Disclaimer: This interview is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. In Practise is an independent publisher and all opinions expressed by guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of In Practise.

{audio:0:02:24} Can you share your experience, how you got to Brown & Brown and what your responsibilities were when you were there and why you left?

{audio:0:02:35} I went to Brown & Brown in 2012, as part of a transaction between Zurich Insurance and Brown & Brown. The platform that we were on went through what we called a lift out, so we took our specific unique program at Zurich and we lifted out the business unit and transferred it over to Brown & Brown for them to manage it as a program administrator, so it wasn't really a sale. It was literally just a transfer of a book of business concept and employees. There was about 150 of us that were in that unit. We worked for Zurich one day and we worked for Brown & Brown the next but the discipline in the vertical market remained the same. That was my introduction to Brown & Brown.

{audio:0:03:29} It allowed us to have a little bit more of an aggressive stance in the market and better efficiency as an MGA. My role there was sales leadership. I had a team, over the course of the years, of producers throughout the North East part of the United States and I ran in that space for about four years. I then went to a smaller profit center within Brown & Brown but I was able to take on a larger role within the profit center, again also in the program space, based out of New York. It was also a national program and that allowed me to wear a few different hats, such as sales leadership, production capacity for myself and then help with the agency operations.

{audio:0:04:26} Then earlier this year I made the transition out of Brown & Brown because that particular business unit was going to be absolved or absorbed by another profit center and so there were going to be significant changes coming about to staff and so on. I decided, at that time, that I would try something different and jumped over to where I am now.

{audio:0:05:05} Can I get a better understanding of some of the broader trends that are going on now and the dynamics you’ve seen? Can you speak more to the idea of specializing?

{audio:0:05:27} As you probably know, within Brown & Brown, there's a large company called Arrowhead Insurance and they're a program administrator of significant size and scope. Everything they do is in the program administration space and it's all specialization, in terms of catering to particular markets or with particular concepts or services that are provided in a very vertical scope. The two roles that I described to you earlier were within that concept or division of Brown & Brown, where we were program specialists, so we got very intimate with our clients and our markets and our brokers and it allowed us to tailor our services and our products to a limited number of markets, as opposed to being broad brushed and trying to be all things to everyone. I felt we were a little bit stronger in that capacity because we were specialists.

{audio:0:06:39} Are you talking about specialists in particular industries, geographies? How are they specialized?

{audio:0:06:49} Predominantly by industry, at least from my experience, but within Arrowhead/Brown & Brown there's also a profit centers there that do specialize by product offering, so there's a big underwriting unit that specializes in earthquake coverage and they do really, really well and that's their specialization and they partner with certain carriers; they know how to stack coverage, they know how to underwrite properly. Another organization there specializes in flood – probably the largest flood underwriting unit in the country – and they know the market well; so well that they're able to make really smart decisions and maintain good growth and profitability numbers.

{audio:0:07:41} In the business units that I was in, we were catering more to specific markets. My first market was the automotive industry, so we would provide coverage for automotive related businesses, such as car dealerships, repair facilities and garages. Zurich was our carrier partner and they gave us underwriting authority as a program administrator would be set up, typically. We could then specialize in that one industry and become very intimate with the risks associated and the mindset of the business owner and bring in a suite of products and solutions and services that was really applicable to that one industry and we didn't have to worry too much about being generalists.

{audio:0:08:31} In the automotive industry, what would the competitive dynamics look like there? Did you run into more regional brokers?

{audio:0:08:52} In terms of regional brokers today, as we speak, that industry, to the best of my knowledge, does have some program administration competitors in it where somebody would start up an MGA and then partner with various carriers for the product solutions, but again the same concept of being a specialist in the industry. I would say, from a car dealership perspective, that's probably more predominant in the competitive landscape than the general retail agent position; even though that does exist I don't think it's as much of a threat or as predominant as the MGAs that are in that space today.

{audio:0:09:39} I’m trying to understand how you would differentiate yourself? Say you were there running that group and they were focusing on dealership coverage, what would be some key areas where you would be different?

{audio:0:09:59} We would tout ourselves that, because we specialized just in the one industry, we understood the risks of their business better than the average agent would and therefore we would be able to tailor our coverage to their unique risks and find better solutions. For example, with a car dealership, you drive by a dealer and there's a sea of brand-new cars sitting outside exposed to the elements. If a natural disaster came in or a storm or something along those lines, adequate coverage on those vehicles would be really important and there are various solutions that the dealer can find for that level of coverage but it's got to be affordable and it's got to make sense and there's a convenience to the dealer if they can combine what we call open lot coverage with the rest of their property and casualty program, as opposed to having to go find it elsewhere because it's a unique offering.

{audio:0:11:00} How do the relationships fit in there? How important is that? If you know someone and they’ve done business with you for a couple of years, how does that work?

{audio:0:11:13} It's really important and it’s a good point. We tried to build on those relationships by joining the national and regional associations and becoming contributors and supporters there, going to those functions, getting to know the dealers. It’s part of your branding that, if you are a specialist, then you're participating in their business functions and you're supporting their associations through sponsorship etc. That was a big part of it so we had a presence at those functions and they got to know us and we got to know them. So when you knocked on their door six months later, you had a little bit of credibility because they understand that you're in and around their industry.

{audio:0:12:01} For a specialist business like that do you have a sense for the turnover of accounts? Do they typically stay with a broker for a long time or is it something that you see a lot of turnover every couple of years or something like that?

{audio:0:12:23} Just to circle back to coming out of the carrier mode, we were a specialty unit in the car dealership business, in the automotive business, when we were the carrier and we were fortunate enough to keep 90%+ retention rates with our clients. When we moved over to the MGA space within Brown & Brown, we maintained those rates and we added a greater degree of flexibility because we're an MGA now and even though we specialized in partnering with the carrier, we had the flexibility to go seek other solutions if necessary. If there was a pending rate increase from our partner carrier and we wanted to shop that coverage with another company, we could; or if there was coverage that was not available when we were the carrier as an MGA, we could go out to market and find alternative solutions for the dealers. I would say the stickiness as you mentioned was really important to us and it remained very high.

{audio:0:13:32} One of the other things I’m interested in is how technology comes in and plays more of a role here in the insurance brokerage industry? I’m wondering if you can speak to what trends you’ve seen over the years and, particularly, more as a threat or opportunity or how you think of it?

{audio:0:13:54} I'm going to say opportunity and the reason I say that is Brown & Brown is a very decentralized organization, as I'm sure you know. With hundreds of profit centers, you have hundreds of decision-makers and everybody kind of wants to do their own thing and apply their own technology and they should maintain a degree of autonomy in that respect. But I did see a trend within the organization to try to bring some symmetry to that; maybe narrow the scope of technological vendors and therefore get some economy of scale on purchasing. For example, in one of the units I was in, we needed a CRM for the agency and it didn't exist so one of my tasks was to go out and shop and I looked at companies like Salesforce and some of the competitors as a technology partner to make us more efficient.

{audio:0:14:57} We were given that autonomy to make our own independent decisions and spend our money as we saw necessary. But shortly after I had left that business unit, the division that it was in made a sweeping change to go with one platform for all offices, so they flipped from Salesforce to a competitor and instead of having each agency make their own decisions, this allowed them to have consistency across the ranks and, like I said, economies of scale. I think that's from what I understand a little bit of a trend that's probably headed their way in terms of bringing solutions to the profit centers and you probably see fewer vendors but more installation of technology going forward.

{audio:0:15:55} Does tech itself present opportunities and coverage? I imagine with cyber security and other issues, that might be a good opportunity for a brokerage now or down the road? What do you think?

{audio:0:16:11} That's a good point. I think there's two advantages to tech and you're right, one is the capacity to find coverage and understand the needs of the client and, especially on the program side of Brown & Brown's business where a lot of the offices have underwriting authority, having access to information like data and analytics and underwriting information allows them to make faster and smarter decisions which maintains retention and profitability.

{audio:0:16:46} I also think it's really important that the front facing portals of a lot of these business units to the broker community have to be user-friendly and fast and efficient. If a retail agent wanted to go to a Brown & Brown program unit because they had a specialized product like we talked about with the car dealers, could they go to a Brown & Brown portal, enter the submission information and generate a quote and from there could they even bind and issue the policy? That’s a significant trend in the insurance business right now; how do carriers and brokers coordinate their technology for faster decisions and faster issuance of policies?

{audio:0:17:38} You have some concern about technology supplanting brokers at the margin or some areas where before you had brokers, now it’s all through a portal? What’s your view on that?

{audio:0:17:53} I think the threat would be less to the broker and probably more to the depth of the carrier or whoever's doing the underwriting function. It used to be a fairly manual process to underwrite a risk and now, with this advanced technology, it’s loaded with the quoting information so the broker still has to go build a relationship with the policyholder, the business owner and gather information and then plug it in somewhere in a portal to generate a quote. Behind the scenes, that would have been an underwriting function by a person sitting at a desk and now technology is more of a threat to those folks than I think it is to the broker.

{audio:0:18:41} It would be hard to imagine in that dealership business that you could supplant the consultative role the broker plays in helping with deciding what coverage should be and putting together the whole package. I don’t know if it could be done but what do you think?

{audio:0:19:08} I think a lot of it depends on the complexity of the risk itself. I think, at a personal lines level, you and I are homeowners. If we could go to a portal and plug in our own information and get a quote, we are in essence bypassing the broker. I'll call it simplified underwriting: your house, your car, your motorcycle, whatever it may be. Even on a small commercial basis, a lot of these mainstream USA businesses are similar in risk and exposure and you’ve got a building, you have some equipment, you have some liability. That's simplified underwriting which could be done without a broker but as you get into more complex risks like a car dealer, I think they absolutely need that professional advice.

{audio:0:19:59} I think that would hold true for most businesses of any decent size. That’s the middle market where Brown & Brown plays. What about trends in coverage themselves? Do you see anything interesting happening there over time or what do you think will happen?

{audio:0:20:24} Some of that is conditional on the market. Right now, we're in a hard market so capacity is relatively limited. The example I would give would be like a commercial umbrella. If you have a high-risk business and the market is hard right now and the carriers don't want to assume additional risk or want a healthy pound of flesh to get it, you as the policy holder are probably going to have a tough time affording it or finding that level of coverage. I think that's just a matter of hard market versus soft and eventually, when the market softens, that capacity will open up again as it always does and become more competitive.

{audio:0:21:12} Obviously, the pandemic brought a lot of questions to the front about what's covered and what's not. It was a big dose of reality for our country that most of that exposure was excluded from policies. Carriers learned from in the 2000s when they had other scares from things like SARS and whatnot that they would exclude communicable disease and things along those lines. A lot of folks thought they would be covered and they weren't and I think somebody will probably go out on a limb and find a way to create coverage for it. Right now, it would be really tough to price because there's no precedence but I think somebody will be bold enough to make it happen someday and then externally, there's always the legislative threat that lawmakers will force insurance companies to provide that coverage somewhere down the road.

{audio:0:22:10} You mentioned we’re in a hard market. Normally people say that’s good for the brokers because you’re paying more in premiums and commissions are also higher. I’m curious to know how much of it changes what consumers want? For example, do they lower their coverages because rates go higher so they want to keep what they spend on insurance so they start cutting around those? What reactions do you see on the customer side in a hard market?

{audio:0:22:43} A lot of unhappy customers. Nobody wants to pay more for the same amount of coverage. I think when the market hardens too, you see less shopping of policies because brokers know that if they take it to market, there probably won't be a lot of options so those conversations they're having with their clients are hey, let's hold tight with carrier ABC for now and maybe you have to bite the bullet a little bit and pay more or take a higher deductible, or let's look at maybe lowering a limit somewhere to save some money. Self-insuring is an option for some companies if they can afford it, so things are tight in terms of decision-making and flexibility for the insured themselves.

{audio:0:23:35} Then when we shift to a soft market, do you see customers react any differently there? They’re happier?

{audio:0:23:44} They're happier and certainly some of the resentment that they would hold during a hard market, they're able to release a little bit of that and say all right, I'm going to move away from this carrier or that broker because I didn't have choices.

{audio:0:23:58} That’s kind of the opposite of what you just said, so there’s probably more shopping in a softer market.

{audio:0:24:02} Absolutely. Definitely more shopping and then you see more undisciplined underwriting from companies who want to make a mark or want to pick up market share and want to grow. When the market softens, rates typically drop even though exposure to claims and actual claim counts remain the same or grow incrementally over the years. You'll have a company come in at a low rate and grab some market share but then, eventually, they'll have to raise their rates to keep up with the predictability of claims. That's where that undisciplined underwriting piece comes in where you can lose your way a little bit in a soft market, particularly if you think growth is your number one initiative.

{audio:0:24:52} From a broker standpoint, it doesn’t seem to matter that much. It seems whether the market’s hard or soft the brokers continue to do pretty well. I guess there’s a lot of other variables involved, of course, but would you agree with that?

{audio:0:25:10} I would agree in the respect that brokers have more options, therefore, I think they can bring better value to their clients by being able to say look, we have a policy that’s either new to this particular client or it's a renewal and a retail broker would have options to look at various companies and see who's going to make the best offers. I think the program administrators, like we talked about before, who specialize in a particular vertical market and really only partner with one carrier so therefore they are a little bit more rigid in their offer, sometimes they suffer when the market softens because if their carrier isn't willing to be flexible with their underwriting or their pricing then the broker who's doing business with that MGA can move that business elsewhere.

{audio:0:26:06} When you step back and look at the brokerage landscape in a bigger picture sense, what do you think are the big growth opportunities over the next several years? Is there anything in particular that gets you excited?

{audio:0:26:24} The industry is what we deem inelastic in the respect that, when the economy is strong and there’s extra money in your pocket, the last thing you think about is getting more insurance; you can spend it elsewhere. So as far as opportunities, we probably didn't think about cyber coverage 15, 20 years ago like we do now, obviously, because of the advancement of technology. There are going to be constant shifts in the economy as far as development and innovation. Electric cars are probably going to become more predominant than gas powered cars so does that change the insurance landscape? What about self-driving vehicles or autonomous vehicles? That's certainly going to have an impact on the way autos are insured. How does a carrier or a broker really even know what to expect or how do they assess risk when it comes to a self-driving vehicle? There's really no precedence.

{audio:0:27:30} I think that is certainly going to have an impact on the insurance market, but I think, for the most part, I would expect it to remain tried and true. A building is still a building and it needs coverage and worker's comp. You’ve still got to cover your employees, so unless regulatory issues or something from the government comes in, it will remain.

{audio:0:27:56} You mentioned buildings. The flip side would be, is there any business that used to be good for the brokers but now looks like it’s not going to be so good? People still need buildings but I wonder if office buildings are not as full as they used to be. Maybe that’s a business that’s not as good but if there’s other examples you could think of. Maybe there isn’t any.

{audio:0:28:23} Not to get too deep on how insurance mechanisms work but you make a good point. If you've got a building, it certainly has a value to it. It's so many stories high and it's made out of certain construction and it has a certain replacement value. That's a pretty stagnant number but for that developer who owns the building, the liability that they provide, there has to be a rating basis for that. It's generally based on the rents collected from the tenants.

{audio:0:28:55} So if you've got a full building, your rent value, which is an auditable number by the insurance company, is pretty high. Your liability premium is conducive to that, so it’ll be high; but if you've got a building that's relatively empty, that would depress your liability premium because you're sitting at a bunch of empty offices which kind of goes along with the whole idea of, there's less risk associated there because there's no tenants in the building.

{audio:0:29:26} I want to shift over to a different topic and focus more on Brown & Brown because I hear a lot about their culture. You mentioned how they’re decentralized. I’m curious if you could describe the Brown & Brown culture. What are some of the key aspects of it?

{audio:0:29:55} There's a sense of pride in the decentralization of Brown & Brown where as long as a profit center – and that's what they call all these different businesses that they own, and it really doesn't matter if it's a retail agency or if it's a claims administrator or a program office – meets or exceeds expectations, they’re generally left alone and given a pat on the back, great job, keep doing what you're doing and tell us how we can help and what resources do you need? The two biggest measuring sticks within Brown & Brown are organic growth and profit margin and that's really threaded throughout the culture of the entire organization and they really talk about that a lot.

{audio:0:30:48} I would say it's a very aggressive organization. I haven't worked for other agencies so I can't compare it firsthand, but from colleagues that I've spoken to who do work for other similar middle market type of structures, they are not nearly as aggressive as Brown & Brown. They’re very focused on stock price and how Wall Street perceives the company; very focused on the head count of teammates and then the overall revenue and Powell Brown is aggressive in his desire to grow the organization. They talk a lot about double the revenue, double the number of employees. That's again another common theme.

{audio:0:31:41} From your standpoint being within it, there are pros and cons to that approach? Could you talk about what you perceive as some of the good and bad things?

{audio:0:31:52} I definitely saw more good than bad in terms of that aggressive nature. I liked the fact that there was a high expectation created and then the desire to play at that level. It certainly made you want to work harder and get a better result. From a negativity standpoint, if a profit center was struggling to meet expectations and there were valid reasons for it, such as the market changed, the carrier partner didn't share the same mindset and therefore they'd have to go through a transition and switch carrier partners and that takes time, it could set you back a year or two, Brown & Brown as an organization would take a pause and say okay, go through your transitions and right your ship and let's get cranked up again. But it wasn't a very lengthy pause and, again, maintaining that high level of expectation. Like I said, definitely more pros than cons in terms of the culture within the organization.

{audio:0:33:16} One of the things we talked about already and I’ll ask about it again in a Brown & Brown context is this possible commoditization, however it happens, and how you feel Brown & Brown’s business may be insulated from those kinds of competitive shifts?

{audio:0:33:40} If I understand that correctly, the four divisions within Brown & Brown are retail, the programs, the wholesale and the services. Retail is the largest of the four divisions and I think makes up or generates about 60% of the revenue for the organization and has most of the employees. The good news is they're not bound or tied to any one concept or carrier, so they are more about servicing the policyholder and making sure that they can maintain or retain that business and continue new business production.

{audio:0:34:20} If the market changes to commoditization or something happens, there is a great degree of flexibility within the Brown & Brown organization from the largest division to jump in with a different carrier or find a new concept or pursue a new market. Even though they're retail and they can do a little bit for everyone, I know a lot of them try to stay somewhat specialized in certain industries and capitalize on what they're good at but I think that gives them a leg up on things that may happen externally versus, let's say, the programs division which is more specialized in more vertical markets with little bit more restrictive carrier relationships. They don't have that flexibility to run and jump when necessary.

{audio:0:35:20} When you think about those profit centers, what do you think is the biggest risk to any of them? What’s the biggest risk as an insurance broker to your business?

{audio:0:35:36} That's good question. I tend to look at the people probably, first and foremost. Are they holding onto the good people? Are they developing the people? I think, for the most part, Brown & Brown as an organization does offer a path for upward mobility or an ability to learn more and take on a larger role within the company and I think they have a somewhat decent turnover rate. But again, if you're not paying attention to that and you're investing in people and then they turn over, they're taking their talents elsewhere then you've lost a really important piece of your puzzle.

{audio:0:36:24} I’ve asked that question to a bunch of people in the insurance industry and without fail everybody always mentions people as the key piece. It is a people business.

{audio:0:36:40} Everyone always says you lose your people. You were managing teams so I guess the biggest risk would be they lose a top producer somehow. Is there a lot of poaching that goes on within the business?

{audio:0:36:59} You try not to let that happen and the good news about Brown & Brown is they're not afraid to pay people for their success so your top producers are going to do well financially. Everybody seems to be enamored with the ability to buy the stock at a reduced price so they don't really want to leave. I think the turnover is typically generated more from the under producer, at least on the sales side. I think in the office space you've got account managers, you've got claims people, you've got underwriters. Reasons for turnover there would be different than being productive and rewarding yourself financially.

{audio:0:37:48} Can it happen that poaching goes on? Sure. It happens in any industry but I didn't see a whole lot of it on the sales side. I saw more of it where somebody was either under-producing or just got frustrated and couldn't achieve what they were looking to achieve and then they would kind of jump out on their own and go seek something else.

{audio:0:38:12} Would it be a red flag for you if you were hiring somebody and he’s a good producer but he’s hopped around every two years? Does that factor into it? Can you get a bad reputation if you’re too much of a hired gun?

{audio:0:38:28} Absolutely, sure. I know guys like that.

{audio:0:38:38} Do you know the firm Ryan Specialty on the wholesale side? They just went public. I wondered if you knew much about them, but maybe you don’t.

{audio:0:38:41} I know the name, yes. I can’t say that I do, sorry.

{audio:0:38:53} Were you involved at all on the M&A side?

{audio:0:38:59} We actually went through an attempted acquisition of an organization when I was at my second stop within Brown & Brown. We were a program agency and there was an insurance consulting firm that kind of put themselves on the market and Brown & Brown collectively took a run at them so I was fortunate enough to go through the process and see what it looked like. So I don't have a lot of experience with it but from seeing it from initial stages, everybody always talks about how culturally would it fit, would it make sense? The people, the concept, the market and so on; that always seemed to be a big driving factor from our side of it.

{audio:0:39:44} From the agent or the firm looking to sell, a lot of times that came down to the offer: what are we going to get out of this? Obviously, they're looking to set themselves up for the long term, but yes, it was a really interesting process for sure.

{audio:0:40:02} I hear about that culture having to be a good fit. I guess there’s no way to do that other than to spend a lot of time with people.

{audio:0:40:11} Generally, I would say the agency that was looking to sell probably knew or had some type of relationship with people at Brown & Brown and that's where that history comes from. That’s what happened in our case. Our president and their president were close and, because they were a consulting firm, they actually did some work with us so we had a pretty intimate relationship with them and we thought there was some decent symmetry there, but eventually they got a better offer from somebody else.

{audio:0:40:47} I imagine, in an M&A, most of the guys know each other and some of these relationships could probably go on for years before somebody puts themselves on the market.

{audio:0:40:59} True. A lot of it has to do with the principles of the agency looking to sell and do they have a legacy behind them? What's their age? Are they looking to jump out of the industry at some point and cash out? Timing is critical. One thing they talked a lot about within Brown & Brown was that we wanted to grow by acquisition. We prefer to grow organically but we knew both were going to be important elements for the success of the company. But in wanting to grow by acquisition, they always talked about how many more deals were contemplated that didn't happen, that we walked away from than the actual deals that we made happen, because they weren't the right fit or culturally it didn't make sense.

{audio:0:41:46} I haven’t heard you mention pricing.

{audio:0:41:52} I guess, internally, price was the issue and obviously we wouldn't want to overpay for an agency. But yes, maybe it was pride and we didn't want to admit it because we got outbid. Maybe it really didn't come down to pricing; it really came down to us taking a look at something and saying that doesn't really fit with our culture.

{audio:0:42:13} Plus there are so many of these transactions. Unless somebody comes in and just blows everybody out of the water, I imagine the price is going to be generally pretty close and a band of some kind?

{audio:0:42:34} How would you evaluate an insurance broker? What would be some of the key things you were look for if you were evaluating them as an investment to you?

{audio:0:42:48} Track record of success. What’s the forward-looking path; their leadership? I've worked for some big organizations with some strong leaders and a guy like Powell Brown is not afraid to put himself out in the limelight and deliver a message and then ask thousands of teammates to get in the boat and row in the same direction. He’s pretty powerful in that respect so I think he's a real driving force and has grown the organization significantly over the previous generation. That would be something to absolutely consider.

{audio:0:43:30} Then the diversity they have within the organization. If the market changed significantly within the industry, for whatever reason in, let's say, retail or program business, the good thing about Brown & Brown is they've got those other three divisions to drive the production and drive the revenue of the organization, so they're smart in the respect of staying somewhat diverse.

{audio:0:44:05} Is there anything else that I haven’t covered that you think is something that we should mention that’s important to the brokerage business?

{audio:0:44:16} At that middle-market level – and you probably know this better than I do – but just watching competitors and acquisition and who's leapfrogging who and who's joining forces and who’s trying to combine strength to gain market share, I think all of that's really important to keep an eye on. The big agencies like Brown & Brown will always be buying the small mom-and-pops as will our competitors, as will the USIs and the Gallaghers and the other folks.

{audio:0:44:50} I think if you look at larger or middle market agencies – big, strong national, global ones – when they join forces, it certainly would have an impact on the market, so I certainly want to be cognizant of that. Brown & Brown didn't really internally talk about a play of that magnitude. It was more about, we're going to acquire what we think is a good fit from the smaller agencies and bring them into the fold and we'll continue to grow that way.

{audio:0:45:23} They made some significant acquisitions over the time that I was there, with the Beecher Carlsons of the world and the Hays Companies. Things like that would certainly give them a big push in terms of a national ranking and the ability to provide a return on the investment.

Brown & Brown Insurance: Competition & Culture

Shifting competitive dynamics in the mid-market market due to technology

Growth opportunities for major players in the market

B&B culture and how they manage decentralisation

Pros and cons of sales oriented culture at B&B

BROWN & BROWN INC

Brown & Brown is a family-owned insurance broker catering to middle market customers. The business has increased revenue every year since 1993 (the year it went public) with the exception of 2009 when revenues fell 1%. Brown & Brown uses its free cash to acquire new agencies, and its success in reinvesting nearly all of its free cash flow in this manner has led to a consistent market-beating compounder.

About 35% of the stock is in the hands of the Brown family, management and employees providing strong alignment with shareholders. The firm also boasts an industry leading cash flow conversion ratio, converting ~25% of revenue to free cash flow.

Brown & Brown Insurance: Competition & Culture

Former VP of Business Development at Brown & Brown

inpractise.com/articles/brown-and-brown-insurance-competition-and-culture

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BROWN & BROWN INC

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Executive Bio

Former VP of Business Development at Brown & Brown

Interview Transcript

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