The Starr Group
Address: 5005 Loomis Road, Greenfield
Year founded: 1956
Product or service offered: The Starr Group is an insurance/risk management agency with the capabilities of advising clients on everything from their business insurance, including group health insurance, to personal insurance. We also provide assistance in human resource compliance, loss control, workers’ compensation, claims administration, disaster preparedness, corporate wellness, leadership training and e-services.
Projected 2014 revenue: $38 million
CEO: Tim Starr
Other key members of the leadership team: Mary Starr, executive vice president
Target clientele: National Association of Remodelers, technology, health care, environmental-related risks, law firms
Business organization memberships: Marsh Berry and Associates, Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin, PIA, IIAW, CIC, WELCOA, Wellness Council of Wisconsin, South Suburban Chamber of Commerce, MMAC, National Association of Remodelers, YMCA, Wisconsin Athletic Club, Toastmasters, TOPS, WAHU Foundation
What has fueled your company’s growth? “Defining ourselves as a marketing organization that happens to be in the insurance industry or “improving your total risk wellness” business. Additionally, by making a significant investment in new talent, specifically in the group benefit area, that provides alternatives that are quite contrarian to the historical behavior of a group benefits agency or an insurance company.”
What is the biggest obstacle to your company’s growth? “Continuing to find new talent to support our unique model.”
Do you plan to make any changes in your company in the coming months? “Simply aligning our existing talent base and/or adding new talent to speak ‘the new language’ of our developed product Engagement Cafe.”
Who are the business people, locally or nationally, whom you admire? And what traits do those people exhibit that make you admire them? “Those that do not follow the status quo. There are significant opportunities to outperform the status quo, specifically in the group benefits arena. It starts with breaking down existing, traditional engagements and relationships and rebuilding them, thereby creating intense focus on cost drivers, ultimately culminating in wins for businesses.”
What is the outlook for the business conditions of your industry over the next several months? “Our industry tends to deal with the hand they have been dealt. We are changing dealers wherein the business controls the process rather than the suppliers of the process. In particular with regard to the traditional way of delivering health insurance and group benefits to businesses.”
What is your company’s most important growth strategy right now? “Developing our new group benefit product, Engagement Cafe. This is a Starr Group indigenous product that alters, to the benefit of businesses, the cost drivers of their heath insurance at their root.”
