"Service is the thing we all do," Mary Ellen Rozzell, the new president of the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices, said during a recent interview. She was responding to a question about the way people are hired at the wholesale brokerage firm she runs, describing how it was possible for a retail broker to fill an important vacancy there some years back.
"He worked out perfectly. He knew the importance of getting back to people immediately," said Ms. Rozzell, president of Continental/Marmorstein and Malone, out of Paramus, N.J. "He knew that when somebody gets to the surplus lines market, it's usually the last minute–and we don't have two weeks to get an answer. We have to answer them today."
"We all do the same thing," she said, referring to brokers generally. "Service is the issue. Our business is about service and relationships."
For Ms. Rozzell, nearly four decades of service to the surplus lines industry started when she responded to a tiny newspaper advertisement for a position working in an excess and surplus lines office.
"This is my only job," she said, referring to the fact that she's worked for the Marmorstein Agency for her entire career. (These days, the firm is known as Continental/Marmorstein and Malone–the product of two mergers of three separate but similar E&S brokerage operations.)
Ms. Rozzell has seen her role grow from the administrative assistant described in the help-wanted ad to which a high-school graduate responded some 38 years ago, to underwriter and licensed broker, placing million-dollar accounts.
Through that one job, she has assumed several important roles beyond executive of a wholesale brokerage firm–such as crusader for causes important to the surplus lines industry, and now leader of the largest national U.S. surplus lines organization.
Ms. Rozzell, who became NAPSLO president at the group's annual meeting earlier this month in New Orleans, has a history of responding immediately–as needs arise at her firm and in her industry.
She voluntarily stepped up to answer the call to do legislative work for the New Jersey Surplus Lines Association some years ago–at a time when lead paint exclusions were a hot-button issue, for example.
At the time, New Jersey was a state where E&S insurers did not have freedom of form, and the insurance department wouldn't approve the lead paint exclusion on liability policies for habitational risks, Ms. Rozzell recalled.
"We wrote a lot of that business, and we had a market that didn't have the exclusion. If we couldn't get it added on, we would have trouble replacing all the business," she said. "It was a big issue in our office. I saw how it could stop us from writing business."
Months of back-and-forth talks ended with the department's acceptance of lead paint sublimits, she noted.
"It showed me how you need to be involved–and that the department is not your enemy," Ms. Rozzell said. "There are people there that you need to be able to converse with–to let them know what you do as a surplus lines broker."
Ms. Rozzell, who served as NJSLA president from 1990-92, also worked on a team to change the surplus lines law. While that effort wasn't successful during her tenure, it was carried on by successors who ultimately scored a legislative victory 10 years later, when the law eliminating the requirement for E&S insurers to file forms for approval was passed in 2003.
"That is a big deal in the surplus lines market. That's why we exist, because when the market gets hard, we can immediately react," Ms. Rozzell said. "We don't have to file forms. We don't have to worry about whether we can do it or not do it. We can address current issues–come up with solutions to alleviate losses to a carrier."
Interest in legislative and regulatory issues has carried over to Ms. Rozzell's work at NAPSLO, where she has served on the legislative and membership committees.
As NAPSLO president over the next year, she sees her role as simply a facilitator of initiatives already in progress–such as work to pass federal surplus lines reform, to attract young people to the industry through internship and career projects, and to educate them through the NAPSLO schools.
"We have a strategic plan," she said, noting that the NAPSLO board signs off on the document. With one-year leadership, "you're just getting your feet wet when your term is over, but if we have a plan and we keep going forward with it, the leadership provides continuity," she said.
The business card Ms. Rozzell hands to customers describes Continental/ Marmorstein & Malone as a "professional special risk wholesaler." Although she never used that phrase during her interview, her take on what makes her firm successful reveals what she considers to be the "professional" aspects of the business.
"We're underwriters. We're not order takers. I think our markets respect that," she said, adding that the firm also produces good results for its insurers.
As a result, she reported that her agency has enjoyed very long-term relationships with its carrier partners–some as long as 42 years, and many at 15 to 20 years or more.
Supporting the "special risk" aspect of the firm's description are placements ranging from small mercantile and dwelling business in the inner cities, to pollution coverage for the Hackensack Meadowlands stadium–commanding a $350,000 premium.
In between have been some unique placements, such as one for sellers of marijuana for medicinal purposes in the late 1970s. "You want me to write products insurance on what?" was a typical response before a friend at the Admiral signed on to write it, she recalled.
Ms. Rozzell also described an account that's special to her from a personal standpoint–one that her firm has been writing for 20 years for a drug rehabilitation facility that had one location in Hoboken, N.J., at the start. At 6,000 beds today, it's currently the largest account in the office.
"That's a long time," she said. "I've grown with that account. It's exciting to do something like that–to keep it on the books that long."
Ms. Rozzell said it's an honor to be only the second woman considered for the position of NAPSLO president. (Maureen Caviston of Partners Specialty in Hartford was NAPSLO's first woman president, during the September 1995-96 term.)
"I think women have good opportunities in our business. It's a male-dominated world, there's no question. But if you work hard to become respected, then you'll get the same recognition as anybody," she said.
"I didn't feel a prejudice being a woman in business by any means," she added.
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