The Importance of Being Earnest

Insurance Agency Profile

Agency Name: SullivanCurtisMonroe
Headquarters: Irvine, Calif.
Year Founded: 1931
Additional Locations: Corona and Pasadena, Calif.
Total Property/Casualty Premium Volume for 2007: $186.6 million
Premium Volume for Non-Property/Casualty in 2007: $110.3 million
2007 Property/Casualty Revenues: $34.1 million
Principals: William Curtis, chairman; John Monroe, president/CEO; Larry Webb, executive vice president; David Kummer, senior vice president; Michael Isaacs, senior vice president; Jeannine Coronado, executive vice president; Mark Eckenweiler, vice president, CFO.
Number of Employees: 189

An insurance agency deals with hundreds, if not thousands, of policies each year. But at SullivanCurtisMonroe, based in Irvine, Calif., customer satisfaction is the company’s only policy. Following that mantra of intense customer focus has helped the company succeed for more than 75 years, and allowed it to conduct profitable business operations in more than 91 countries, according to President and CEO John Monroe. The company recorded $34.1 million in revenues in 2007 (2008 figures have not yet been tallied). And SullivanCurtisMonroe boasts that major insurance carriers have positioned the company in the top 1 percent of all national brokerage firms.

Such dedication to clients is expressed in employee actions every day, Monroe said, because the company lives and breathes by its mission statement, which states:

“To help our clients protect what’s most important to them, while providing a professional work environment that stimulates individual and corporate growth.”

“We believe that our mission statement clearly emphasizes the importance of both our customers and our employee associates to the success of our firm,” Monroe said. “The statement underscores the balance that we must manage between the service of our clients and the fulfillment of our peoples’ career goals and aspirations.”

Building Blocks of Success

SullivanCurtisMonroe was founded in downtown Los Angeles in 1931 as Walker & Co., and was purchased in the 1970s by John F. Sullivan Co., one of the largest reinsurance brokers in the West at the time. The company then became known as Walker Sullivan Co. and shortly thereafter Gerald J. Sullivan Co. As the company grew, executives located the company headquarters in Irvine, Calif., and two locations were added in Pasadena, Calif. and Corona, Calif.

The retail division of the company was incorporated separately in 1980 to become Sullivan & Curtis. Following this division in 1988, John Monroe was brought onto the team as a principle figurehead, and the company then became SullivanCurtisMonroe Insurance Services. The firm has been a privately held regional firm since 1980.

Today, SullivanCurtisMonroe offers business insurance, personal insurance and employee benefits. Within the commercial area, the largest segments of specialization include the:

• Environmental Program – dedicated to the insurance needs of chemical manufacturers and distributor nationwide;
• Automobile Dealers – offering an exclusive property/casualty underwriting program for new car auto dealers in California, as well as managing a workers’ compensation self-insurance group for this same client base; and
• Real Estate Practice – serving the specialized needs of commercial real estate owners and developers. There is a large segment of real estate clients throughout the West who own, develop or manage office, industrial retail and habitation properties.

Having endured economic and soft and hard market cycles throughout its 77 years in business, the corporation prides itself in its philosophy for success. “Our core sales philosophy stems from the culture of the firm embodied by our founder George Walker, which has always been, ‘Do what is right for the client, and the client will do what is right for you,'” Monroe said.

True to those words, many client relationships have continued for more than 50 years.

Team in Training

The fact that the company stresses healthy and cooperative relationships with clients is both refreshing and reassuring to those already dependent on the company’s services, as well as appealing to newcomers. Consequently, when training new agents, extensive and thoughtful steps are taken to ensure that new employees will exceed their top performance.

“As for new agents, we use a mentor assignment,” Monroe said. New agents are teamed up with a successful senior associate, who is responsible for bringing the new agent up to speed. The new agent typically works with the associate in an Executive Sales Associate Program for one year. During that time, the pair calls on customers together and service the business and risk management needs of the clients together, Monroe explained.

Most of the executive sales associates graduate from the program in 12 to 24 months, and then become account executives. In these positions, employees are entrusted to service customers in their own unit.

“The ESAs are lead by Bob Sanders, a senior vice president in the Irvine office, during their mentoring tenure,” Monroe said. “We utilize a model that includes what we call our Producer Group, lead by David Kummer, a senior vice president and owner of SCM.”

The Producer Group allows the company to provide monthly meetings and trainings sessions. It also enables SullivanCurtisMonroe to direct the firm’s resources toward the professional development of employees.

The program ensures that SullivanCurtisMonroe employees are properly trained with additional guidance to guarantee that their company exceeds the norm, Monroe said. “We organize field mentoring and technical development through this group,” he said. “Additionally we use significant outside resources in our peoples’ professional development.”

It is obvious that SCM cares not only about its reputation as a company to clients, but also strives to please employees by providing them with all the tools they need to succeed. This two-fold goal is necessary, because when clients work with SullivanCurtisMonroe, the company wants them to feel like they are getting a partner and management consultant, Monroe explained. SullivanCurtisMonroe account executives are trained to excel in maintaining one-to-one relationships. That means employees ultimately are skilled in strengthening customers’ risk management portfolio and reducing their costs. Accomplishing that assists in customers’ growth — and subsequently SCM’s growth as well.

“We have grown every year since the 1990s and plan for continued measured growth,” Monroe said. “Our goal is to remain one of the largest privately-held independent insurance brokers in the California marketplace. We are looking to expand into both Northern California, as well as the San Diego market in the near future.”

Despite those ambitious goals, SullivanCurtisMonroe’s history proves that working in harmony with customers leads to success.

Topics California Agencies Property Casualty