Holmes Murphy CEO: Tech that improves client experience is key

Keough runs a 90-year-old independent insurance broker and industry player with more than 1,000 employees and over $260 million in annual revenue. The Iowa-based company serves business and industry leaders nationally in areas including casualty insurance, employee benefits, captive insurance, risk management and loss control.

In more than a decade as chairman and CEO, Keough has used his executive position to help expand Holmes Murphy’s and the industry’s embrace of technology and startups that bring new ideas to the table.

Three years ago, Keough and Holmes Murphy co-launched BrokerTech Ventures (BTV), an incubator for broker-centric insurtech startups that also enables seed funding and access for startups to brokers, wholesalers, and carriers. M3 Insurance was the other co-founder of BTV, which now encompasses 15 superregional brokerage firms, 14 global insurance carriers and wholesalers and 48 insurtech startups, including many who have passed through BTV’s annual accelerator programs. BTV has also expanded its accelerator programs to Israel and Latin America.

‘The lens of the client’

Holmes Murphy and M3 launched BTV with the idea of empowering insurance brokers to “help technology find its way into the insurance value chain,” Keough said. He added that brokers are a logical instrument to help spot new technologies that can help the broader industry.

“As insurance brokers are the lens of the client, our understanding of our clients and their risks and their operations [and] our relationships with insurance companies could be best positioned to help these tech companies make connections, do proof of concepts and really propel their success faster through our network,” Keough said.

BTV helps chosen startups by way of what Keough refers to as the five pillars. There’s an annual accelerator program; early-stage investment opportunities; a focus on innovation through conferences and programs, access to capital; and also the ability to tap into media and communications resources.

Addressing needs

In his capacity leading Holmes Murphy, Keough explained that he focuses on ensuring clients’ needs are met first and foremost, and technology interests flow naturally from that.

“My job is to make sure our company is positioned to deliver solutions for our clients,” he said. “They want to be, obviously, made aware of risks they have and try to do everything they can to avoid them, and a professional risk management consulting firm looks outside the box to bring solutions to our clients.”

The same philosophy holds true with BTV, with its identification of insurtechs and other startups that can help Holmes Murphy and the industry work better for their clients.

“We are trying to take what we learn and apply it in our own business, but we’re also trying to help find the things that we believe could help all of our businesses and propel [them] forward as well,” Keough said.

Holmes Murphy scaled other startups before helping to launch BTV, which Keough said gives the company a track record in pursuing innovation and startups that’s large enough to have affected lasting cultural change at the company.

“For our firm at Holmes Murphy, we woke up people at the desk that serve clients to start thinking about [the idea that] maybe there’s a better way to do it than the way we’re doing it,” Keough said. “That mindset shift is a big asset to how we serve clients.”

Innovation cycle

Some industry observers say that the insurance industry has made great technological progress. From Keough’s perspective, the industry has been slow to adopt new technology and is likely just getting started with what it will ultimately accomplish in the digital age.

“Technologists, innovators and entrepreneurs believe that we’re on the early end of the innovation cycle, and so there could be more efficiencies [and] … more technologies that are brought to scale in the industry,” Keough said.

Technologies that help improve the client experience are worth following closely as the industry moves forward, he said.

“We continue to see advancements in technologies that create a more enhanced and seamless client experience. Those we get really excited about are the solutions that identify our clients’ risks sooner and drive down costs faster,” Keough observed.

An example of this, he noted, would be tech that helps make employee benefits or the property/casualty insurance experience more automated for both Holmes Murphy employees and clients.

“The types of technologies used to achieve this are diverse and ever changing,” he said.

In the near future, Keough expects a greater focus on integrating technology tools so they work better in tandem, particularly when it comes to data.

“In the future, you’ll have more open sourcing of data, more readily accessible data for our clients,” Keough said. “You’ll see free flowing information that can be leveraged in a lot of different ways.”