A 5-Year Retrospective and What's Next for ALPS

ALPS CEO David Bell discusses navigating the 2020 pandemic, embracing change, fostering a resilient company culture, and exciting future initiatives in an insightful conversation with Rio Laine. This is the first in our new quarterly thought leadership series, ALPS In Brief: The Deep Think.

Transcript: 

Rio Laine: 

Hello and welcome. I'm Rio Laine, the Bar Partnership Strategist at ALPS Insurance. And today I have a chance to sit down with our CEO and fearless leader, David Bell, and we'll be talking about what's happening at ALPS, how the last year has gone, our vision moving forward, and also talk about how far we've come since the 2020 pandemic. Hello, David. Welcome. 

David Bell: 

Thank you, Rio, for having me on. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, thanks for joining me. It's always a pleasure to get a chance to sit down and talk with you. 

David Bell: 

For me too. I look forward to the conversation. 

Rio Laine: 

100%. Fabulous. So do you want to take a minute, David, to just tell the audience a bit about yourself, how you came to be at ALPS, a little bit about your background. 

David Bell: 

Sure. Well, I've been in the insurance industry my entire career since college. I joined Chubb Insurance and was with Chubb for a number of years. And then in the wake of 9/11, Chubb AIG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners formed a joint venture, and I went with Chubb's Capital to help start at an organization called Allied World, AWAC. And so over the course of a decade living in Bermuda, we built that business up, ultimately took it public. 

And then skipping a few chapters of this book, ultimately, my wife and I decided to come back to Montana where we first met three decades ago, where she is originally from and where we both went to college. And coming back to Montana, I had the opportunity to take the helm at ALPS. And it has been a true blessing for a dozen years to work alongside the men and women at ALPS and doing what we're going to talk about today. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so you've been at the helm of ALPS for about 12 years now. And during that time it seems that you've steered the company through a lot of really exciting changes and transitions and also perhaps some uncertainty, probably most notably like the 2020 pandemic. I think we can all agree that was a very interesting time all around. 

So I'd like to start with talking about the years since the pandemic and the last time we sat down with you, which was in 2020. Now, obviously ALPS is still here and thriving, but I'm curious to know what is something that you feel that you could point to that was the most important factor in helping us navigate that time and also what was something that helped our insureds navigate that time as well? 

David Bell: 

The pandemic time? 

Rio Laine: 

Yes. 

David Bell: 

Certainly just solidarity. I think as a country we came together, as a world, in a lot of cases, we came together. And at ALPS, that was particularly true. To be fair, ALPS has employees in a dozen states, but the nucleus of the organization is in the home office in Missoula, Montana. And Montana did not have a number of the challenges that the larger cities had, particularly with population density. 

When you have a global pandemic and airborne transmittable viruses, not having the same type of population density did help us. But everybody at ALPS really rose to the occasion. Our technology was ready to allow people to be working remotely. We were also able to bring people back into the office much, much earlier than I think larger cities were able to do. 

But most importantly, I think people rose to the occasion. They understood that they had the need to balance the challenges and the opportunities that they had confronted at home, and then also the responsibilities that we continued to have at the office. And I was so proud of everybody. It was week by week. 

We were intensely communicative, always together, always talking about what our objectives were, people socializing what some of their challenges were, whether they were uniquely related to the pandemic or just in general. And I think we worked through those, and I think we taught ourselves a lot of valuable lessons during the time of the pandemic that have proven very useful in the months and years that have followed. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. What is a lesson that comes to mind that you feel was maybe an important one for you as CEO of ALPS? Was there something that you learned that maybe you didn't expect to learn or that really helped you guide the company through? 

David Bell: 

Sure. Well, I think one of the most critical ingredients for any organization is for it to evolve and improve. And that requires change. And people, humans are just change resistant. It's in our nature. We love what we're familiar with. And what the pandemic did was it forced all of us into a period of change. And so as we were able to adjust to those changes and in many cases, adopt new technologies and processes, I think it opened people's minds to doing things differently. 

And we were able to leverage that in the years that have followed the pandemic to constantly revisit the way we do things, to bring more and more efficiencies, to make the customer experience better, easier, faster, to make the experience of being an employee better and the experience of being an employer from a managerial and overall organizational perspective better as well. 

And so the pandemic was incredibly difficult. But like most tragedies, most challenges, there are silver linings. And I think there were a number of silver linings for us coming out of the pandemic that have allowed ALPS to succeed even more than we would have frankly, had we not all endured that challenging time together. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that time really inspired people to become very resilient and push themselves to do things and accept realities that maybe they couldn't have been able to before or were less willing to, particularly with adopting new technologies and things. So do you think that our ability to adjust and adopt that change supported our insureds through that time as well? 

David Bell: 

I do, yes. I think by committing ourselves to allowing our insureds to keep their policies and keep them timely and seamless, and also our insureds were having a lot of structural changes forced upon them from the pandemic. They were generally not working in the office. And so the exercise that they had historically gone through for years related to their malpractice and other insurance coverages was done in the office and through a certain process in the office. 

That needed to be overnight and without warning changed to being done from home. Some of them relocated, some permanently, some of them went on the move and started to become a mobile lawyer. And so we needed to adopt our processes to accommodate all of the various iterations that our policyholders had to undertake. And I think by doing that, it also prepared us to just be more adaptable in general and things unrelated to COVID contingency plans. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I feel like that's a really good thing for us to carry forward is that adaptability. 

David Bell: 

Yes. And as you said, I think resiliency was a critical ingredient. I think a lot of us, and this is probably a general observation as well, the pandemic acquainted us with fear in ways that I think a lot of people had not really been acquainted with before. And it taught us a lot about ourselves, some great and some not so great, but we all learned from the experiences no matter which side of the ledger it rests. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that was a very shared collective experience, feeling that fear and uncertainty. And despite there being a lot of maybe tension at times, I think we all came through that having experienced something that, I mean, arguably changed us, but also made us stronger as a result. 

David Bell: 

And when a team endures a challenge together, whether that team is a company or a country or humanity, we do come out the other end of it with a better sense of resiliency and camaraderie. And so there's a lot of things to worry about in the future, but there's also a lot of things to celebrate and take comfort in. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, I've been at ALPS now for about a year and a half, and I will say that the camaraderie and that kind of team element that I feel at the company, it's very obvious that everybody is really, I guess, happy to be working together and it has maybe come through a difficult thing and are stronger because of it. And so I feel like that really permeates and is very obvious too when I think about working at ALPS and also how our customers see our dynamic and how we approach things now. 

David Bell: 

Absolutely. I mean, in my role playing a part of the equation of trying to create and help foster a certain type of intentional company culture, making sure that people feel safe and heard is really the only path to give people that will allow them to unleash their own sense of creativity. If they don't feel valued and heard and they don't feel safe as though... 

In some organizations, unfortunately, people are constantly not sharing their thoughts and their ideas for fear that they will be rejected or that it will put somebody off or whatever. I think one thing that we've really tried to do, and we're not perfect in this or anything else, but I think we have been largely successful is assuring people that as a company and that for the people around everyone else, we are for you and we want you to participate in helping make us better. 

And you're heard. It doesn't mean that we adopt everybody's ideas. That's not realistic. But if people feel they've genuinely been heard and that their idea has been genuinely considered, there's a real sense of teamwork that goes into that. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that has certainly been my experience. It's quite refreshing actually to be able to be given the space to have an idea and also to be wrong and it's not the end of the world, right? It's like, yeah, because you tried and it could be great, and maybe it's not, but the fact is that there's space to try. It's an important part of culture, I think. 

David Bell: 

Absolutely. And culturally, we're a risk-taking organization. Any organization should be comfortable permitting people to experiment with ideas, spend time, spend money, and make mistakes. And what we do is try to make our mistakes original and not repetitive, but only through those iterative processes of trying, failing, trying again, improving do we come out with some of the great ideas. 

Almost none of the cool things that we have going on at ALPS right now were top-down edicts. They were bottom-up, organically drawn ideas that started out with experiments. They were in the company of a bunch that ended up in the dustbin, but the good ones emerge. And that's I think how an organization thrives and I'm really proud to just be a part of that kind of ecosystem. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. So let's shift our focus and talk about some of those cool things that are happening at ALPS. So what are some of the initiatives that are going on that you are excited about personally for the next upcoming year or two? 

David Bell: 

Sure. Well, we've transitioned our positioning. It's less of a transition of what we do and more of a transition of how we are intentionally portraying ourselves to our customer base. Traditionally, ALPS has been known as the largest direct lawyers malpractice carrier in the country. And we were and are and will remain that. But what we also are is the largest retail broker for solo practitioners and one of the largest retail brokers for law firms in general in the country. 

And that makes us a more holistic solution provider, both to place the lawyers malpractice policy many times very often with ALPS, sometimes for various reasons not with ALPS, but we have the capacity to place it with whatever carrier is the best fit for whatever reason, even if that's not ALPS. 

And then there are also a lot of other coverages that law firms need, some of which they currently buy and are increasingly interested in buying through us, workers' compensation, general liability, non-owned auto, BOPs, business insurance policies. And so those are all coverage lines that we can help place for them, thereby becoming the holistic solution provider for all risk transfer products for a small firm. 

It can seem subtle, but it's not really how we've branded ourselves externally for the more than three decades that we have been a direct carrier. So I think that is a really exciting evolution that makes us much more of a comprehensive partner for our firms. There's a lot of things that I'm excited about, but that's one of the most important structural evolutions that are occurring right now. 

Rio Laine: 

Right. And can you just tell me a little bit about how being able to be that holistic provider is a good thing for our insureds? How is that really supporting them in running their law firms? 

David Bell: 

Sure. Well, first and foremost, there are lots of great insurance agents and brokers all around the country. The vast majority of them, they do a whole bunch of different type of industries and a whole myriad of different types of coverages. And a lot of them are jack of all trades and master of none. And that's not a bad thing because they serve a lot of different industry verticals. 

This is all we do. All we do is law firms and small ones in particular, but really firms in general. Nobody knows the needs, the challenges, what's on the horizon for law firms like ALPS does. One of the value propositions that we bring is a really deep understanding to what type of risk transfer, risk mitigation tactics and insurance policies they need. 

What we find oftentimes is as we discuss with a firm, whether it's a solo practitioner or a five or 10 person firm, when we discuss with them what type of insurance needs they should consider based on the very specific profile of where they are, how large they are, the type of coverages, type of areas of practice that they're engaging in, it's oftentimes revealed that what they have is not ideally what they should have, and it's not what their peer group is generally buying. 

And so that helps inform them to make the decision on whether or not or to what extent they want to expand it. And then we bring not just the institutional expertise of this profession, of this industry, but we bring a steadfast commitment to ease. Our mantra is easy. We want to take the unnecessary friction out of the insurance purchasing process. 

The operational process of buying an insurance policy has been largely unchanged for a hundred years, save PDF emails that might be a little bit more recent, but those are all deeply in need of evolving. And we've brought some of the most technologically sophisticated processes to our customers that helps them appreciate that we understand that time is literally money for small firms. And any hour spent working on this is one less billable hour they can spend serving their own customers. So we are committed to that approach. 

Rio Laine: 

And it sounds like we're really well-placed to support particularly solo and small firms because they obviously have limited resources, but that we're really well-placed to be able to advise them on the type of coverage they need so then they can in fact just step away and it's covered. They don't have to worry. If there's an issue, it will be dealt with. But otherwise, they can focus on running their practice. 

David Bell: 

That's right. I think one mistake that many brokers and agents make is an overgeneralization of solo practitioners. They see a solo as a solo as a solo. And we see if we've met one solo, we've met one solo. They're very different. And with those differences really necessitates different types of approaches to a certain type of insurance and different types of insurance that they should consider. 

It doesn't have to be a complicated process, but you really need a partner who understands and can simplify that for you. And that's the value that we bring, which is why we ensure so many thousands, so many tens of thousands of solos all across the country from coast to coast. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. And I suspect they all really appreciate that viewing them as unique individuals. I mean, I don't know, I like to say that law firms are kind of like snowflakes. They're all unique. And it's very nuanced. Their needs are all different. So yeah, I think that's a really excellent way that we're able to support them. 

David Bell: 

Absolutely. And there are profiles of solo practitioners and firms in general that inform the type of risk experiences that other firms from all around the country have had. And when you have a company like ALPS that only does law firms and focuses so steadfastly on solos, we can help a lot of firms see around the corner by sharing experiences that their contemporaries have had locally or in states far away that can help them mitigate the risk that they might have by learning from the experiences that other firms have had in other places. You can only do that if you have a pretty significant portfolio of the same type of risk that can arm us to share that information. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. Again, I feel like any leg up is a good thing for a solo. Absolutely. Okay, we've talked about some of the exciting things that have been going on or shift to being more of an agency model. Let's switch it up and talk about some of the challenges that maybe we've had in the past year or so. 

David Bell: 

Sure. I'd say for us, the biggest challenge that we have is a byproduct of the biggest opportunity that we have. We are America's solo solution. We are America's solo insurance company. There is a other edge of the sword for an insurance company as it relates to solo practitioners, and it's really as follows. If you go to medical school, you're probably going to be a doctor. 

And when you end that lengthy expensive experience, you're probably going to employ, probably, that medical degree to become a physician, and that will be your profession for your career. A law degree is much more versatile. It's highly portable into areas that are very different from the private practice of law. And so what we find, and this is particularly true in the solo practitioner community, nowhere else more true than the solo practitioner community, is what we label the leading private practice. 

People who are solos and for one reason or another elect to no longer be a private practice solo practitioner. They join a school board. We have lots of our policyholders become judges, interestingly enough. There's a lot of different places that they go. None of them are bad. But for the broader insurance index, you can lose a piece of business because they retire or because a competitor has taken them. Just to put some data behind it, at least on a historical basis, our loss business for a policyholder having left private practice is two and a half times the rate of retirements. 

Rio Laine: 

Oh, wow! 

David Bell: 

Now, that has started to compress a little bit over the past year or two as the baby boomer generation moves further and further along. But the transient nature of solo practitioners is a significant operational challenge because these policies are low premium, and so they're very operationally intensive. 

And our need to bring ease to the customer experience also is a need for us to bring operational efficiency into the approaches. So that is a significant challenge. We spent a lot of time, we spent a lot of money, we built a lot of technology to try to wrestle with that dynamic in this profession. 

Rio Laine: 

Yes, absolutely. That's a really interesting challenge because it seems like it's made up of a lot of different factors too that influence that and how much of a challenge it can be. 

David Bell: 

That's right. Being a solo practitioner is hard, and it's not for everyone. And it's not uncommon for folks to go into the profession and then go out. But what we can also do in having journeyed with so many different solos through that experience, we can help share best practices that will better empower a solo to be successful and to take some of the challenge and risk out of that experience. And if we can help tamp down the transient nature of people leaving the profession even just a little bit, then it's a win for us. 

Rio Laine: 

Well, absolutely. And if anything, it's also a win for not just the legal profession, but consumers, people needing legal services, because there is a major gap in access to justice and a lot of that has to do with people leaving private practice in rural communities, et cetera. So yeah, I do agree with you. I mean, being able to provide that kind of support, particularly to a solo who we know tend to be quite isolated, they tend to feel quite alone in their struggles and their challenges, I think that's a win for everybody really it seems like. 

David Bell: 

Absolutely. 

Rio Laine: 

So we've reflected on the past five years, we've talked about this year what our challenges were, what some of the things we're excited about. So is there anything else in this coming year that you are particularly looking forward to that you feel is going to be an interesting challenge for us to navigate? Tell me what your thoughts are for the next couple of years where you see things going, where you'd like them to go even. 

David Bell: 

Sure. Well, we have grown the business doing what we've done historically, but doing it better and better each year. It's really been satisfying to be a part of a team as you're refining your skill and you're trying to be better. And in the process of being better, you're becoming more successful. And being more successful, at least as I measure it, is in the terms of the role that I have in the organization and the success measurement for the organization overall. 

There are external metrics for that. I mean, we have new endorsements that have come online that are exciting. Because when an endorsement comes, then those endorsements are leveraged for success in the future, whether it's the Federal Bar endorsement, whether it's GIRL ATTORNEY, a 37,000 strong network of female legal practitioners, and those aren't the only ones. 

Those are just recent endorsements to add to the repertoire of so many state and regional endorsements that we enjoy from state bars all over the country, regional bars, affiliate bars. So I think those create an exciting environment. And they also double down on external validation of the ALPS value proposition because bars that endorse us generally don't unendorse us. 

And they aren't endorsing us for the money, they're endorsing us for the partnership and because we're mutually aligned. Also, one of the external validations that I think is so critical is our Trustpilot reviews. Trustpilot as a disinterested third party that sends a survey inquiring about the experience and is trusted nationwide and not just in this industry, in certainly all industries. And we have at this point, thousands of Trustpilot reviews. 

And one of the favorite parts of my job is to see the... It's not just the rating. So many of our policyholders take the time to specifically comment, call out the name of their account manager or their business development representative, and reflect on how easy they made this experience and how refreshing it is, particularly for our new customers to have moved from the experience that they had been having into the ease of the experience and the knowledge and the experience that they're having with us. 

That's great. The other side is internal validation because we serve customers, prospects, and we especially serve policyholders, but we also serve employees because we are an employer. In 2024, we won again a statewide employer of choice, Employer of the Year Award, that is not industry specific. It's across all line. We've won those from an industry perspective nationally. 

We've won them from a local community perspective, and now we've won it from a state process. Again, those are done through anonymous surveys of staff. They do really provide a pretty accurate metric of how your staff feels and how they feel valued and how much they trust and enjoy the experience that they have working for the company. I think that's validating and it helps prepare us to launch into the success for 2025 as well. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like it must feel good for you to see that feedback and know that you're on the right track because employees are happy and coming up with good solutions for customers. I feel like that would be a good thing to see. 

David Bell: 

Absolutely. I mean, culture building, culture maintenance is beyond just ensuring the financial health of the organization, and that we have the financial strength to fulfill the promises that we're making. I mean, that's one of certainly my core responsibilities, but a very... I don't know if I call it close second. It's probably an even because you can't do any of that well unless you have a vibrant, healthy culture. 

People ask about corporate culture. It's almost kind of a cliche at this point because it's bantered about so much. And I say to a lot of people, you can have statements about the ethos or the company cultures, values, and those are great, and we have those. And it's important to have them, and it's important to constantly remind yourself and others what they are, but they can lull you into a false sense of security if they're not being practiced. 

Rio Laine: 

Absolutely. 

David Bell: 

And so what I tell folks is, if you want to really get a sense of the company culture at ALPS, just walk around the office, observe how people are engaging with one another. You can tell whether two people are talking purely business. You can tell in the inflection in their voice and their way that they're carrying themselves that there's trust between the two people. 

You can tell whether they enjoy being around one another. I think you can have a better, more successful professional experience from your employees if you create an environment where they enjoy being around the people who they work with, they trust the people who they work with, and they trust the leadership who they work for and the messages that they're hearing. 

If there's one key ingredient to how we've been as successful as we've been, it's that. Because all of the other stuff, including the financial success, flows downriver from that. That is, I think, the headwaters of our success and I think organization success in general. 

Rio Laine: 

Well said, David. I would agree with you. Well, this has been a fantastic chat. So is there anything as we wrap up that you would like to share you'd like our audience to know? Any parting words of advice you'd like to offer? 

David Bell: 

I think you asked about solos in particular, and we serve law firms of all shapes and sizes, but we are America's solo solution provider. And I think what's interesting is we really understand solos in what might broadly be called their three stages of life. The dawn of the solo. It's amazing how many calls we field from people who are in a multi-member firm and considering going out on their own or with somebody else to be a one or two person firm, and they just don't know. 

They've had an office manager who is taking care of them out practice. They have no idea what it costs. They have no idea some of the basic elements of setting up a law firm, from law practice management software to renting space. We've become very consultative to that group of folks. Because if you don't know how to be a solo, even if you've been an incredibly successful member of a multi-attorney firm, we can help do that. That's kind of like the dawn of the solo. 

And then when solo is in its prime, that's where we're providing that expertise and ease to make sure that you have not only your malpractice, but all of your other business insurance coverages in there. And then there is the twilight of a professional life, and we are seeing that more and more as the baby boomers increasingly transition towards retirement. I mean, the demographics of the legal profession is not unlike the broader labor force demographics. 

And there are a lot of people who are at and approaching retirement age and how a small firm or solo practitioner winds down their practice is really important. And so we're here for the entire life cycle of a solo practitioner, and I think that's one of the things that makes us so uniquely focused as being America's choice for solo practitioners. 

Rio Laine: 

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Wonderful. Thanks so much, David. That was really great to sit down and chat with you and get to learn about all the great things we have going on at ALPS. And yeah, I hope that our audience enjoys the rest of their day and enjoyed our conversation. 

David Bell: 

Thank you, Rio. I appreciate the questions. I appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. Look forward to another one. 

Rio Laine: 

Yes, absolutely. Me too.