However, it took Kaufman some time to get involved in the company. He worked as a lawyer for 15 years, during which time he co-founded a law firm and even served a stint as the vice consul of Panama. His law career didn’t take him far from the family business, though.
“My practice started out in litigation and ended up in transactional with acquisitions,” Kaufman says, “and I was involved with many of the acquisitions that Burns & Wilcox had made through the years as a lawyer.”
An opportunity to take the helm at Burns & Wilcox came along when Kaufman’s father announced his plans to sell the company. Instead of letting it go, the future CEO bought out the interest of the other shareholders, becoming the sole owner of the company and its parent company, H.W. Kaufman Group.
Kaufman’s experience in the legal field proved to be integral to his success in insurance. “So much of what goes on in the insurance industry – the insurance contracts, litigation with claims, employment issues, continued acquisitions and opportunities that we evaluate, vertical integration – all those are aspects [where] law can be very helpful,” he says.
Attracting talent
Under Kaufman’s leadership, Burns & Wilcox has grown to generate more than $2 billion in annual premiums and now occupies close to 60 offices around the world. However, Kaufman isn’t just focused on ensuring the continued growth of his company. He is also involved with many institutions where his contributions have made a meaningful impact.
Education, he says, is the one that stands out the most. In 2015, Kaufman and his wife established a major endowment for a professorship in insurance and risk management at the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.
“I did that because the school did not have one insurance offering,” Kaufman says. “Now they have four insurance classes, and they’ll have more. Hopefully, more insurance companies or individuals will step up and do the same, either at Michigan State or other places.”
His determination to get young people interested in insurance early in their college careers is especially important at a time when the industry is experiencing a talent crisis.
“The shortage of talent is becoming more pronounced, and being active with universities, to me, is a bolt of lightning,” Kaufman says. “The majority of the business schools [in the US] do not offer insurance as a major, or even as course offerings.”
A job in insurance can offer young people many rewards, from a flexible lifestyle to financial stability. Unfortunately, those perks often aren’t apparent to those choosing a career path, Kaufman says.
“I think one has to examine the success stories of many people in the insurance world to see that there are great opportunities there,” he says. “The insurance world has not done a great job of public relations to demonstrate that. That’s one of the shortcomings.”
Another initiative Kaufman has introduced to help young insurance professionals grow their careers is The Kaufman Institute, a cloud-based learning hub that boasts a collection of resources, including trade journals, webinars and training programs, to help employees achieve their career goals.
“Our biggest weapon is to have the most expertise and the best talent,” Kaufman says.
Growth in challenging times
Burns & Wilcox needs all the talent it can get. The company went through a period of major growth in 2017, opening six new offices across North America. Kaufman credits this recent success to setting reasonable and achievable objectives, adhering to a logical business, and great leadership across the board.
“We’re not hitting the ball out of the park every time we’re at bat,” he says. “We certainly, like everybody else, have situations where we have to make some big decisions, but overall, we’ve had a good track record, and I attribute that to a lot of the people around me.”
After a year of catastrophes that affected many insurers’ bottom lines, Burns & Wilcox also managed to report laudable financial results in 2017 – though the natural disasters did have an impact on the company.
“Overall, it hurt, but fortunately we have such a spread of business across the United States and Canada, as well as other parts of the world, that we’re able to digest the losses,” Kaufman says. He also expects that there will be some developing losses in certain pockets of the country due to weather conditions.
Yet, despite the storm brewing in the insurance industry over increased risks related to climate change, Kaufman comes back to the talent shortage and recruiting new insurance professionals as the biggest challenge facing the industry.
“When you have a shortage of talent, that means your best competitors are on your doorstep looking inside your shop to take what you have,” he says. “And I think it’s getting worse every year.”
So far, the industry hasn’t done enough to draw young people into insurance early on, when college students are making major decisions on what their lives will look like after they graduate.
“We’re not attracting the best and brightest in a big enough [way] in the insurance industry,” Kaufman says. “Insurance companies need to be involved with education during the college years because that’s where the best recruiting comes. Recruiting afterwards is good, but it’s not enough.”
