“We'll have their people with us for a few weeks, and we use that time to get our people involved with theirs, although it's a little harder to reverse the process and send our people out to one agent's office for that long,” Mr. Pilkington said. “We say we're trying to walk a mile in their shoes,” he added, explaining that by exchanging employees, Colony seeks to understand what drives an agent's business, “so we can better partner with them and see where they're going.”

“We all have roles. We all believe in our roles, and we wonder about what it takes for our agents to fulfill their roles” on a day-to-day basis, he said. He added that Colony's agents “are very good about being stewards of our products and our success, but that doesn't make them us.”

“We really want to plan with them differently. We want them to tell us what's working and what's not working with their business–because that's how you find out where real growth is taking place,” he said.

“If I can simplify it, when the market is hard, there is so much business out there that if you can get to it, the opportunity to write it is good,” he added. “It does not require much creativity to do well in that environment, and it's probably a time when you're less sensitive to clients because you're so busy just trying to handle the deluge.”

“That changes, of course, because the market's always going to change. [When] you're not being force-fed business, the next opportunity has got to come from doing a better job of being a partner for your agents,” he said.

Over the years, Argonaut's E&S segment has also experienced growth through acquisitions and by expanding on existing business classes. Mr. Pilkington noted, for example, that the acquisition of business from Interstate in 2005 reinforced Colony's garage segment, which was mainly focused on dealers, expanding its capabilities to handle service operations as well.

He said that while some core products have been growing, a diversified product mix allows it to shrink some lines and still maintain profitable growth–that's been in the double-digits in recent years. “Our breadth of product distinguishes us,” he said, noting that while some of Colony's products are available from any number of companies, few competitors have such a wide range.

Colony also has an internal business development team–consisting of professionals who aren't tasked with writing business–that works to identify new areas for potential product expansion.

“There's no company that doesn't have that same thought. There's no underwriter sitting at a desk not trying to think about what else the company can do. But the reality is, if you're taking calls at your desk or working a production deal, it's hard to be in two different worlds,” he said. “So we have people isolated from production–but not isolated from clients–that partner with our distribution people to see if there are places we should be going.”

That initiative is just one year old, he said, noting that the business development team has probably looked at 40-to-50 initiatives–25 percent of which are now in production.

“You can have core business where people are very successful and they're driving your success, but if you rely on that alone, reinforcing the core eventually becomes a problem. So we just want that extra look at the world,” he said.

One key benefit of Argonaut's acquisition of Colony in 2001 has been Argonaut's support for unrestricted growth from a capital perspective, Mr. Pilkington said, noting that “the only limitation was having enough staff to do it.”

With the addition of Kevin Brooks–a former president of the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices and a 28-year veteran of the industry–Argonaut expanded its E&S business in second-quarter 2005, commencing operations through Argonaut Specialty as a unit separate from Colony.

“We write smaller business; they write the larger business,” said Mr. Pilkington, who is currently a NAPSLO board member, noting that while Argonaut Specialty products overlap Colony's in three areas (primary casualty, umbrella and property), Colony's average premium size ranges from $2,200 to $22,000, while Argonaut Specialty's average ranges from $25,000 to $75,000.

“Larger accounts move through different agents,” he said, noting that because “there's a natural dividing line,” there's been little difficulty differentiating the two units in the market.

Turning to what distinguishes Colony from market competitors outside of Argonaut, Mr. Pilkington highlighted people and long-term market relationships. “You have to have the products and services as a starting point, but fundamentally our success is really based on people,” he said, noting that spending a great deal of time on the “people part” of acquisitions has paid off.

“We're very relationship-oriented,” he continued. “And I think what's happened over time is that we've proven our durability” in the market, said Mr. Pilkington–who has been with Colony since 1993. “When a new company comes out, there may be a lot of interest in that, but if you're running a business, you've also got to have those dependable carriers you can turn to day in and day out–and I think we now fit in that group.”

“I think we're a simple story,” he concluded. “We may seem complex because we have so many product lines, but at the heart of it, we're very fundamental in terms of our attitude. We think to be successful, we should know our agents and align ourselves so that what they do and what we do makes sense.”

He continued that “we also believe underwriting is a fairly straightforward deal. You have to make good sound underwriting decisions and not outsmart yourself,” staying focused on fundamentals.

“Most of all, we think tomorrow should be different than today,” he added. “We don't think we're a status quo group. We like to build and we want to build more.”