Case Study: Insurance Franchise
Leading a complex insurance acquisition through fractional chief of staff support
A high-stakes acquisition required more than project management. It demanded coordinated execution across technology, operations, and franchise stakeholders. By leading the integration effort, a CSA chief of staff delivered four successful migration waves, built a reusable integration playbook, and strengthened the client's long-term acquisition capabilities.
Challenges
A national insurance franchise completed the largest acquisition in its history, taking on a competitor's franchise network. The deal involved the transfer of the home office book of business along with more than 100 individual franchise locations, a scale of integration the company had not attempted before.The franchise structure meant the conversion could not happen in a single move. Each agency's contract terms dictated when they could be transferred, so the work had to proceed in waves, with further locations migrated as contracts allowed.The client lacked strong in-house technology and engineering leadership for a project of this complexity, and the timeline was tight: the engagement began in September, with the first migration scheduled for November. Coordinating data transfer with multiple insurance carriers added further complexity, and the client wanted to capture a repeatable playbook, since further acquisitions were planned as part of its wider M&A strategy.Solution
CSA's Talent team placed a chief of staff with the client in a part-time capacity to lead project management for the conversion and to support the technology team through delivery. The role covered three main areas of focus:- Playbook and project infrastructure: Working alongside another project manager, the chief of staff built the plan and project management infrastructure for the first migration, then ran postmortems after each wave and refined the approach for the migrations that followed.
- Hands-on technology support: With concerns focused on the technical delivery, a significant portion of the role involved close, daily check-ins with the technology team to keep each weekend migration on track and ensure a successful cutover.
- Documentation and knowledge transfer: The chief of staff produced a detailed slide deck covering ownership, challenges encountered, dependencies, their steps and resolutions, and supporting Gantt charts. This documentation directly supported the client's recent hire of a full-time M&A project manager, giving the new hire a clear, tested foundation to build on.
Results
The engagement gave the client the structure, discipline, and documentation needed to complete a complex, multi-wave acquisition while laying the groundwork for future M&A activity.Key outcomes included:- Four successful migrations: Waves were completed in November, December, March, and July, bringing close to sixty franchise agencies, plus the home office, onto the client's systems, with the long tail continuing as contracts allowed.
- No disruption to the broader network: Each migration was completed over a weekend without additional downtime affecting the client's wider systems, including the December wave completed on a tight timeline to satisfy the requirements of the client's private equity investors ahead of year end.
- A reusable playbook: Lessons learned on carrier coordination, data cleanup, and known issues were captured and refined after each wave, giving the client a tested process for future acquisitions.
- A foundation for continued M&A: The engagement helped set the stage for the client to keep building its acquisition capability, reflected in its decision to hire a full-time M&A project manager to carry the programme forward.
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