation practices in the wake of state and federal investigations over the past couple of years have not had much of an impact at MHBT. "We offered to discuss this with our clients, and very few pursued it," according to Mr. Nowlin.
To help clients buy into the consultative brokerage approach, MHBT is willing to put its puts its money where its mouth is, featuring an incentive-based fee structure in which "a large portion" of the brokerage's annual compensation could be "based upon performance and value-added impact," that is "tied to specific, quantifiable…criteria."
"We believe that outstanding service is part of our DNA and must be expressed in every encounter with customers," Mr. Henry added. "We often take the time to patiently explain complex insurance matters to clients who are unfamiliar with 'insurance-ese.'"
Numerous "after-hours" telephone calls and e-mail exchanges with clients all stem from the philosophy that a "delayed response is an unacceptable response," he added.
"The evidence of our service is probably best seen when a client comes to our office for a meeting," Mr. Henry said. "Those meetings can look more like a family reunion than a business meeting, with people exchanging hugs and everyone talking about their families and the news of the day. It's an extraordinary environment that is made possible by the concern we show our clients day in and day out."
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.