EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants is pursuing a specialty growth strategy built around deepening its expertise in selected industries and product lines rather than continually adding new practices.
Scott Davis (pictured), EPIC’s president of national specialties, said the brokerage’s approach is to concentrate investment where it already has established capabilities, client relationships and a clear view of the risks affecting particular sectors.
“We at EPIC are digging deeper, not necessarily wider, in our specialization,” Davis told Insurance Business. “Specialization has always been the foundation of EPIC. We’re not all things to all people, but where we are specialized, our strategy is to get deeper.”
The strategy reflects rising expectations from clients navigating increasingly complex economic, regulatory and operational challenges. Davis said businesses are looking for advisers who understand their industries closely enough to anticipate emerging exposures and connect them with the right technical resources.
“I think clients are expecting more and more from their providers and service partners in terms of knowing their business,” he said.
“I’ll never say the day of the insurance generalist is over, but that’s not where we’re focused. We’re going to focus on our teammates waking up every day thinking about their clients and their business sector.”
EPIC’s specialty expansion is currently concentrated on transportation, real estate and natural resources. The brokerage has announced a series of leadership appointments and investments across the three areas since September, with each practice intended to complement capabilities already present elsewhere in the organization.
Davis said EPIC selected the sectors partly because it already has meaningful business in each of them. It also sees sustained demand for more sophisticated insurance and risk management advice as the industries contend with economic uncertainty, litigation, regulation and changing project requirements.
“We look very closely at economic trends, where we’re going and where the need exists,” he noted. “We need two things to make specialty work. One is that we have to have a platform or a baseline of expertise and volume already existing in that business. Second, we look at which industry sectors are facing more difficult challenges to which we can bring solutions.”
Transportation is one example. EPIC already has a substantial presence in transportation and logistics, including customs bonding, giving the brokerage a base from which to respond to trade disruption and tariff uncertainty.
Davis contrasted that opportunity with industries where the brokerage may have strong business but sees less need for additional specialization.
“Basic nut-and-bolt manufacturers are great business,” he said. “But what economic trends are they facing? We have a lot of that business, versus transportation, where we have a significant platform already in that space and know the headwinds they’re facing.”
A central part of EPIC’s specialty journey is the effort to link industry-focused teams with product specialists across the national organization. Davis described the model as two interconnected “towers.” One consists of industry practices such as construction, transportation, real estate, natural resources, and sports and entertainment. The other covers technical product areas including environmental insurance, aviation, cyber, complex property, complex casualty and executive risk lines.
“What we’ve built at EPIC are two towers that are going to interconnect,” he said. “We have our industry specialization, and then we have our product specialization.”
The objective is to make that expertise available across the firm without requiring every local office to replicate every specialty team.
“There may be an account executive who handles one aviation account a year, or we have a sophisticated aviation team that we want handling that business,” Davis said. “All of our teammates have access to that specialization.”
The same structure also shapes how EPIC approaches insurer relationships. As carrier appetites change, product specialists can monitor which markets are best positioned for particular risks, while industry teams give insurers access to portfolios supported by sector knowledge rather than one-off placements.
“I believe our carrier partners are looking for distribution partners, which I’ll call brokers, who understand industry specialization,” Davis said. “I think carriers are looking for that expertise, and I think it gives us better platforms and a better ability to build relationships with those carriers. They know that when they come to EPIC, these people know the industry because that’s where they spend their day.”
EPIC’s latest investment in that connected model is its national surety practice. The brokerage recently appointed Monica Donatelli as national surety practice development leader following its acquisition of Southern California-based The Bond Exchange.
Donatelli, who has more than 16 years of construction and commercial surety experience, will be responsible for bringing together EPIC’s existing surety resources and expanding the practice nationally.
“Monica’s guidepost is really to tie all these together, bring the surety expertise together and communicate that expertise to all of our teammates so they can deliver it to their clients,” Davis said.
The appointment adds another product specialty to EPIC’s broader platform as bonding becomes more closely connected with clients’ financial, operational and project strategies.
“Surety has become an essential tool for organizations to pursue growth,” Davis said. “There’s a lot going on in the world, and surety is becoming more of a critical piece of the overall risk management profile.”
