The 2024 Power Brokers Are Here — and They’ve Earned It

Economic circumstances change. The traits that make a Power Broker® do not.
By: | February 26, 2024

Power Broker®, which this issue celebrates, is now in its 18th year.

I’ve been running the contest since at least 2010, if not before, and this strikes me as a good occasion to clarify what the contest is about and how its winners are determined. Staff and contributing editors and writers for Risk & Insurance® sift through hundreds of applications annually to arrive at the winners and finalists.

The judging period runs from late October through January, with winners announced by the end of February.

Let us be clear. Just because someone was nominated for the Power Broker award and didn’t win, doesn’t mean that they aren’t an excellent broker.

This contest, which is always competitive, has gotten much more competitive over the past couple of years due to the sheer number of applicants and the quality of those applications.

This year, in particular, the Employee Benefits category and the Real Estate category were super competitive. Additional categories that are tough to win in are Construction and Private Client.

In determining who are the best commercial property and casualty insurance brokers, our judges place hundreds of calls and emails to the risk managers listed as references on the Power Broker applications.

We ask them to describe the accomplishments of their brokers in three categories: creativity in risk management solutions, customer service and industry knowledge. Roughly speaking, we place a weight of 50% on the creative solutions aspect of the inquiry and 25% each on the industry knowledge and customer service pieces of the equation.

If I can say that I’ve identified a shift in the 14 years I’ve been running the contest, it’s that brokers seem to be getting stronger and stronger on the industry knowledge portion. That’s just one person’s impression from reading applications and editing the profiles of the winners.

But it seems to me that the degree to which brokers are willing to become specialists and to really engage with their clients’ businesses and industries is becoming better defined year in and year out.

Brokers also seem to have improved in the area of customer service. We still hear stories about unresponsive brokers, or brokers who could not be bothered to clarify an insurance buyer’s circumstances with the markets and coverage. But those stories have become less common over the years.

This year, brokers from 32 brokerages were identified as Power Broker winners and finalists. Not only is the range of winners broad, the volume of applications is also still quite high. This is not a pay-to-play contest. Winners and finalists in this contest are selected on their merits. So here they are, the 2024 Power Brokers. And believe me, they’ve earned it. &

View All 2024 Power Broker Winners

Dan Reynolds is editor-in-chief of Risk & Insurance. He can be reached at [email protected].

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