People Business

Established as a one-office operation in Hamilton, Ont. 85 years ago, Cunningham Lindsey is now a global operation with five operating divisions around the world.

Their local presence might be growing over the next year, as well, as the company looks into a few acquisitions.

“It’s a great place to work,” Rob Seal, president and CEO of Cunningham Lindsey Canada notes. “It will [continue to] be a great place to work if we are doing our job and listening to our customers.”

Regardless of where the independent adjusting profession moves, it will always be a people business, Seal points out. In fact, the company’s number one strategic plan over the next four to five years it to make Cunningham the place everybody wants to go to.

“If that happens, then I will have the right people and I will attract the business,” Seal says. “I’m proud of the team we’ve put together. They all work very, very hard and they are doing a great job across the country out there for us, and if I could say anything, it’s really all about the people that do work here.”

All kinds of people

Over the past 18 months, the company has been working towards building a new, young management team. Further to that, the company is focused on growing talent. They try to pull people from existing insurance programs across the country, but also refuse to shut the door on people who appear eager to learn the business.

“If other individuals come to us who appear bright and energetic, then we’re willing to start with a clean slate, with no real prior history,” Seal says. “If they seem to have the right stuff, then we’ll work with them and put them through a training process. (We will) help them to get their courses and their license and so on. By doing all of that we will continue to bring our talent along.”

The company has brought in roughly eight new trainees in 2007. It is looking to add 10 in 2008, and 10 each year thereafter. The new staff will be spread across the country in areas where staff is needed. This is possible due in part to Cunningham’s affiliation with insurance companies when dealing with catastrophe claims, which helps to keep staff busy during months with higher cat claims.

However, as Seal points out, there remain eight other months of the year when catastrophes are not occurring. In order to fill this void and keep staff busy, Cunningham has bumped up its marketing and sales efforts to increase regular line business.

“If we’re going to keep bringing on 10 people each year, we’re gong to have to continue to grow business,” Seal muses.

In addition, Cunningham is looking at other diversifications within the business — other types of operations staff can work on, such as reinspection services. The new recruits are moved around from division to division in order to get a feel for and experience in each sector; that way, during a particularly busy period, they can be placed in various divisions.

Moving on up

Over the next few years, part of the company’s strategic plan includes a fairly aggressive growth plan in all areas of the business. In particular, Cunningham will be really focusing as much as possible on niche markets such as trucking, accident benefits, higher end commercial losses, while still continuing to service the third line commodity, Seal says.

Over the past year, Cunningham Lindsey has been striving to set itself apart by measuring the quality of service provided. The company has implemented a system of verifiable quality, in which reports are issued that measure service quality. This shows whether Cunningham is providing the service they have promised or not. If they are not, then they work to improve that, Seal says.

When looking into the future of adjusting, Seal notes that the Canadian insurance industry will only be able to support a certain number of national firms. He sees Cunningham as one of those firms.

“I think that we do have to grow — not so much geographically, but in numbers, to service our clients needs going forward,” Seal says. “I think there will be mergers (and) acquisitions within the independent world. We’ve already seen a lot this part year with some of the smaller firms.”

He notes that the ma and pa shops are whittling away; eventually, the national firms will whittle down too, so that in the next five to 10 years there will be fewer adjusting companies. Because of this, larger national firms are offering more diverse and flexible services in order to satisfy the needs of clients.

“We have to give them the best quality of work for value, so it’s not always about the cheapest price — it’s about giving them what they want and listening to our customers,” Seal says. The trick, Seal says, is catching instead of pitching. Far too often independents go to a insurance company and say: We’ve got this and this and you need . . . instead of sitting down with a blank piece of paper asking what worries the insurer and what can the independent do to alleviate those concerns.

“If we sit back and listen to our customers needs, and then turn around and do something about it, we will be around,” Seal says. “But you can’t sit on your laurels. You’ve got to continue to talk and listen and communicate with your customers and change if necessary wherever possible. One of the things that we are saying is that we are here, we offer a diverse service and we’re willing to listen to what you need and what is really necessary to make those changes.”

For the times they are a-changin’

Cunningham Lindsey has been adapting to change for 85 years. In 1923, the company was a one-man office in Hamilton. It quickly expanded to 40 offices in Ontario alone by the 1960s. By 1987, the company was national with 130 offices across Canada. The company expanded in 1990 into the United States with the purchase of Lindsey & Newsom Claim Services in Tyler, Texas. This was followed by a name change from Morden, Helwig & Ferrie Limited to Lindsey Morden Claim Services. Just a few years later, the company entered into a joint venture with the Cunningham Group, an international adjusting company that handled high-profile, complex losses around the world. The company later purchased the Cunningham Group; at around the same time it expanded into the United Kingdom with the purchase of Ellis & Buckle. The operating companies became known as Cunningham Lindsey in 1999; in 2006, Lindsey Morden Group Inc. became Cunningham Lindsey Group Inc. — a global operation with five operating divisions around the world. The company has roughly 88 offices in Canada alone, in addition to countless home offices.

At the end of 2007, Cunningham Lindsey became a private company after Stone Point Capital acquired 51 per cent the company’s operations. Fairfax Financial Holdings (the company that purchased Cunningham Lindsey in 1986) will retain 45 per cent of the operations, while senior management has taken on the other four per cent.

“We have now gone private,” Seal says. “We are no longer publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. What it means for us, from a business standpoint, is that it’s given us influx of cash infusion to allow us to do many things. We’re going to be looking at future expansion through other acquisitions, or what we call organic growth — training people internally — and also further investment in technology so our systems will be upgraded a little bit as well.”

Currently, Cunningham Lindsey is eyeing about three firms. In some cases, there are discussions occurring.

“If it’s the right fit, then maybe we can go to the next phase,” Seal says. But any acquisition won’t be in the first quarter; more likely something that would take its course over the next 6-12 months.

“We have to be very careful, very cautious, because you can buy something today and it can all be gone tomorrow if you don’t do it right.”