From Home to National

Talk to someone in insurance and chances are they have a relative in the business. That’s how it started for Gregory M. Church, CEO and owner of Church & Co. Adjusting and Consulting Services LLC, based in Houston, Texas.

For Church, a business degree with a risk management focus, time spent working in his father’s brokerage office and a stint as a claims adjuster led him to open an independent adjusting firm.

“I brought on my first account, which enabled me to open up Church & Co. It basically morphed from a business that I started out of my home, literally out of my extra room in my house, to within six months having an office, employees, staff and slow growth,” Church said. “I think I averaged about a 15 percent growth annually – so, where we started from my home, to now every state in the United States and in every major city.”

In an interview with Claims Journal Editor Denise Johnson, Church described how he expanded his independent adjusting firm from a single room in his house to a national operation, as well as described the important roles marketing, customer service and adaptability have in running a successful business.

Can you tell me a little bit about your background in insurance?
Gregory Church: My father was an insurance producer/broker in Southwest Washington. For the better part of my young and maturing years and through college, I worked in his office during my breaks, basically learning the business of underwriting and basic principles of claims adjusting and selling. I graduated from Washington State University with a business administration degree with a focus in risk management, which took me into the insurance industry. I chose to work outside of my father’s firm because I had the need to be an entrepreneur and gain some experience on my own.

I accepted a claims position in Hawaii that eventually moved me to California, where I was a staff adjuster for a couple of larger national firms. I then became an independent adjuster who managed and marketed clients, or insurance companies, in the Southern California area. I brought on my first account, which enabled me to open up Church & Co.

Can you explain a little bit about Church & Co.’s adjusting services?
Church: Church and Co. provides essentially two services: loss adjusting and third-party administration. It is a U.S.-based operation. We offer our services in all 50 states. Currently our core focus is loss adjusting, which is property and casualty claims adjusting from full assignment. We have a third-party administration facility in our corporate office in Houston. That’s where we have a lot of our key managers and can offer up the third-party administration solutions there.

Did you have a specific vision or growth strategy for your firm when you started it?
Church: No. At the time, it was just very myopic. I saw an opportunity with one single client that was a rather large client at the time. I thought, well, let’s just learn the business, let’s provide good customer service and see where this goes. Get as much market penetration as I can with this account and hopefully word of mouth will build my business.

I was out there in the field doing claims, billing, administering and supervising. Really thinking about growing my business with other accounts was essentially an afterthought. I allowed and continued to allow word-of-mouth advertisement for the growth of my business for many years. It wasn’t until that large client … changed their philosophy on the use of independents. They no longer outsourced.

It was at that rude awakening period of my life, which was about five years into my business, that told me, OK, now you need to refocus here. You have to have a strategy. You need to develop actual sales experience. Go out there and solicit other accounts. So it was kind of like trial by fire at the time. About 15 years ago, that’s when I started developing a strategy as far as marketing and growth.

Was the sales aspect the biggest challenge that you faced when you decided to go national?
Church: Sales, obviously, was very important. But, our commitment to customer service and the client, and knowing their needs and understanding what their needs are was what I preached to all of my team members. With that, sales were easy because we were able to obtain good word-of-mouth referrals, as well as from adjuster migration from company to company. They move to a new company, we get a call, we get a new account. So that’s the type of word of mouth that was the success of my business.

Was there a particular business strategy that you implemented along the way that led to the most significant growth in your firm?
Church: The one that comes out most is market penetration. Sell as much as you can to the account that you have. The larger insurance companies have multiple offices all over. Get to know who they are and develop a relationship, because our business is relationship-driven. Network yourself further and further. Market penetration is what I preached and practiced myself.

Is there anything that you think sets your independent adjusting firm apart from competitors?
Church: Good question. We essentially all sell the same thing. We sell a service. What separates Church & Co. from brand X, I would have to say, is our adaptability to the client’s needs; our understanding of their needs. Our understanding of customer service and how important it is to keep everyone along the insurance claim process line happy. The insured, the broker, the underwriter, the adjuster; those are all people that Church & Co. serves as our masters, all along providing them a good quality product at a reasonable price. That constitutes the value-added phrase that I speak of quite a bit in our meetings.

One of my friends, who is in the packaging business, was complaining about client retention. He asked me … “How Church & Co. retains clients?” Before I had a chance to respond, one of my guests, who is my oldest client, interrupted and … said “Let me answer this, Greg. There are three things that will create client retention and successful growth. The first, customer service; the second, customer service; the third, and most important, customer service.”

I just looked at him and said thank you. I couldn’t have answered it any better. It was a nice compliment because he understood my business and how I grew it. It was validation for me. But that’s something that I practice on a daily basis: Understanding what our clients’ needs are and delivering those services.

How difficult is it to hire the right kind of people in today’s world?
Church: It’s always a challenge. Fortunately, for me and Church & Co., we’ve had a lot of quality people that are either referred to us through our valued clients or are part of our existing network whom we’ve done business with. So, we already know and understand what their reputation is and what they can provide, and how better of a product we can put out to the client with them. Our core group are people that I’ve known for a number of years in the business and have grown with, and I’ve kind of put in place so they can succeed. So it hasn’t been too much of a challenge, but as we grow, that’s where the challenge will come from. The resourcing for experience level, the integrity; because those are core values that I instill in my company and as we go forward.

What is your perspective on the claims outlook for 2012?
Church: I’ve never really predicted or forecasted claims volume. I understand the principles out there. We’ve got A.M. Best as a resource, the Weather Almanac as a resource. I do follow them. I kind of go off of the principle that we’ve got an increasing population every year. Because of that, we’re going to have more claims, naturally. The weather is also a focus. We always hear about an El Nino or La Nina situation, earthquakes in the western region. I expect claims volume to increase in 2012 percentage-wise over 2011. I couldn’t even begin to guess, but our message to our clients is that we are ready, willing and able to handle any needs or catastrophic response that they may have a need for. We don’t go out and solicit other new accounts for those catastrophic responses. We only provide our services to our valued clients. That’s what we market and we assure them that we’re prepared and can respond.