“Every so often, I do meet with the consolidators, if they are really persistent, and the first question I always ask them is – what is your 10 year plan? And they always look a bit blank. So, I ask them – what is your five year plan, and they still aren’t quite ready to reply.
“The fact is that those businesses are largely operating on three-to-five-year cycles and just waiting until the next event happens, whether that’s a sale or an MBO or something else. And I think that just makes it very hard to plan for any real longevity.”
Sharing her thoughts on the power of independent insurance broking, Polly Staveley (pictured), MD of TL Dallas, a fourth-generation family-run firm that has served the market for over a century, noted that the business’s commitment to its independence is what empowers it to make long-term strategic decisions. What TL Dallas can offer its staff, partners and clients is a strategic plan rooted in longevity, she said, which translates cleanly into quality, reliable service.
“Some of our clients have had the same handlers for 20 years, and they know the business inside-out,” she said. “One of the ways we win business from our competitors is because they’ve had a constantly changing cycle of people looking after them that never really get to grips with their business. That's frustrating for them because they've got to go back to square one each time and explain everything about their business’s history and plans for the future. Whereas we have been there every step of the way and help with a whole host of services that support and enhance their business.”
Staveley highlighted that this longevity of service isn’t just about the clients, but also offers TL Dallas’ people a strong foundation on which to build long-term and fulfilling careers. “It shows them where the business is going,” she said, “and re-affirms that there is a place for them in that growth journey. Essentially, what this means is that they don’t need to be worried that they’re going to look up from their desks one day and realise the business is owned by somebody else and everything has changed.
“That’s the opportunity presented by being an independent brokerage with a strong growth mindset but it comes with its challenges as well – principally the balancing act of growing without losing sight of what makes the firm so special. Sustainable growth is a challenge constantly being raised at board and operational meetings,” she said, “because it raises the crucial question – how do you retain all of your core values of a family business as you grow?
“We want to make sure we retain the great parts of being an independent, family business; the values, the fact that our people are not numbers, and our ability to make decisions quickly and not be overrun and overruled with politics and bureaucracy. But we’re a company of 165 team members and we plan to grow to about 200 by the end of the year. So, all those important factors become more of a challenge as we grow and become more geographically diverse.”
The answer for Staveley and her team is measured and considered growth, and she noted that the board at TL Dallas recognise the importance of limiting its growth. It might sound counterintuitive for a growing business to say that, she said, particularly at a time when the rest of the market is trying to grow exponentially, usually to ready itself for the next sale.
“But we genuinely aren’t selling, so for us, it’s more important to get to a size where we can punch above our weight against some of the larger brokers and consolidators but still retain those values which are so important to us,” she said. “And it’s not easy. But that’s the challenge we’ve set ourselves.”
Attracting and – crucially – retaining the right talent is the key to getting that balance right, Staveley said, and she echoed Richard Branson’s affirmation that: “If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” TL Dallas strongly believes in that philosophy, and so takes care to recruit people based on their values, understanding that it can teach them what they need to know about the world of insurance but can’t retrofit the right ethos.
The team at TL Dallas are the firm’s greatest asset, she said, and they’re at the core of the brokerage’s growth plans, which include hitting the 200-employee mark, with a solid footprint across the UK by the end of 2024. Also on the agenda is enhancing some of the business’s central infrastructure – investing in that to match its newfound scale.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work on that front already but that investment will continue in 2024,” she said. “And we’ll look to really consolidate what we’ve got. We are conscious that there are only so many new team members and offices that you can keep adding before you risk diverging from the ethos of the business. So, come the end of 2024, you’ll hopefully see a 200-strong business that’s hunkering down a bit to maximise what it’s got and continuing to make sure that what we say about our values is reflected in our behaviours.
“With that in mind, we’re continuing to invest in the wellbeing of our staff because we don’t want how important they are to us to just be lip service. We’ve invested heavily in working with a charity called The Charlie Waller Trust which specialises in mental health training and support. We want to genuinely be a great place to work, not just to say we’re a great place to work. That’s the key for us and how we retain good staff, and for us, it’s the only way we can and want to operate.”
