MJ Kelly opens Mississippi branch office in Vicksburg

MJ Kelly Company, an insurance brokerage company with headquarters at 4415 E. Sunshine in Springfield, recently opened in Vicksburg, Miss., its 10th branch office. Jim Adams, who with his sons Jon and Paul, owns MJ Kelly Company, said there are about 3,900 agents with the company, including around 1,000 in Missouri. In Springfield, MJ Kelly Company has a total of 32 employees and recently added a second office for its local operation.

MJ Kelly Company has been in business since 1976. Adams began buying into the company in 1986, and today he and his sons own 100 percent of the interest in the firm. Jon Adams runs MJ Kelly Company's Little Rock, Ark. office, and Paul Adams is a field representative, said Pam Harp, executive vice president of MJ Kelly Company.

MJ Kelly Company is an excess and surplus lines insurance brokerage firm, Harp added, which means the company finds insurance for clients that are harder to place in the standard insurance market.

The company primarily handles commercial property-and-casualty needs and commercial transportation, as well as other types of hard-to-insure businesses.

"We do things like day-care centers, exterminators, tanning salons, the harder-to-place type of risks, as well as a lot of little mom-and-pop type commercial property-and-casualty operations," Harp said.

The company also insures events, such as area Project Graduation celebrations, community festivals and hole-in-one competitions. In hole-in-one contests, insurance for prize cars that are given away helps automobile dealers avoid bearing the entire cost of the vehicles.

Harp said MJ Kelly Company is seeing an increase in clients that are having difficulty obtaining traditional insurance, because after a 14-year soft trend the market is hardening.

"We're seeing a lot of risks that the standard (insurance) market will no longer accept. So during the last probably six months, we've just had a very large call volume increase," Harp added.

Insuring businesses that aren't accepted by the standard market is risky, but Adams said MJ Kelly mitigates that risk by working with companies that will insure clients at competitive rates.

MJ Kelly Company doesn't work directly with the public, but the company does work with several insurance carriers, including Lloyds of London.

Underwriters with MJ Kelly are responsible for assessing risks of potential clients and marketing those clients to the different insurance carriers in order to place the clients with the appropriate company.

"We issue the policies here in our office, so we act as the middle man between the independent retail agent and the (insurance) company," Harp said.

MJ Kelly Company writes policies in about 15 states, Harp noted.

In addition to the Springfield headquarters and the Mississippi office, which will be managed by Jim Hulen, MJ Kelly has locations in Kansas City and St. Louis, as well as the states of Iowa, Florida, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah.

A pronounced need for nontraditional, "high risk" insurance is a factor in decisions to open new branch offices, but many of the offices are opened when individuals approach Adams seeking an opportunity to own their own businesses.

Adams said in addition to helping clients find insurance for their businesses, he also operates Barco, an in-house finance company at the Springfield location. That company can finance any premiums written by MJ Kelly Company, and it competes directly with other premium finance companies. Adams said having in-house financing gives his insurance brokerage more flexibility.

"In essence, we generally take 30 percent down, then break (the premium) up into as many as nine payments after that," Adams said.