North Risk Partners merges with Bearence Management Group, creating one of the Midwest’s largest independent insurance agencies
Effective May 1, 2018, North Risk Partners officially merged with Bearence Management Group, another independent insurance brokerage firm with over 80 employees spread across three Midwest locations – Mendota Heights, Minn., Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb – and a mix of product and service offerings similar to North Risk’s. This new partnership grows the merged group to over $50M in revenue, 265 employees, and 21 locations across three states.
North Risk Partners CEO Chris Meidt remains CEO of the merged company and Bearence’s managing partners, Dan Seemuth and Stan Hamann, have joined North Risk’s executive leadership team. Seemuth and Hamann have maintained their equity in the company and have also taken on division president roles for their respective offices; Seemuth is overseeing the Des Moines and Omaha locations, and Hamann is responsible for Mendota Heights.
In a joint statement provided by Seemuth and Hamann the two explain the merger’s benefit to clients: “This [merger] increases our firm’s options for insurance coverage and deepens the level of technical knowledge available to all of our clients. If a client owns or operates a business, it also expands their team’s access to critical loss prevention services in the areas of human resources, safety, workplace wellness, and more.”
For the last three years, North Risk and Bearence have been majority owned by the same capital investment group, BroadStreet Partners, a firm headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. BroadStreet’s model allows its business partners to operate autonomously and maintain local ownership while it provides financial and legal support to drive growth through acquisitions and organic sales. BroadStreet has partnerships with 20 other independent insurance brokerages across the country, making North Risk Partners-Bearence part of a top five network of brokers in the U.S.
“As two firms with similar aspirations operating in the same state for the last three years, the idea of merging made sense,” says Meidt, who joined North Risk Partners in 2014. “But before we could execute at the pace and scale we now are, we needed to first build a strong infrastructure.
“With the Bearence team on board, we are excited to continue improving how we differentiate the value our products and services bring to a competitive marketplace.”
