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Established in 2004, Leader’s Edge is the award-winning content platform for The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, covering legal and legislative issues, international business and regulation, management trends and best practices, technology, and more. Leader’s Edge is written and recorded for large and mid-sized commercial insurance and employee benefit executives around the globe.
This is a fascinating industry, and it covers everything. They're struggling with the same issues, but at the end of the day, they needed a place to share information. That's what we were focused on. It was a really hard thing to do, but I had a family and I had 2 kids. And if I was embarrassed about who I was, then what would I expect them to think?
Sandy Laycox:Welcome to the LeadersEdge podcast. I'm Sandy Laycox, editor in chief of Leader's Edge. In this very special podcast, the council's executive chairman, Ken Karrar, sits down with council president and CEO, Joel Wood, and chief operating officer, Katherine Richardson, for a candid conversation on leading the council through 30 years of growth, change, disruption, and success. After having served as the association's president and CEO for over 3 decades, Ken Carrara stepped down this past July, passing the baton to his longtime head of government affairs, Joel Wood. He shares these thoughts as he moves into his new role.
Joel Wood:So Ken, how weird is this?
Ken Crerar:This is really weird. This is strange. It's like, okay, This is your life kind of thing.
Joel Wood:Yeah. It was the first time you've walked into the office where that desk wasn't yours in a while, and you designed this office. So it's, you know, this is a very personal space for you.
Ken Crerar:It is a very personal space, but it's a it's a great space. It's meant for people to live in it.
Joel Wood:I first met you when you were the lobbyist for the Footwear Industries of a, Association. And, I was working for a junior member of the Hopeless minority Republican party.
Ken Crerar:Well, wasn't that hopeless?
Joel Wood:Well, we were 70 votes down. So the fact that you you the
Ken Crerar:the fact that you
Joel Wood:showed up We'll
Ken Crerar:talk to anybody. I learned early on, you talk to anybody, you have a conversation about whatever it is that you're concerned about with anybody who'll listen. And you never know. You never know.
Joel Wood:Well, I also remember we we had looser, ethics restrictions at the time, and Ken always had a little list where you could get some Cole Haan shoes at a discount price. That made you a very popular lobbyist in our office.
Ken Crerar:And Allen Edmonds, and there was nothing like lobbying by sitting in a senate office and fitting the senator with a pair of shoes. Okay?
Joel Wood:I don't think we have we can exactly fit anybody with a commercial insurance policy these days.
Ken Crerar:I don't think so. It it it went from heels to heels.
Joel Wood:So, you had worked for Chris Dodd, came to Washington working for him as a Connecticut Right. Resident, and that started in, what, 1980?
Ken Crerar:I've yeah. The it was the 80 election, the 70 7880. I graduated from college, and I spent, a year and a half in admissions at Connecticut College and then went off to work for for Dodd. And Mark Warner was the person who hired me along with Dodd. Mark Warner, now senator from Virginia.
Ken Crerar:He was from Connecticut.
Joel Wood:And, and you always regarded Chris Dodd as your mentor. I mean, you maintained a friendship with him throughout your entire career. So tell remind me again, you started at the old NACSA, National Association of Casualty Insurity Agents in what? 1988?
Ken Crerar:89.
Joel Wood:89.
Ken Crerar:I think.
Joel Wood:No. Had had to be before that because 87. I was on Capitol Hill. I left in eighties.
Ken Crerar:It was November 1st of 1987.
Joel Wood:A long time ago.
Ken Crerar:A long time ago. And, and And Bruce Wallace called me from the the Greenbrier and offered me the job, and I had spent 20 minutes talking with him. And Bruce was the, I was the
Joel Wood:Bruce was the, I was the CEO for the executive director for decades.
Ken Crerar:For yes. And he was the he was the second, I believe.
Joel Wood:Well, I've been telling everybody I'm only the 3rd CEO in 66 years.
Ken Crerar:Well, that's
Joel Wood:that's Apparently, there was somebody way way back.
Ken Crerar:Well, there was what we were based in New York. That's right. We're on William Street in New York. So And he moved us to DC.
Joel Wood:So I've characterized it as National Association of Casualty and Surety Agents. I mean That's right. That's like a niche within a niche within a niche. So, you know, it still it was it was an association that had a storied history of doing, you know, this premier event that was largely social at the Greenbrier Resort for decades that gathered together the leading company execs and the leading brokerage execs. But what were what was the association like when you came to work for it?
Joel Wood:I know it was only 4 or 5 of you.
Ken Crerar:It was first of all, he co managed, Bruce did, he co managed 2 groups. So it was NAACSA and the surety bond producers, the National Association of Surety Bond Producers. All we did was government affairs. That's all we had. We we focused on government affairs, and we were we were really tied into the big I and and PIA, the smaller firms.
Joel Wood:So we're at NACSA. You helped me land my first job in the insurance industry when I left Capitol Hill.
Ken Crerar:My efforts to try try to dissuade you from going there.
Joel Wood:But you turned me on to it, so I'm giving you credit for it. And, and I was there for 4, four and a half years and then very suddenly and tragically, the executive director of the association, I don't know if he went by president or CEO, he was executive director, passed away and you were Well, I was into the spotlight as as the new There
Ken Crerar:there was there were 2 of us, us, 2 senior people, and Martin Huber and I. And he was offered the surety bond producer slot, and I was offered this one. And he decided And
Joel Wood:that was the split of the 2 organizations.
Ken Crerar:And we decided the 2 organizations should split.
Joel Wood:So you got that opportunity. You're only 30 some odd
Ken Crerar:years old. I was 32 years old when when I got handed this job. And the it was a it was a decision whether do I want someone above me or
Sandy Laycox:not? The council's flagship meeting, the insurance leadership forum, is over 100 years old. The event brings together the leading executives from the property casualty brokerage and insurance industries. But in all its years, it hasn't been without challenges. Here, Ken discusses the decision to hold the meeting in 2021 while we were still enduring a global pandemic as well as the meeting that would have occurred directly after 911.
Ken Crerar:There are a couple things. One is the the need was there, and I was worried. I I I worry about things people stepping into your your stuff. And that's what I I'm always worried about that. Because I'm always conscious of the fact that if there's a need, someone will fill it.
Ken Crerar:There was a need at the time to do that meeting of whatever it looked like, and people wanted to come together. And so it was like, okay. Let's do it. What what's what what could possibly happen?
Joel Wood:And even though we did have a 40 or 50%, drop off fall off in full participation. Those who became found it to be just more of a fulsome experience.
Ken Crerar:And the and the following year, it was even more
Joel Wood:than ever before. Yeah. Well, let me go back even beyond that. 20 years before 9/11 occurred 3 weeks before our annual meeting, the global reinsurance marketplace on September 12, 2001 went away, and we found ourselves in a crisis. And the decision was you made the decision to cancel the meeting, but we rather substituted it with, almost daily marketplace meetings, for our members to highly participate in.
Joel Wood:And we worked, you know, with the industry at large, but we were major players in the creation of a public private partnership through Tria to solve the the terrorism reinsurance problem.
Ken Crerar:So it was an issue of providing what the market needed at the time. They needed information. They had no information. They couldn't come together because it would have it would have looked bad. To your customers, it would have looked bad coming together.
Ken Crerar:But it made a whole lot of sense to provide them information. And we did those we did those calls. I mean, if you think about it, we were we were providing information daily in an email out to them. Email sounds so
Joel Wood:Quite.
Ken Crerar:But we did we did that and we we provided them something. They had information to give to their clients. They had something to say. And that's all I wanted to do. I wanted to make sure that they had something to say.
Ken Crerar:And then we started those conversations with the CEOs of, insurance companies to talk about appetite. What was their appetite? What were they thinking? What were the what was on their minds? And and a way for them to communicate with their brokers.
Ken Crerar:So it all became around, but my core concern was the was the client. It's the customer. And if you focused on that customer, you you it it's a thread that just pulls back.
Sandy Laycox:One quality of Ken's that becomes very clear to everyone who works with him is that he is an entrepreneur, and he isn't afraid to break some glass and peek around corners to see what's ahead. While there have been some failures along the way, Kent's had a lot of successes as an entrepreneur, some of which he discusses.
Joel Wood:You had far more entrepreneurial successes. I think the first of which was the creation of the benefits meeting, and EBLF, employee benefits leadership forum, also held at the Broadmoor. And it's damn near gotten as big as the ILF meeting now on the on the
Ken Crerar:better side. There was nothing out there. There was no other place for customers to gather the people who work with customers to come together. There was a need for that. And and I figured and there was no one really out there who at the time understood brokers like we did, and we understand the client.
Ken Crerar:And you put it all together, and it was an it was a natural meeting.
Joel Wood:It all sounds really natural. I remember thinking at the time, this is crazy town. Because in at ILF, we we have a a wide variety of commercial insurers that specialize in hundreds of different lines on a regional basis, on a national, international basis. But when it came to the benefit side, you had basically the BUCA companies, you had the Blues, United, Cigna, and Aetna, and you had the strong dominance of just a handful of carriers. And it didn't seem to make as much sense because a broker in Florida may not have access to, Cigna network plan.
Ken Crerar:Florida has the same issues that a broker in Michigan has. They're they're struggling with the same issues, but at the end of the day, they needed a place to share information.
Joel Wood:Another, of your ideas was, you know, we forever and, as long as I've been a member, as long as I've been on the staff here, you know, we always hear that the number one problem is talent. And, and we have you created, the insurance professional school, and a lot of the, you know, best in class programs. And we still I think we still have, unfinished business in terms of providing scale on those programs. We've successfully managed to launch a early career designation along with the institutes. We've got the insurance professional school with the best in class.
Joel Wood:We've got the broker smack down programs. I don't know any other other association that has started from scratch in the talent leadership development area so much that it's had enjoyed that much success.
Ken Crerar:If if we are an association of professionals and we're serving customers. It takes people, and it always takes people.
Joel Wood:You were the founder of the World Federation of Insurance Intermediaries. Well And that is gonna be experiencing its 20 5th anniversary, here in Washington. I attended, on your behalf, the WUFIE meeting in in Mexico earlier this year. And that is where all the leading, agent broker associations worldwide get together and compare notes on what they're experiencing and what trends they're
Ken Crerar:seeing? So when we created the World Federation, I I kept saying, I know there's something here because of my shoe industry days, but I don't know what it is. And and I said, but the fact that we all talk together and I will tell you that the the reason to keep the World Federation going and why we spend the money that we spend is because at the end of the day, we need to be able to be able to pick up the phone and call each other. Because we share the same issues. And some start earlier in one country versus another.
Ken Crerar:But at the end of the day, we all have the same issues. And the business has become more international. It's become more global. But it's it's been an evolution.
Joel Wood:Let's talk about one other area of entrepreneurship, and LeadersEdge is a preeminent trade association magazine. And, you know, 100, if not thousands of trade associations have a magazine. They do newsletter. That's that's a core to their mission.
Ken Crerar:Well, Leader's Edge was always my baby. And the reason it was my baby was because this is a fascinating industry and it covers everything. And so why wouldn't you want an a magazine that covers this this industry? And I want one that people wanna open.
Joel Wood:Ken, you say that that that LeadersEdge was your pride and joy, and that was your baby. It also was very personal to you and that you wrote a personal column in it for years or the length of your run here. And you actually came out as a gay man and talked about your family in in one of the stories. That's got to be one of the highlights for you. It was so beautifully received at the time.
Ken Crerar:It was. And look It had to be hard too. It was a really hard thing to do. But at the end of the day, I had a family and I had 2 kids. And if I was embarrassed about who I was, then what would I expect them to think?
Ken Crerar:And that's what motivated me. It was like, I should just I I have to be who I am.
Sandy Laycox:Some final thoughts from Ken Currar, the leader, as he helps prepare Joel and Katherine for their own leadership roles.
Ken Crerar:Boy, succession is so critical. If you've created an environment that you wanna you wanna see continue, you can't you can't really focus on the specifics, but you can focus on the the general approach. And and I I urge you to keep looking around the corner. Because I think the corner is where you have to you have to focus. It and and don't be afraid.
Ken Crerar:One of the things that I've learned a lot about, and I've learned this with being a parent as well as being a CEO, is you really can't you you can't make mistakes if you're just learning. And you can't learn if you don't make mistakes. And so you've gotta you've gotta focus on that. And you you've got the head space now to make all the mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes.
Joel Wood:Well, but you left the organization in tremendous, good shape financially Good. Membership wise. Yes. We have challenges. I mean, that m and a continues.
Joel Wood:It slowed down a little bit, but Yeah. But may it may crank back up.
Ken Crerar:Don't focus on it. Yeah. Don't focus on it. Yep. Focus the business will become the business.
Ken Crerar:It's sort of like what I learned from the shoe industry. Who cares where the damn stuff is manufactured? It's a shoe. So just represent the shoe industry. Represent the brokerage industry.
Ken Crerar:Period.
Sandy Laycox:That was council executive chairman Ken Carrha reflecting on over 30 years in the industry. I hope you enjoyed this very special conversation.