2 min read July 2022 — Jim Holmes, managing partner for Sentinel Risk Advisors, spoke with Invest: about what has kept his organization busy over the last year and how they are expanding their service offerings. Holmes also discussed his outlook for the current market and priorities moving forward.
What have been some of the primary highlights for the firm over the last year?
We continue to grow and recruit new talent. We’re expanding across the state, including the Triangle, Triad and Charlotte. We’ve seen a surge in the need for solid risk and insurance advice, guidance and counsel, so we’ve been busy adding additional services and professionals as a result. We’re specifically focused on serving the needs of clients based in the state of North Carolina. Last year, we started our employee benefits division, which was really exciting.
Why has the firm continued to expand its service offerings?
We’re a consultative, client focused organization. The greater your service platform to benefit clients, the bigger differentiators you have. Last year, we rolled out a Prepaid Legal Services Plan offering human resources consulting, contractual risk transfer review, employment law advice and workplace document review, which has been a big success. We’re looking to continue to further expand some of our other consulting roles. Also, we’re getting ready to roll out an analytical platform, which is currently in development. Our business is based on the amount of intellectual capital you can deploy, so we’re constantly looking to add services that further benefit our clients. As the world becomes more complicated, it becomes consultative. The easiest part of our job is the insurance transaction. The hardest part is thoughtful and ongoing consulting.
What trends within the risk management sector do you see emerging, and how does this affect the way the firm’s business is conducted?
In our industry, consolidation continues to be a trend. As an enterprise, we’re committed to remaining independent and privately held, accountable to each other not shareholders. We remain focused on our client centric, value driven service model.
Cyber Liability continues to be a major issue. We’re seeing a significant amount of both loss and program activity in the cyber world which affects all of our clients. The market is cyclical, and hyperinflation drives higher premiums. As an enterprise, we’re ready to offer our services at a level that we believe is unique. Unlike most companies, we’re a stable platform for our clients.
What concerns do you have given the market’s current condition?
I think everybody is watching the global economy. As we recently shared in our 2022 Mid-Year Market Review and Forecast, the insurance market remains in flux and is rapidly changing due to increasing global supply chain concerns, the continuing impact of the pandemic, escalating fuel costs, forecasts of global food shortages, inflation, rising interest rates and talk of an impending recession just to name a few.
From a more local standpoint, North Carolina is faring well and may not face the likely downturn that others may encounter. Just recently, CNBC ranked North Carolina first among its America’s Top States for Business. As a state, we have businesses and people moving here because we have a great business climate, tax strategy and university system. These factors inform our firm’s decision to focus on North Carolina over the next 44 months.
How are you interpreting the labor shortages that are being felt across the board?
If you’re in a war to recruit and retain talent, you have to be smart about it. Compensation is significant, however, other strategies are important as well. The new norm is flexibility. We’re trying to create mechanisms to create benefits that are of value to people. If you believe your employees are your assets, you have to take care of that asset. The other thing that we’re talking to our clients about is the type of culture that someone has. Having a great culture is the single hardest thing to build, and the easiest thing to destroy.
What is your strategy concerning assessing and addressing cyber security risks?
We have dedicated team members that specialize in that area. One focus now is tracking the evolving technological requirements that are always changing, and advising our clients proactively on what they need to do to be prepared. It’s a focal point in our industry today.
What’s your outlook for the firm in the next few years?
It’s simple, we’re focused on great talent. Our goal is not to be the biggest. We want to provide industry leading services to our client platform. Simply stated, we want to be the best, and we truly want to be the place where great talent wants to work.
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