Insurance Advocate’s AGENCY of the YEAR: Sterling & Sterling

The word “corporate” has many implications, some good, some bad.

On the one hand it can mean: stiff, impersonal, lifeless and bloated. On the other hand, “corporate” can refer to the crisp, top level conduct of business, to standards of objective accountability and to the creation of self perpetuating mechanisms for entrepreneurial success.

For an insurance agency, the word “corporate” has a special meaning: it refers to that sphere into which a storefront or “mom and pop” agency can eventually morph and gain enormous independent value, competitiveness and depth, transcending simply the personal contacts and sway of its principals.

Such is the case with Sterling & Sterling, Insurance Advocate’s 2011 Agency of the Year. David Sterling, a third generation leader of the firm, and his corporate team have engineered their brokerage into one of the best run, broad reaching and, nonetheless, profoundly service driven enterprises of any insurance brokerage or agency, according to one of the agency’s leaders, Robert Larocca, Executive Vice President of the firm. The Sterling’s have long been serious business people who, with David, his C Suite execs, 200 member team, and, now, his sons joining him in the firm, have an ideal brokerage formula: the executive team is personally involved and deeply committed, yet able to exercise objectivity through structured working roles and project assignments, across a spectrum of products and services. It is “corporate” in the best sense. The same entrepreneurial drives that energizes the small start-up broker, urging him to get up on a snowy day, put on a good suit, put the key in the door, dash around to client and prospect meetings, pay the phone bill, make the local Chamber of Commerce luncheon, while managing personnel and carrier relations, and getting a good enough sleep to do it all over again the next day, are not lost on David Sterling, albeit that “local” means nine offices coast to coast and “managing” means constant conferral with his large, bright, and deeply experienced management team.

The Insurance Advocate has studied the firm and has come to know its principals, as well as the scope and depth of the operation. To report that it is exemplary is to miss the mark. Sterling & Sterling is better than exemplary; it is unique in the genus of insurance agencies for its subsidiary businesses, related synergistic activities and its integrated structure. The spine and the ribs of the agency, the muscle structure and the brain have created an athletic corporation fast at work for its clients and for its stakeholders. Its growth is steady and well protracted and its succession and key relationships are solid.

The Woodbury, LI based company, which employs 200 nationwide, has nine offices across the nation and serves many large and midsized enterprises as clients. The firm’s growth has been largely organic. There are smart marketers like veteran pro Rick Struzzieri at the helm here, but the singular hallmark in the corporate culture in our 2011 Agency of the Year is the fact that Sterling & Sterling has stayed fresh for its staff, its clients and its insuring allies. Founded in 1932 by Jonah Sterling, Sterling & Sterling has consistently been ranked among the nation’s top 100 insurance brokerages and is today one of the largest in New York metropolitan area, with premiums topping $300 million in 2010.

The firm’s clients are regional, national, and international and secure insurance and other services divided along these lines:

• Property and casualty insurance

• Employee benefits consulting

• Risk management

• Loss control

• Claims management

• Personal Lines

• Specialty Programs

• Life Insurance

Unlike many “meteoric” growth agencies, Sterling & Sterling has grown, not through acquisitions, but largely through new business referrals and through offering a variety of innovative products. Sales have outpaced acquisitions and continue apace, notably with the programs reported later in this article.

According to David Sterling, the organic growth approach has worked well: “At Sterling & Sterling, we market and provide expertise beyond insurance and way beyond the policy. We study and participate in the business sectors we serve and we “get it” when it comes to customer needs and the requisite blueprinting and building needed to match clients with the right insurance carrier, coverage and plan. It’s why some companies have been with us for more than 30 years, some clients since our beginning.” Sterling & Sterling’s SureRISK™ suite of services has organized and presented to businesses a concentration of niche market expertise.

Leslie Nylund, a veteran of the industry, recently joined Sterling & Sterling to serve as the firm’s President after spending more than 20 years with some of the nation’s largest brokerages, including Willis North America and Marsh. “David and I have known each other for a long time and I have long admired Sterling & Sterling. From the moment I first met with David and his team, I was even more thoroughly impressed,” she says. “I admire their client advocacy philosophy, which is embedded in everything they do. This is a company that is innovating and growing every day. It is something I am tremenI can help accelerate that growth.” According to Robert Larocca: “By applying high levels of expertise, Sterling & Sterling has pioneered specialty programs using our universally applicable products to service business leaders running the enterprises we insure in the following areas: Real Estate, Drug and Alcohol, Addiction Treatment, Family Entertainment Centers, Entertainment, Day Spas, and Jewish Community Centers. We have further expertise in the following areas: Retail, Construction, Electronics, Food Importers, Financial Service Firms, Life Sciences, Metal Goods, Plastics, Printing, Restaurants, Trade Contractors, and Wholesalers/ Distributors.”

Innovation is Among the Keys

The firm’s new concentrations expanded recently. On August 1st, Sterling & Sterling, Inc. in partnership with Assura Group and Great American Insurance Company, launched Income Assure, a private unemployment insurance product that acts as a supplement to state unemployment benefits to replace up to 50 percent of a worker’s former wages in the event of involuntary job loss. According to Leslie Nylund, CEO of Assura and President of Sterling & Sterling: “Like disability insurance, IncomeAssure makes money available to policyholders to pay for personal expenses during unexpected periods of unemployment. It is the only product of its kind available in the U.S. The product is approved in over 40 states already, and we now offer it nationwide.”

“The Great Recession has fundamentally changed our perceptions of job and financial security and highlighted the need for solutions that can help us weather economic volatility and job loss,” says David Sterling, adding: “Though state unemployment systems are designed to replace 50 percent of former wages, state benefits are capped at a fixed dollar amount. So, for instance, some states do not reach the 50 percent target for workers earning $50,000 per year or more. IncomeAssure helps close this gap. If you’ve just lost a $100,000 a year job, $1,600 a month doesn’t even begin to cover the bills.”

In July, Sterling announced the introduction of Sterling Aviation Insurance Resources, headquartered in Park City, Utah. This new agency is a strategic alliance between Asend Insurance Services and Sterling & Sterling, Inc. and will complement Sterling’s existing Aviation Industry Practice which has been moving full speed ahead since the opening of their new Practice Headquarters in Miramar Beach, FL earlier this year. Along with an elite list of Aviation clientele, the Park City operation also brings with it their commercial and personal lines clients.

The inclusion of this specialized operation into Sterling will also include the opening of an additional satellite sales office located in San Francisco, CA. “We have great expectations for this synergy created through this new alliance”, said Sterling. “After the completion of the integration process with our existing Aviation Industry Practice in Miramar Beach and our growth objectives, we expect to become one of the largest aviation specialists in the US over the next three years.” There’s more to Sterling & Sterling, including an exceptionally well trained staff with a long track record, a beautiful, well organized headquarters… and a palpable, fresh sense of progress.

Insurance Advocate is proud of our Agency of the Year, Sterling & Sterling, its leaders and leadership.