Blake Rhodes, CEO, 925 Partners
The biggest growth opportunity in the Florida insurance business is going to be on the benefits side, according to Blake Rhodes, CEO of 925 Partners. “We see this as a great growth opportunity for our firm and a great opportunity for employers of all sizes to provide a more premier benefit offering for their employees,” Rhodes told Invest:.
How has the past year been in terms of highlights and key milestones for 925 Partners?
We started in 2019, so we still feel relatively new. We consider ourselves one of the largest local players, and we’ve already attained that status as far as being one of the largest privately and locally owned brokerage firms in Jacksonville. We’ve had some aggressive growth goals, and we’ve been fortunate to exceed those goals and continue to push forward.
A major line of business for us within our commercial division is transportation. We experienced a boom during and immediately after the pandemic, and then we experienced the pullback last year. We’ve been able to weather that storm and press ahead over the past year. Florida itself is a bit of a mess, to put it mildly, on the property insurance side. That’s another storm that we’ve been able to weather, and we had some legislation go in the insurance industry’s favor. The forecast does look good, but we’re still coming out of it. We’re providing a valuable service to a lot of people who need it right now, especially on the property insurance front.
What are some of the main trends in the Florida insurance business?
Anything related to property. Renewals are coming in at higher premiums with less coverage and higher deductibles. More coverage is being pulled back from policies and consumers are paying more for it. There are a lot of businesses that have had good long-standing relationships with insurance carriers through their broker, and those relationships are being broken at this point because carriers, for their part, just don’t have the appetite for Florida property that they used to. And then on the transportation side, there were a lot of new entrants into that space when it was good, and now some of those businesses are funneling out and not making it.
What are the primary growth opportunities in Jacksonville in the next two to three years?
We see tremendous growth opportunity in the employee benefits space. There are a lot of newer disruptors becoming available as far as associations and captive options that allow us to do some pretty unique things for employers. The Florida group health insurance market had been essentially narrowed down to two players. Now, some attractive alternatives are developing. Carriers are wanting to get back into the space, which creates some overdue competition. We see this as a great growth opportunity for our firm and a great opportunity for employers of all sizes to provide a more premier benefit offering for their employees while realizing significant savings on their benefits spend.
On the personal side, even with mortgage rates up and the housing market cooling, there’s still a lot of growth in Jacksonville. A lot of new homes are still being built. So, both on the construction side for our commercial clients and then individually for our personal clients, we see those as growth drivers as well.
What do you see as the primary challenges for the insurance sector?
The main challenges are on the personal side. Homeowners’ insurance is a challenge in North Florida. It has been an issue in South Florida for many years, but in North Florida, you never had to consider prohibitive insurance costs when buying a home. Now it’s a real issue you must consider. If you’re not purchasing newer construction, you may only get water damage coverage for up to $10,000, or the hurricane deductible may be 5% of the total coverage. There are going to be limitations on policies and budget concerns that must be considered when purchasing a home now.
What will be your main priorities for the next two to three years?
Our top priority is to continue to grow where we are. We have aggressive organic growth goals. We’re going to continue to grow our personal division. We’re going to continue to develop our high-net worth private client base. Employee benefits are a huge opportunity. We’ve made a few acquisitions, most of them smaller, and we’re looking to be selective and identify some larger acquisition opportunities in the short-term, targeting well-established agencies with built in synergies that align with our growth objectives. We will continue to be locally and privately owned, and we feel that we’re in a strong position within Northeast Florida to take on some acquisitions that will enable us to serve our community even better.
What is your outlook for the next few years?
Overall, the industry is headed in the right direction in Florida. Our clients don’t feel it yet. It’s going to be probably another year and a half before they can see the impact, see that some of these coverages are coming back, some of the deductibles are coming down, and they’re paying a fairer price. Getting some legislation in favor of the insurance industry was necessary and frankly overdue. That’s significant. And getting new insurance companies into the market is a huge development as well. With so many leaving Florida, it was a tough scenario with the limited number of markets that were available for home and property insurance. There are going to be new names, but these new entrants don’t have the existing claims, they have better reinsurance contracts, and several are well capitalized. The forecast is positive for personal insurance. It will just take another year or two to realize the full impact.
