GRP rebrands after Bruce promotion

Global Risk Partners (GRP) has completed its rebrand to Brown and Brown Europe Limited, a statement released yesterday (11 September 2023) revealed.

GRP was acquired by US broker Brown and Brown in July 2022 as it looked to establish itself as a major force in the UK retail insurance market.

When the deal was made, the broker said that it intended to provide longer-term capital to fuel GRP’s culture driven acquisition pipeline.

And GRP said that it was changing its name to use Brown and Brown branding to “increase the visibility of our combined technical knowledge”.

“[It will also] allow our team to leverage superior capabilities and financial strength to the benefit of our customers and teammates,” it added.

The change will only affect GRP and not the trading brands – its retail broking, underwriting and London market businesses will continue to operate as part of the Brown and Brown team under their current names.

Chief executive

This came after former GRP chief executive Mike Bruce was announced as the new Brown and Brown Europe top boss last week (7 September 2023).

The role will see him lead Brown and Brown’s overall European strategy.

Bruce said his goal was to enable the European teams to build “more connectivity and leverage the financial strength and scale of Brown and Brown with insurers, customers and potential acquisitions”.

”Our teammates will be able to derive value from our combined capabilities and deeper collaboration,” he added.

“‘’The Power of We’ is one of Brown and Brown’s consistent cultural focuses, which I am excited to have the opportunity to facilitate in our growing European operations.”

When Brown and Brown acquired GRP, Bruce told Insurance Times that while the firm was ”in a great position before”, it was in a “better position now”.

“Brown and Brown will entrust us to get on with stuff as [it] bought into our strategy and [is] fully committed to supporting us on that. I’m really keen that we tap into [its] resources and knowledge,” he added.

“Being part of a much larger organisation with a longer-term view of investing in our future will be a huge advantage for us – Brown and Brown [has] a focus on identifying, developing and retaining talent and if we can pick up a small part of that in the UK market, that will put us in a very good position.”