News
SPARTA Chairman George L. Estes III Profiled in Risk & Insurance Magazine
19 Mar 2008
The March 2008 issue of Risk & Insurance magazine included a prominent feature article, “The Wolf and His Pack,” profiling Geo Estes, co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of SPARTA Insurance Company. The article addresses Mr. Estes professional background, business philosophy, and the key attributes that he believes drive the success of SPARTA.
Mr. Estes began the discussion quoting Rudyard Kipling’s “The Law of the Jungle.”
Now this is the law of the jungle – as old and as true as the sky;
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back-
For the strength of the pack is the wolf , and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
Mr. Estes correlates this poem to his business philosophy, noting that the strong, talented team he has assembled at SPARTA is critical to the company’s success. He mentions the complementary strengths of his co-founders, Kevin Costello, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Dawne Ware, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, along with a seasoned senior management team that has largely worked together previously.
Mr. Estes recounts his professional journey as founder of Discover Re in 1990 and his previous experience at General Reinsurance from 1978-1989. He speaks appreciatively of the challenges of being in “start-up and survival mode” for his 17 years at the helm of Discover Re, facing ownership and corporate culture transitions involving USF&G, St. Paul, and Travelers and how that has informed his current venture. He credits his survival skills and finely-honed business instincts to his rigorous private-school education, having attended Papplewick boarding school in England and the prestigious Kingswood-Oxford School back in his hometown of West Hartford, Connecticut prior to attending Williams College in Massachusetts. Playing rugby and football during these years also ingrained the necessary life skills of having a team orientation and adhering to high standards. He credits his wife of 37 years, Laura, with giving him an “unfair competitive advantage.”
With evident enthusiasm, Mr. Estes explains the unique value proposition of SPARTA Insurance Company in the article. SPARTA is an acronym for Specialty Program and Risk Transfer Alternatives. He states the company differentiates itself with a customer-centric approach and as the only unbundled single source solution for program business whose most important characteristics, as learned through a lifetime of participation in the commercial insurance marketplace, are underwriting discipline and selectivity. Kevin Costello joined in the discussion and detailed SPARTA’s strong investment in technology, partnering with the vendor Insurity to offer an impressive leading-edge policy processing system for program administrators.
Raising private equity funds in late 2006 – early 2007 on Wall Street with his co-founders resulted in some interesting, even amusing, encounters with potential investors, which after more than 50 presentations resulted with nearly $280 million in capital raised from high quality investors including Corsair Capital, Goldman Sachs, York Capital Management, Primus Capital, and KBW Capital Partners. Once the capital was raised, there was little time to relax as SPARTA immediately moved forward to secure an A- (excellent) rating from A.M. Best Co. and acquire a 52-jurisdiction admitted insurance company shell from OneBeacon Insurance Company.
And the excitement has yet to wane for Mr. Estes and SPARTA as there has been a strong reception in the marketplace and the company is already serving new clients. The article closes with Mr. Estes energetically declaring, “The process is galvanizing. There’s no time to breathe, and that’s what makes it so exciting.”
The entire article can be viewed at
BNET:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BJK/is_3_19/ai_n24922803
