Case Study: Advisen

Case Study: Advisen 

Becoming an Information Resource

Challenge: In 2002, Advisen was founded to fill the information void in the commercial insurance industry. Unlike almost all other mature financial service industries, commercial insurance lacked transparency on market conditions forcing the three major constituents, insurance buyers, providers and brokers, to fall back on unreliable data. The information was either proprietary or not market-tested, or lagged the market by as much as 14 months. Advisen planned to be the go-to-resource for a broad range of information, including pricing data, background information on directors and officers, legal and securities filings and a myriad of other information. While the company was managed by industry veterans, Advisen had little brand awareness and the industry as a whole was not entirely certain there was a need for such a resource.  

Strategy: 104 West immediately saw the opportunity to position Advisen and its executives as industry experts – the ‘smartest guys in the room.’ The connection was obvious: if PR could promote both the executives and the company as having information valuable to the media and the industry overall, that would instill the brand with the desired attributes.


104 West and Advisen embarked on a series of proprietary information collection and communication programs. These programs manifested themselves in a number of surveys of specific industry segments on market developments – for instance, the broker price-fixing scandals in 2004 or the impact of the current credit crisis on director and officer liability insurance – as well as more periodic and predicable surveys, like the quarterly RIMS Benchmark survey, which Advisen manages and disseminates.

Results: As a result, Advisen is now widely respected in the commercial insurance industry as the independent resource for market information. The company, its executives and its data have appeared in nearly 1000 news articles, including on the front pages of The Wall Street Journal and Business Insurance, as well as in many daily newspapers and trade publications, such as The New York Times, Business Week and National Underwriter. The RIMS Benchmark Survey is considered the authority on market conditions in the commercial insurance industry and is a highly anticipated quarterly reflection on pricing trends. The company executives are regularly quoted in topical news stories about everything from annual hurricane predictions to major shareholder liability suits.  


The company’s client list includes the industry’s major players including AIG, Aon, Marsh, Liberty, The Hartford, and St. Paul Travelers.