Curtis Barton does not talk about growth in the abstract. He talks about what breaks when it is pursued without innovation, reinvestment, integration, or visibility.
“It’s hard to grow a business when you don’t know what you have under the hood.”
Barton is not speaking theoretically. He is describing a pattern he has watched repeat itself across insurance brokerages for years: firms brought together without shared systems, shared data, or a clear understanding of how they actually perform once combined.
“A lot of these agencies that are being bought,” he says, “there’s not a lot of reinvestment into them. It’s usually a lifestyle business. Owners are focused on what this is going to do for them today, instead of where the future is going.”
That observation sits at the center of Barton’s thinking and explains why, after more than two decades in insurance, he chose to build ALKEME Insurance the way he did. Having grown a family-owned agency from scratch, bought it from his father, and expanded it to roughly $10 million in revenue, Barton reached the point where the usual growth paths felt misaligned. Capital was available. Consolidation models were plentiful. What was missing, in his view, was an operating structure designed to support growth after agencies were brought together.
Barton does not argue that brokerages can’t grow. His concern is how growth is often measured and sustained.
In many smaller agencies, reinvestment tends to lag profitability. Over time, systems fragment, reporting becomes inconsistent, and performance is judged primarily by topline revenue. Those dynamics can persist for years within a single firm. When multiple firms are combined without integration, the lack of clarity compounds.
“If you don’t have a plan and you don’t have data,” Barton says, “you can’t support your decision-making through real, tangible data at every agency level.”
In recent years, Barton believes the industry has also blurred the line between organic growth and pricing. “A lot of people have grown on rate,” he says. “That’s what they’ve been beating their chests about.”
ALKEME’s response was to treat integration as a prerequisite, not a clean-up exercise. Agencies were migrated onto a single operating system, creating one data environment. That visibility allowed leadership to track historical performance, understand where growth was coming from, and make deliberate decisions about where to invest.
“For us, organic growth fuels everything,” Barton says. “If you’re not growing organically at a higher clip, you can’t continue to buy businesses at the multiples people want.”
One of the enduring tensions in scaled brokerages is how to preserve entrepreneurial energy while creating real efficiency. Barton does not see those goals as mutually exclusive, but he does believe they require structure.
At ALKEME, producers and local leaders are encouraged to think like owners of their own P&Ls. At the same time, shared services absorb the operational weight that often pulls agency leaders away from clients. HR, IT, accounting, and carrier management are centralized, not to impose control, but to restore focus.
The result is not less autonomy, but more usable time. Leaders can spend more of their day selling, advising, and developing relationships rather than managing infrastructure.
Ownership structure reinforces that alignment. ALKEME operates with a single class of equity across the organization. Growth in one part of the business benefits the whole.
“If I grow, you grow. If you grow, I grow,” Barton says. “We’re all equally incentivized to perform together.”
That structure changes behavior. Opportunities are matched with the teams best equipped to execute, rather than remaining trapped within legacy boundaries.
Barton is cautious about how technology is discussed in insurance. “The industry talks a lot,” he says. “There’s always a checklist of buzzwords.”
The constraint, in his view, is not access to tools but structure. Many large organizations are still reintegrating fragmented systems. ALKEME, having done that work early, can focus on leverage rather than repair.
“All of our data is in one place,” Barton explains. “So we can actually show you where your revenue is being driven from.”
That foundation has enabled ALKEME to build proprietary tools that rank accounts, surface cross-sell opportunities, and automate lower-complexity workflows. Smaller transactions can be handled efficiently through technology-supported teams, while producers and account managers focus on more complex client needs.
The objective is not to reduce headcount. It is to improve how time is spent.
That same operating discipline carries through to how ALKEME Insurance grows.
ALKEME has grown through acquisition, but Barton has been deliberate about saying no. The firm prioritizes recurring commercial revenue, clear differentiation, and owners who want to remain engaged in building the business.
While the firm has completed 75+ acquisitions to date, Barton is clear that volume is not the objective. The company looks for agencies with strong reputations, demonstrated organic growth, and owners who still have the energy to build.
Brand adoption is a strong indicator of willingness to integrate. Most firms that join the organization choose to adopt the ALKEME name rather than operate independently within the platform – reflecting a willingness to integrate fully, share systems, and align around a common way of working.
In an industry where growth often fragments identity, ALKEME’s approach is narrower and more demanding. Scale is pursued only to the extent that it reinforces clarity. What the firm is building is defined as much by what it chooses not to acquire as by what it does.
This article was produced in partnership with ALKEME Insurance
