The Graham Way
Refining What It Means to be An Insurance Broker
When Graham Company was founded over six decades ago we had a clear goal: to redefine what it means to be an insurance broker, turning a typically stodgy industry into a proactive vocation. That meant building a company that embraced a holistic approach to risk management and valued long-term client relationships. And that’s what we did.
We call it, “The Graham Way,” which is instilled in every person carrying a Graham business card. We understand that insurance is not something sold and put on a shelf.
We know that insurance and benefits programs are not one size fits all and recognize every business has its own set of complex risks. We get into the weeds to uncover protections and benefits that no other broker would think of, consistently identifying efficiencies, driving value and ultimately saving our clients money and protecting their employees’ wellbeing. Equally important, we treat our clients’ businesses and their risks as if they were our own.
Our Difference
Regardless of where your business is located, Graham Company is here to provide you with the insurance and benefits you need to strengthen your business. At Graham Company, we are changing the traditional approach to insurance from a passive to an active vocation.
True Risk Management Partners
Everything we do at Graham is centered around giving our clients peace of mind knowing their businesses, employees and bottom lines are protected. We pride ourselves on being true risk management partners to our clients. While an important piece of this involves developing insurance programs, we believe insurance should be the last line of defense for any comprehensive risk management plan.
By taking a proactive approach to risk management, we identify weaknesses that increase risk, cost and overall insurance spend for our clients. We do this through The Prime Process (P2RIME®), our proven and repeatable methodology that has transformed our clients’ risk management operations. No other broker is taking such a sophisticated approach.
Commitment to Innovation
We are always striving to examine and refine our processes and invest in new technologies and training with one overarching goal: to be truly indispensable strategic partners for our clients. That’s why we established our Innovation Team and are strategically investing in and mentoring promising startup companies through our partnership with BrokerTech Ventures. We recognize the incredible potential to leverage new technologies to help our clients gain unprecedented insights into their operations, drive efficiencies and better protect what matters most.
The Graham Advantage: How We Drive Down Your Costs of Insurance
Broad Coverage
- Leverage The Graham $750,000,000 Premium Book of Business
- Create Competition Between Insurance Companies
- Graham Technical Department
Competitive Pricing
- Decentralized Marketing
- Executive Negotiation
- Best in Class Underwriting Submissions
"This service model reduces risk and makes our clients safer, resulting in lower pricing from the insurance companies"
1. Leverage our Book of Business: Graham Company places over $750,000,000 of Property & Casualty and Employee Benefits Insurance premiums annually, giving us a tremendous amount of marketing clout with insurance companies. Within our network of carriers, we are typically one of their top 10 brokers nationally by premium volume. Compared to our peers, our book of business tends to be more profitable because of the value-added services we provide. We leverage the size of our book and its profitability to lock in more aggressive pricing and broader coverage than our competitors.
2. Create Competition Between Insurance Companies: Having a broker who can effectively communicate and negotiate creates the most competitive environment between insurance companies. We are tough negotiators and our proven track record of driving down losses makes our submissions to insurance companies more attractive than the hundreds of submissions they receive from other brokers. Knowing that our clients are a safer risk than other companies, allows insurance companies to write opportunities they never would consider from other brokers. This creates a great amount of competition between insurance companies and gives Graham better pricing leverage. 3. Technical Development Department: Our in house Technical Development Department ensures we’re offering our clients the most innovative and highest quality insurance products. They keep a constant pulse on regulatory changes and legal rulings that create new coverage precedents. The team conducts quality assurance reviews of our clients’ insurance policies to ensure there is contract certainty regarding the coverage provided, and host training seminars about emerging risks. 4. Decentralized Marketing: Unlike most of our competitors, Graham Company does not “centralize” our marketing efforts. Your individual service team will meet in-person with your potential insurers to paint the best possible picture of our client and its proud history. These face-to-face meetings have a significant impact in communicating the right message to the insurance companies rather than letting the insurance companies form their own opinions. Your Graham Company Service team is in the best position to negotiate with insurance carriers, since they understand both the risks to which you are exposed, and what you are doing to mitigate those risks.
5. Negotiate at Multiple Levels: Graham Company has relationships with the top executives at the insurance companies with whom we do business. Insurance company underwriters often have little authority to deviate from corporate pricing guidance. Negotiating directly with key executives and getting their buy in from the beginning of the process greatly increases the probability we will obtain competitive pricing and broader coverage than our peers. 6. Make the Underwriters Job Easy: Our comprehensive and detailed Underwriting Submissions provide all the information the underwriters need to aggressively price our clients’ accounts. We give the underwriters the ammunition they need to get approval from their managers to deviate from corporate pricing guidance. By making the underwriters’ jobs easier, we get a better result in a shorter period of time compared to our competitors. 7. Reduce Risk and Lower Claims Costs: Everything about our service model is designed to reduce a company’s risk profile and lower their claims costs, thus lowering their utilization of insurance which ultimately decreases their insurance costs.
The Best and Brightest Talent
At Graham, we know that people make the difference – and we truly mean that. But what makes our talent different from our competition? Our employees are handpicked from all industries, not just insurance. We hire individuals who know our clients’ businesses inside and out because we feel there is no better way to serve our clients than with specialists in their fields. In fact, most of our employees used to walk in our clients’ shoes.
Our talented group of employees includes attorneys, CPAs, CFOs, nurses, veterans, engineers, technology thought leaders, cybersecurity analysts and even a nuclear scientist. We focus on hiring the smartest people in different industries and then put them through a rigorous training program that teaches them everything they need to know about insurance. Our training program is called Graham University and it’s the time-tested gold standard for technical development.
