How a midcorp insurance company learned to excell as a strategic partner
Photo from ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ (1988)
What happens when the ground shifts beneath a long-standing business relationship? When the familiar patterns that once felt secure suddenly feel... insufficient?
A few years ago, I witnessed a profound transition that began with what felt like a threat. The largest customer of one of our clients issued a challenge that initially seemed to shake the foundation of their partnership: "We need more value than annual premium adjustments and claims handling. We need you to anticipate the fundamental changes in how we operate."
The stakes were real. Competitors circled, offering lower rates. The customer was ready to increase deductibles to reduce costs dramatically. What had been a comfortable, predictable relationship was suddenly flowing into uncharted territory.
When comfortable becomes limiting
Our client—a medium-sized captive insurer specializing in public-sector insurance—had built its expertise over years of steady, reliable service. It knew its domain intimately: risk management, claims processing, and regulatory compliance.
Their customer was transitioning from a government organization to a privatized entity, suddenly needing to navigate market forces they'd never encountered. Once perfectly adequate, the familiar rhythms of their collaboration now felt constraining.
What emerged in our exploration together was a recognition that both organizations were being called to something neither had experienced before: genuine strategic partnership.
Sensing the deeper current
The challenge wasn't really about insurance products or pricing. It was about complex change—both organizations learning to dance with forces they couldn't control, finding flow within circumstances that demanded new ways of being.
We began by sensing what was present. Through one-on-one conversations with stakeholders, a pattern emerged that felt familiar yet surprising: the relationship had settled into the comfortable predictability of a long marriage. It was effective for daily operations but lacked the vitality needed for the journey ahead.
The collaboration had crystallized around a few key players whose interactions, while smooth, had become somewhat automatic. There was competence, but the spark of possibility had dimmed.
Creating conditions for emergence
Rather than imposing a solution, we created conditions for something new to emerge:
First, we expanded the conversation. We invited new voices to the table—people who brought different perspectives, energies, and questions. The familiar dynamic shifted. Where there had been predictable exchanges, curiosity began to flow.
Second, we initiated experimental collaborations. Instead of discussing partnership in theory, we began co-creating small projects that allowed both organizations to sense what working together differently might feel like.
Third, we honored the existing expertise while remaining open to capabilities that wanted to emerge through the partnership.
What unfolded felt better than expected: solutions appeared that neither organization could have created alone. Financial benefits materialized. Most significantly, our client found themselves invited to board-level conversations about operational risk—a level of partnership that had been, until recently, unimaginable.
The deeper learning
This engagement taught us something profound about the nature of partnership and complex change:
The most valuable gift we offer isn't our expertise—it's our willingness to flow with our clients into unknown territory. Our knowledge, experience, and networks become powerful not when we deploy them as solutions, but when we offer them as resources for the journey of discovery.
Midcorp organizations possess a unique gift: the agility to transcend our boundaries. We don't need to have all the answers in-house. Our networks, willingness to connect our clients with others who can serve them, and our capacity to orchestrate rather than control become profound sources of value.
The courage to invest in our clients' transitions, even when it takes us beyond our comfort zone, creates deeper relationships than transactional exchange. We become irreplaceable partners in their journey when we're willing to dance with uncertainty alongside our clients.
An invitation to the unknown
The transition of this insurance partnership didn't happen because we had the right strategy. It emerged because both organizations were willing to surrender their need to control the outcome and instead learned to sense and respond to what wanted to emerge.
In our experience, the most profound partnerships are born not from planning but from the courage to flow into the unknown, trusting that the capacity for meaningful change already exists within the relationship.
Are you interested to learn more about this engagement?