From Ashes to Triumph: How the Right Insurance Choice Saved CCF Industries

Ken's story, in his words

This case study is told by Ken Clifton, President of CCF Industries. It is the foreword to David's book, Insured to Fail.

Early 2014 was a memorable period for me. Unfortunately, it was for all the wrong reasons.

During that time, I was truly in a bad state of mind, having lost my son in February. I had planned a golf trip to Florida with my brother. I was not going to go, but my brother suggested I should go and relax a bit. So I went on April 2nd.

We played golf on April 3rd. Just when you think you have hit bottom and things will start to get better, life pulls out a shovel and digs the hole even deeper. At 7am on April 4th, my phone started ringing. The alarm company was calling to tell me my business back in Pittsburgh, CCF Industries, which I started in 1995, was on fire.

I rushed to the airport and jumped on the first flight I could, getting back to Pittsburgh just after 2pm. The building was gone, and I was looking at ashes. An errant spark ignited the metal filters in the building's air filtration system, igniting the dust in the ducts of the dust collection system. It took less than 10 minutes from the time of the spark for the fire to spin out of control, and the roofline started to collapse. I was suddenly living every business owner's worst nightmare: the destruction of my business, over 30 of my employees out of work, and failing to meet the demands of countless customers.

I am writing this foreword almost seven years to the day after this horrific event. I now realize how close I came to not surviving and not enjoying the thriving business I have today. My survival depended entirely on one thing. If that one thing had not happened, my 20 years of building my business would have been over.

That one thing? Meeting David Leng.

About a year before the fire, David came to talk about our insurance programs. At the time, I was set in my ways. I preferred to stay with my insurance agent, who we, and others in my industry, considered the industry expert.

Even when I did have other agents quote, no one could touch what I had. What started this conversation with David was that he did not sound like all the other agents. He asked questions no one else had asked before. He clearly wanted to understand me, my business, how we operated, everything.

He focused on finding better ways to improve my business. He took me through scenarios, such as what would happen if I ran into a situation that might put me out of business, just like the devastation that occurred.

Looking back now, it was as if David was predicting the future. He walked us through, and protected us for, what did happen before it happened. Even more important, by digging into other parts of our business, such as our employee safety and injuries, David was able to help us shrink our workers' compensation premium. That let us afford the coverage changes he recommended, which we clearly needed.

What always impresses me about David is his accessibility. That weekend was no exception. He was meeting with a client in upstate New York along the Canadian border when the fire happened, and he cut his trip short and was here the next morning, helping me sort out what it would take to get back on my feet. We talked in detail about what it would take to rebuild and what was covered. David understood the stress I was under, and he did everything in his power to lessen it. I can state without any doubt that without David Leng, I would not be in business today.

Just think. Under my previous program, I would have had to dig into my pocket to find nearly $1.3 million to rebuild and well over $2 million to protect my cash flow. Amounts I just did not have. My old program provided the building, contents and business income coverage that had been recommended to me. Looking back at my coverage before David, the shortfall I was facing went way beyond simply raising the building, contents or business income limits. There were holes in the types and structure of the coverages I needed. David added coverages no one had ever mentioned to me.

With those holes in my coverage, I could not have afforded to rebuild. I would not have been able to keep all my employees and most of my customers. I would not have been able to stay open after rebuilding. I would not have survived. Period.

But I did.

Owning a business for over 25 years, I have known a number of business leaders, including a former client who faced a disaster and ultimately had to close their doors for good. This is why I feel too many business leaders may not fully realize, until a catastrophe happens, how underinsured they could be, or how unprepared for what it will actually take to rebuild, reopen and get through the long, difficult road after reopening.

Do not assume your insurance program and your recovery plan will be good enough when you face your own disaster. Know what it will take, and verify now that you are prepared for it and insured for it.

This is why David's book is essential for every business owner to read. What David says in these pages can make the difference, when your business suffers a catastrophe, between restarting and continuing to grow, or not being able to restart, or even giving up after trying to make it work. David makes you realize that having insurance is not the automatic solution when you have to rebuild, and that there are factors that seem destined to derail the best-laid plans. David has a unique ability to minimize those factors, based on one simple goal: getting you back up and running as quickly as possible, and knowing the additional issues you will face once you reopen your doors. Most of all, his knowledge of the fine print in the various insurance coverages let him craft our insurance programs and plans, and that made it possible for us to thrive today.

We buy insurance because we want to be made whole again when we suffer a disaster. We want to be back in business. I would think most businesses buy it for the same reason.

I would not wish the devastation I went through on my worst enemy. But it became clear that the way I bought insurance before David was not the best way to buy insurance. In hindsight, that old way meant renewing year after year, usually with few changes, if any, even as my business kept growing. It is an inefficient process. You may not like insurance, and you probably do not like paying premiums. Just imagine paying premiums for years or decades, and when you need your insurance the most, your heart sinks when you find out you did not buy enough, or did not buy the right coverages.

Trust me. After your disaster is not the time you want to find out you have a problem.

After my fire, many business leaders reached out to see how I was doing and to talk about what I went through and what I learned. During those conversations, one thing struck me as scary. It appeared that almost every business I spoke to bought its insurance the same way I used to.

I cannot stress enough that it took going through David and his team's analysis of my business for me to see there was a better way to buy and manage our insurance program.

Their assessment process was unlike anything I had experienced before. When I talk to other business leaders, the depth of that analysis is something they cannot seem to grasp until they go through it themselves.

Think about it. Without a deep analysis that creates a clear understanding of a business, its goals and the issues it faces, how could anyone truly advise a business leader? How could they understand your business well enough to help you be insured to survive a disaster, and help you plan for it? The assessment findings and action plans David showed us, even before we committed to working with him and his team, made it clear they understood our business. He knew what it would take for us to be properly insured and had a plan to get us through rebuilding, reopening and recovering after a disaster. It also showed us that David and his team were focused on helping us.

I feel fortunate to have met David and to have him on the team that helps me guide my business. I cannot say enough about David personally and professionally. He is always in our corner, advising us on what we should be considering, and he has controlled and even reduced our insurance costs over time without sacrificing our program's coverage. I believe that is because he always has our best interests at heart.

With this book, David Leng puts it all on the page, so you know where you stand before anything happens. That alone makes this book a must-have for every business owner.

Where the Employer Success Program comes in

It starts with a Diagnostic and Plan. We read your loss runs, your mod worksheet and your key contracts, and we talk with the people who run the work. You get the pattern behind your claims and a short list of what's worth fixing first.

From there our claims, HR, safety and fleet people work alongside yours, and you get a Score Card at the start and every year after, measured against your own starting point.

How the program works