Organic growth and consolidation are key goals in the insurance industry. Success requires steadfast determination and a map of where you want your company to end up.
Insurance services provider, Charles Taylor, is one such company experiencing rapid growth. Last month, Charles Taylor agreed to acquire Metro Risk Management LLC, a Southern California third party claims administrator (TPA), from Nautilus International Holding Corporation (Nautilus). The transaction supports Charles Taylor’s TPA growth in the US and deepens the company’s capabilities in outsourced workers’ compensation claims services.
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The Group operates through three businesses – management services, adjusting services and insurance support services. It’s committed to growing its TPA business both in the US and globally via organic means and through acquisitions, according to Christopher Schaffer, USA CEO, Charles Taylor Insurance Support Services.
“We’re typically looking at acquisitions that put us in new business segments, new geographies and give us new service offerings,” Schaffer told Insurance Business. “If a good, solid company can provide those three things and we believe we can add more organic growth than they would be able to achieve on their own, and more than we would be able to achieve alone in that geography, then it’s always an interesting acquisition prospect for us.
“Metro Risk Management hit right in the middle of our sweet spot. Not only did they have long-standing relationships with some marquee clients (which is something we really look for), but they also had some overlaps with our current offerings on the federal workers’ compensation side, as well as a key geographical base.”
The acquisition spawned from a long-term business partnership between Charles Taylor and Nautilus, the corporate parent of Metro Risk. It was a “mutually beneficial” deal for both parties, according to Schaffer.
Metro Risk started as a non-core subsidiary of its parent company Nautilus. It was developed to serve Nautilus’ in-house purposes but became so successful that it started attracting clients from outside the business. Charles Taylor came along as Metro Risk out-grew its non-core attribution.
Workers’ compensation is also at the core of Charles Taylor operations in the US. The company has a large presence in federal and state workers’ compensation but is always looking for interesting new business opportunities, according to Schaffer.
“We are awfully keen on expanding our presence within specialty areas for commercial companies, such as financial lines, E&O, D&O, professional liability and cyber,” Schaffer commented. “Our interest is broad enough to sustain rapid growth but not so broad that we’re looking to jump into the personal lines space, where so much of the volume comes from these days.
“We’re also looking at how to improve and expand upon our adjacent services in workers’ compensation, through things like managing care services, in-house nursing and medical bill reviews. Sometimes we use subcontractors for these services but we believe we can carry out these tasks as an in-source offering to our clients.”
Charles Taylor is currently growing in all three key business areas: management, loss adjusting and insurance support services. Schaffer added: “There are exciting times ahead for Charles Taylor.”
