In August, longtime ProgramBusiness.com Storefront, 
We spoke with Jeremy Hitzig, CEO of Distinguished Programs, Brooks Chase, President of the newly formed Distinguished Specialty and Dusty Rowland, CEO and President of Fulcrum and now Chairman-EVP Sales of Distinguished Specialty about the merger, the synergies of the company and the value created by the combined entities for insurance agents and brokers throughout the country.
In late 2012, Distinguished acquired program administrator, NSU, also located in Bellevue and a leader recognized in umbrella liability for luxury and limited service hotels, resorts and casinos. The following year, Distinguished purchased Long Island-based umbrella purchasing group HLI, which focused primarily on hospitality and commercial real estate business.
"With the acquisitions of NSU and HLI in the last few years, we took broad steps to diversify outside our core real estate programs and into the hospitality space," said Jeremy Hitzig. "We also enhanced our real estate programs between the two acquisitions.
"In looking at Fulcrum as a potential partner, we have known Dusty Rowland for a number of years through our mutual involvement in Target Markets and through other events and associations in the industry. We greatly admired and respected the business that Dusty and his partner Eric Arthur built with Fulcrum, and have long wanted to create an opportunity to come together as we now have. Their offering and the team of people and talent Dusty and Eric have built around the business are complementary to what we've also been building and investing in over the years."
Jeremy noted that the Fulcrum acquisition from a broad perspective provides Distinguished with greater reach into the brokerage community, more product depth, and additional capacity particularly in terms of providing high limits of liability for the hospitality and real estate industries. "The businesses are complementary and by bringing them together we will be able to deliver even greater value and an enhanced experience to the brokers with whom we do business," explained Jeremy.
Brooks Chase, who is now heading Distinguished Specialty, also underscored the value that the acquisition brings. "One of the reasons we found Fulcrum an attractive partner was because of their successful AGPOM program," Brooks commented. "AGPOM offers a creative way to provide additional value to the programs we offer. We're envisioning making the AGPOM program more robust as we move forward based on the critical mass we bring to the table." AGPOM, the Association of Green Property Owners & Managers, is a national membership association that supports property owners and managers in the utilization of sustainability practices and other behavioral initiatives to lower risks and raise profits.
The combined entity will also be the largest umbrella insurer of hotels. "By bringing the two companies together, we'll be a resource for virtually every hospitality entity class out there - from limited service hotels to the largest, most luxurious casino resort, we'll have a product for each facility," said Brooks.
Dusty Rowland, former CEO and President of Fulcrum and now Distinguished Specialty's Chairman-EVP Sales, is equally pleased about what the merger will mean for the two companies, their employees, and their agent and broker partners and insureds. "We're extremely excited about the operational excellence that Distinguished brings to the merger," said Dusty. "We've been a fast-growing, agile program administrator focused on four key segments: hotels/resorts, real state, ha
bitational and casinos. As we've continued to grow, scale was becoming one of our biggest challenges. We felt we could leverage what we excel at and merge with a company that was not only synergistic with our firm but also had a track record of operational excellence."
An example of this, Dusty noted, is ResourcePro, which is owned by Distinguished and is the premier provider of business process outsourcing services for the insurance industry. "This is a company that began with a handful of people in 2003 and today has 2,000 employees in New York, China and India. Distinguished knows how to manage a large company," said Dusty.
Dusty also emphasized that with several offices located in various parts of the country they would be able to better respond to agency customers in their respective time zones. "We can also visit our clients more easily, efficiently, and frequently," added Dusty.
All program segmentations will continue under the new brand of Distinguished Specialty. What's more, the two Bellevue offices will now be housed under one roof where Fulcrum already resides. "Fulcrum has invested in and developed fantastic office space in Bellevue with the latest in office layout and design and collaboration tools. Putting all the team under one roof is an exciting part of the merger," said Jeremy.
Talent Important to Distinguished
A key benefit of the merger and critically important to both Distinguished and Fulcrum is that their employees will now have broader career opportunities. "The continued growth of Distinguished with NSU, HLI and now Fulcrum
provides greater opportunities for our colleagues," said Brooks. "We have a lot of young, ambitious individuals who want to grow professionally. A merger like this gives us an opportunity to give them a chance for personal growth while we retain really good talent."
In fact, Distinguished is strongly committed to its employees. A few years ago, the leaders began getting their teams around the country together for a few days. "As we started expanding our business and adding people and offices around the country, we wanted to maintain the cultural connection that made us successful," explained Jeremy. "To keep this cohesiveness and connection among our colleagues we launched Culture Week. This year we got together in Tarrytown, New York for business meetings, team building, educational sessions and fun activities. It's an imperative for us, an important part of connecting everyone together."
Distinguished recently launched a new website with each of its programs highlighted. You can visit the new site at www.distinguished.com. For more information about Distinguished Specialty and the programs available, please contact: Brooks Chase at 425.213-5127 or via email at Bchase@distinguished.com or Dusty Rowland at 425.233.6464 or via email at drowland@fulcrumprograms.com.