Alliant Insurance Services – “Poor leadership for a good team in a good market niche.”

Pros

Alliant knows its market niche extremely well, and really knows how to focus on the core business. In addition, the company has its heart in the right place, even if all eyes are firmly focused on the bottom line. For folks whose career paths are aligned with Alliant's market niche (which is growing), spending some time there to learn how a lean and hungry company operates isn't a bad idea -- but consider getting out once you've learned. For everyone else, well -- the company talks a good line.

Cons

The company is moderately to extremely incompetent outside of its core business -- from hiring new folks to keep up with growing business, to managing infrastructure, contracts ... well, pretty much everything else is hit-or-miss or worse. If you aren't a broker/producer, use Alliant as a stepping stone but get out fairly quickly before your career gets sidetracked and you find yourself putting in 60 hour weeks for someone else's gain.

Advice to Senior Management

Hand over management to someone that knows more than just the insurance brokerage business. Just because you know insurance doesn't mean you know how to run a sizable insurance company.