Rough Notes • May 2024 • OPPOSITES ATTRACT

On January 1, 2022, Iron Insurance Partners was formed with its headquarters centrally located in Salina, Kansas. The new agency was the result of a merger of two, well-established Kansas agencies that, despite some differences, represented what CEO Shawn Myers says was a perfect fit.

“The name reflected the fact that this was a new entity that, while it brought together the values of integrity and service that both agencies shared, it also offered much that was new,” he notes.

“I’d like to say that the new name followed an extensive branding study, but it really was the fact that we needed a new name and somebody said, ‘How about Iron?’ which was the name of the street where we decided to have our headquarters, and we all said, ‘Sounds good.’ ”

The new name proved to be one of many propitious decisions. Iron represented strength and stability and paved the way for a new branding element, as the capital “I” was turned into a logo created by two I-beams.

“It was a good symbol for a company that provides foundational support to its customers through effective risk management and insurance solutions,” Shawn observes.

Shawn came to Iron from the Keller Leopold Insurance half of the merger, which he had joined in 2009. He rose through the ranks to reach the position of chief executive officer in 2021, because, as he explains, “although I had a good book of business that I developed, I really enjoyed the management-type stuff.”

When he joined Keller Leopold, the agency was headed up by brothers Doug and Eric Keller, who represented the third generation of family leaders of the agency. They had become partners in 1990 and 1996, respectively.

The agency had been founded by Harold Keller in 1943, with headquarters in Garden City, Kansas, and had an emphasis on farm and crop accounts. Harold’s nephew, Jim Keller, joined in 1952 and helped expand the agency into personal lines. Doug and Eric helped the agency expand into commercial lines.

Meanwhile, in 1970, another agency with an entirely different marketing strategy opened its doors in Salina. Originally known as Insurers & Investors, Inc., this agency focused on the larger commercial lines, building a risk management team that became known throughout Kansas. Jim Wilson joined that firm in 1982, became a partner in 1984, and served as managing CEO of what had become Assurance Partners before its merger with Keller Leopold. Today, Jim is executive chairman of Iron.

Along the way, in 1999, Mark Skidmore joined Insurers & Investors, becoming a partner in 2005 of Sunf lower Insurance Group, the agency’s then-new name after it partnered with Sunf lower Bank. “Every week, we were going into towns where the bank had operations and focused on municipal accounts, to meet with the city, the school, the largest contractor and whatever the largest business was in the town and discuss their risk management needs,” Mark recalls.

“Those were our targets,” he explains. “We weren’t interested in BOPs. And that focus continued even after we bought the agency back from the bank in 2016 and became Assurance Partners.

“Our risk management team and loss control people were unique for the area and made it possible for us to compete for large clients even against the major brokers,” Mark says proudly. Today, Mark serves as president of Iron Insurance Partners.

Both agencies were accustomed to getting larger through a combination of organic growth and acquisition. But the acquisitions primarily involved like-minded agencies, with the result being that Keller, because of its focus on smaller clients, purchased agencies with smaller accounts. These firms tended to have close personal relationships within the town or city where they were located and, for that reason, Keller often kept the acquired agency’s office open as a branch.

Assurance, on the other hand, purchased agencies that served larger commercial accounts. Because of the acquisitive nature of both agencies, they each had become core partners with BroadStreet Partners to help them find and finance acquisitions and mergers.

One day, BroadStreet suggested that a merger might prove beneficial to both agencies.

The owners of both organizations got together and decided that a merger did make sense. “We could see how the resulting economies of scale could allow us to pursue opportunities that were not available to us as separate entities,” Shawn says.

“It certainly didn’t hurt that Mark and I got along so well and complemented each other,” he adds. “Mark is a true sales leader—it’s his passion and he’s great at it—and I quite clearly lean toward management- type things, which I just love.

“Merging also would open avenues for advancement for all our people—opportunities that just were not available before,” Shawn explains. “In short, we realized that we would be stronger together.”

“What really made the merger work,” Mark recalls, “is that, even though the people in the management team came from two very different agencies, we wound up having a perfect fit as a team. Shawn and I have never disagreed about business or people or process.

“That agreement extends to the other members of the management team,” he adds. “We’re all about what is right, not what makes money.

Shawn continues, “At one of our first weekly meetings, we set ourselves the task of creating the agency’s core values and it went amazingly smoothly. We agreed on four values: Honoring relationships; Whatever it takes, the right way; Embrace ingenuity; and Growth mindset.

“These four incorporate our focus on being employee centric, community centric, and client centric,” he explains.

“As part of the management team, we focus on what employees need from us,” Shawn adds, “and our employees focus on what our clients need from the agency. To make certain that we stay on track, we have an annual all-employees day where all 106 employees from 14 offices across Kansas and Colorado are brought together on President’s Day to discuss our employee engagement survey. Our goal is to have every metric for every employee come out green.”

Eric Keller and Jim Wilson were key leaders in determining the overall rationale for the merger. Both agencies had about 40 employees at the time.

“The economies of scale that could be achieved were so evident,” Jim says. “While both entities have primarily stayed in their respective lanes, the larger size has provided us with growth in areas that were unreachable before.

“It’s also given me the opportunity to redirect my efforts to work just on major accounts, providing risk management consulting services,” he adds. “It also has let me focus on creating alternative risk-financing options for those clients that want to go in that direction, including captive insurance formation, self-insurance programs, and other alternative risk solutions.”

Eric, who is an Iron partner, remembers that the agencies had met and talked some four or five years ago, but had noted how different the marketing plans were. “BroadStreet was able to provide a roadmap for making the merger work,” he explains.

“This resulted in an increased valuation for both entities,” Eric adds, “as well as the opportunity to bring on additional people who could take on tasks that were only being handled part time by people doing other jobs as well.” He points to the sales manager as a key example.

“The biggest benefit for me personally is that the merger has given me and my brother Doug the chance to focus on what we do best—selling and customer interaction,” Eric notes. “It’s also helped solve perpetuation issues by opening up agency ownership to greater numbers of people.

“We’ve also been able to offer enhanced risk management services to current clients,” he adds, “and it has raised agency visibility and credibility when we approach potential acquisition targets.”

Mark adds by noting that “my day-to-day job now is my book of business. The merger really has freed me up to focus on what I like best and do best—client facing. I’m a people person. It’s what I love.

“The economies of scale have allowed us to hire a full-time sales manager,” he explains. “It turned out to be someone who had worked for us about 20 years ago. His whole focus is sales leads, helping our salespeople— including me—to succeed.”

Shawn notes that the merger has allowed the agency to expand opportunities for ownership. “We now have a Producer Pathway to Ownership that allows producers who are validated and who have been with the agency three years to earn bonuses that can be turned into ownership.

“We also offer opportunities to people who don’t sell, and we currently have several partners in that category,” Shawn explains.

Engaging with community continues to be a core focus of Iron Insurance Partners. “Every office has a group of people who love supporting philanthropic endeavors,” Shawn points out proudly. “The involvement in community was a hallmark of our prior organizations and has continued to grow stronger as we’ve integrated our operations.

“We as a company and we as individuals firmly believe in giving back to the communities that have helped get to where we are today,” he adds.

The list of organizations that have received support from Iron Insurance can be found on its website. There are dozens and dozens of organizations, and the full list would really be too long to present here, but it does show just how important this aspect of the agency’s ethos is.

Support for community is a key part of Iron Insurance Partners’ 80-plus-year history and includes the agency’s headquarters location and every one of the communities in which the agency has its branch offices.

Rough Notes is proud to recognize Iron Insurance Partners as its Agency of the Month. Its unique history is instructive in showing how disparate approaches to marketing can be successful, thanks to the flexibility of the independent agency system and the people in it, as well as pointing to interesting possibilities for opposites-attract marriages.