Headquarters: St. Paul
Inception: 1950
Family name: Cox
What the company does: Business and homeowners insurance products
Type of ownership: S corporation
Principal owners: Taylor Cox, Hanna Cox Connor, Ric Cox
Employees: 35
Family members in the business: 2
Family members on the board: 3

“We put a big emphasis on independence,” says Taylor Cox, president of St. Paul-based Cox Insurance and a member of the founding family’s third generation. “Many industries, especially in the financial services space, have been gutted by M&A and private equity. We’re proud to be family-led and employee-owned. We’re not an ESOP, but 100% of our firm is employee-owned. We don’t have outside investors.” As a result, “we can bring a whole different level of care” to clients.

The company “helps families and business owners with the strategy and management of their risks, primarily around property and casualty exposures—home, auto, liability—as well as a full suite of business owners coverage lines,” Cox says. The company doesn’t handle life or health insurance.

Cox joined the family agency in 2009. The other third-generation family member with an ownership stake is sister Hanna Cox Connor, who joined the business in 2012; her current job is director of operations. (Their father, a member of the second generation, is also an owner.) In addition to their executive duties, Cox and Connor are partners and insurance advisers. (Cox Insurance also has a stock purchase program for employees who aren’t family members.)

Cox’s and Connor’s roles and responsibilities are, for the most part, clearly defined, Connor says, though they work together and collaborate. They don’t get caught up in what she calls “the minutiae.” “We hope things are resolved before there is a disagreement. We trust each other. We’ve worked together for a long time, and we know each other’s strengths.” If disagreements arise, there are other key employees whom they seek input from, Connor says.

The way the company operates reflects her family’s values, Connor adds. “It’s less about what the products and services we sell [are] and more about how we deliver them,” she says, which translates to “high standards of quality and customer service.”

Client Michiko Wain says her family has benefited from that philosophy, recognizing Cox client manager Josh Pratt in particular. “He consistently saves us money by doing things I would never think of doing,” Wain says, citing a $1,600 refund on auto insurance that Pratt discovered thanks to a change in family circumstances. “If I call or email him, he gets back to me if not immediately [then] within 24 hours.” He doesn’t push products, she says; instead, he offers options that could be beneficial. “He gives me the pros and cons, then lets us make the decision.”

“We know that [the company] will look different. We know that our customers’ needs will change. But keeping front and center that north star of who we are will lead us there.”

—Hanna Cox Connor, Director of Operations

The goal is not to work with the most customers but “to provide the best work to them,” she says. Which doesn’t mean the company has no interest in growing. In the past five years, Cox Insurance’s revenue has doubled. This growth, the family says, is completely organic—the company hasn’t acquired other agencies.

“I’d echo Hanna’s quality-over-quantity take,” Cox says. “I think that’s in our family’s DNA. Helping people is something our grandfather and our parents prioritized in our upbringing.”

A key strand in that DNA is “giving back to our associates, giving back to our community,” he adds. Cox Insurance’s “connection crew” is composed of employees who guide the agency’s volunteer efforts. The company donates a percentage of its revenue each year to local organizations. Its core philanthropic partner is Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. The company has recently provided support for Joy Collaborative, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that designs and builds peaceful, playful spaces for children with conditions like cystic fibrosis. The company also donates to causes supported by clients and employees.

The fourth generation is too young to consider (or not consider) joining the family business. But the current generation is still looking to the future of the business and how it will operate and continue to “do things our own way,” Cox says. “We’re not really a rule-book family. There’s still that entrepreneurial perspective. We like to control our own destiny because we believe in doing things the right way. Once you give up that control, you do give up a sense of quality.”

“We know that it will look different,” Connor notes. “We know that our customers’ needs will change. But keeping front and center that north star of who we are will lead us there.”

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