is equally important to honor the women who worked within the financial sector to build the business — the ones who received little or no recognition at the time , but who were instrumental in creating the industry that exists today . Mabel Pottinger was one of those women .
Five years before Frances Perkins became the first woman in a presidential cabinet when she was appointed Secretary of Labor under Franklin D . Roosevelt , and four decades before Muriel Siebert became the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange , Pottinger joined the nascent insurance brokerage of Arthur J . Gallagher ( AJG ) in Chicago .
She played a pivotal role in the growth of the firm through its first half century , and can fairly be said to have been a powerful guiding hand in the growth of the insurance brokerage business broadly .
“ Mabel — she was always Aunt Mabel to me — was very much responsible for the growth and success of the company ,” said J . Patrick Gallagher , Jr ., chairman , president and chief executive officer of AJG , and grandson of the founder . Today AJG is a global insurance brokerage , risk management and benefits-consulting firm .
“ She trained ‘ the boys ,’ my father , John , and my uncles Jim and Bob , as they were called ,” said Pat . “ At one point my grandfather got very sick , and for a while Mabel , along with Ed Keating and Dan Wachs , ran the company for a period of several years . They even helped my grandmother get her broker ’ s license so she could have an income . When the boys took over the company after World War II , Mabel took them under her wing and guided them as they entered the business .”
Pottinger became the first employee of the company in 1928 , just a year after it was founded , and set the tone early in her tenure . Pat related a foundational piece of company lore . Among her myriad other duties , “ Mabel was responsible for the petty cash ,” he recalled . “ At one point in the late ’ 30s my grandfather asked for $ 100 . She said , ‘ I just gave you $ 100 a few days ago . What did you do with it ?’ My grandfather reminded her , ‘ I own the company !’”
Fiscal responsibility was also the watchword across the firm : In 1938 , AJG helped to develop the Retrospective Rating Program for the Hartford Group that recognized and rewarded clients for being able to minimize losses . That was considered an innovative approach to underwriting at the time .
The same year the company wrote the first large-deductible fire-insurance policy for the Bowman Dairy Company . 1 That policy was also considered quite ambitious in its size and scope , while the country was still struggling to recover from the Great Depression .
“ The company was started in 1927 ,” said Emily McNish , archivist for AJG , “ and that was a difficult landscape in which to start a business . Pottinger was originally from Chicago , and was working at the Kansas City office of The Hartford Insurance Company . She came to Gallagher on the recommendation of a friend . She was hired at a rate of $ 95 / month ; the next few [ salesmen ] were hired at the same rate . That is very interesting .”
Pottinger was office manager , trainer
Portrait of AJG founder Arthur Gallagher .
and had her own book of business , said McNish . “ It was her role as trainer that was the most important . She shaped generations of leadership ,” in the company and in the industry .
The first insurance brokerage in the United States was founded in New York by Walter Restored Jones , Jr . and Henry Ward Johnson , primarily writing marine insurance along with other types of coverage . Nine years later , Jones & Johnson became Johnson & Higgins when Jones left the partnership and was succeeded by A . Foster Higgins . Johnson & Higgins continued to grow and diversify its book of business to become one of the largest brokers in the world . It was still privately owned , with revenue of $ 1 billion in 1990 . Seven years later , it was acquired by Marsh & McLennan .
Courtesy of Arthur J . Gallagher & Co . www . MoAF . org | Spring 2024 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 21