San Diego Source News: Niche insurance agency focuses on special events and nonprofits		m   "We've implemented travel services as an added value benefit for our clients, who travel both national and internationally. Our goal is to provide great customer service and a diverse quality of options to our client. Curtis Moring Jr. -President & CEO
Insurance is more than a business to Curtis Moring Jr. - it's a way he gives back to the community. As president of Curtis Moring Insurance Inc., he focuses on nonprofit organizations and the environment - as well as operating the brokerage that sells more than $12 million in coverage annually. The company started in 1963, when Curtis Moring Sr. became licensed to sell life insurance. Originally the sales job was pitched to his wife - but Moring decided to take on the task instead. He eventually obtained his property and casualty insurance license and started acquiring clients. Now, the company specializes in high-risk events and customized packages specialized to the client - something the firm can provide as an independent insurer that puts it ahead of national chain competitors. But instead of competing, Curtis Moring Jr. said he operates on a different level: finding the right fit between the client and insurer.

The agency and its main competitors are independent insurers who have less bureaucratic costs than the larger, national companies, Moring said. Curtis Morning Insurance Agency holds about 1,200 policies that vary between health care, auto, property and special risk events, such as the America's Finest City events in San Diego.

As a minority-owned business that started during the civil rights movement, Moring said his company has struggled. "The insurance industry itself is a microcosm of life," he said, noting that it is discriminatory by nature about whom companies will accept and what it will cost. While companies are no longer to ask for information about race, they still take into account economics and health. Moring's father struggled to get insurance carriers in the 1960s, and Moring faced discrimination again in the 1980s when carriers started to redline areas they refused coverage to. Unable to provide coverage to clients, Moring sold many accounts. "It left me with just the high-risk auto clients, 1,000 nonprofits and 30 churches," Moring said, noting that it was the most challenging time he's faced as the president of the company. He'd just recently purchased the company from his father. Though the practice is illegal, Moring said the lack of minority brokers in San Diego made it easy for the carriers to redline because those in the redlined areas - predominantly Hispanic and African American - had less of a voice. CMI reincorporated the personal and auto home coverage policies in the mid-1990s. Moring said the practice of redlining continues still, and the agency has since found its niche by insuring special events, nonprofits, churches and technology.

In 1992, Curtis Moring Insurance Agency started insuring high-tech databases and the information they hold. A company worried about its system being hacked, or private information being leaked to the public, can get an insurance package from CMI that covers the cost associated with the loss.
The agency also does a lot of special event insurance for parades, the California Junior Chambers of Commerce and even wrote a policy to insure the Rose Bowl brochures for three days. Moring said special event insurance requires an understanding of risk that not a lot of agencies are willing to tackle.

CMI provides a risk management team that is unique to the industry, according to Moring. It works well for the company because it has a lot of high-risk clients. The team is comprised of a legal adviser, a risk manager, safety consultant, business coach and strategist, a bilingual human resources consultant and a public relations consultant. "We're helping to facilitate our clients' entire risk strategy," Moring said.

As the future develops for CMI, Moring said he hopes to hire a few more employees - there are currently six in the office - and expand the company's client base. Recently relocated to an office in Mission Valley, the agency has made the office completely paperless in an attempt to "go green."
Going paperless is not only environmentally friendly, it is also economical and efficient. When a potential customer requests a quote, the results are e-mailed. Files are kept on the company's database on a server - not in a file room. There are no rooms full of files at CMI; it's all done through the computer. Moring predicts the digital files save him $20,000 a year on office supplies. The company is also able to rent a smaller office, saving on rent.

- Natalie Wardel