BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL

entrepreneur

Man Jay

Kaufman

Risky Business

Strategic thinking keeps Burns & Wilcox
at the forefront of insurance innovation.

Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News

M

otorists hurriedly driv-
ing up and down
Northwestern Highway

rarely have time to notice
some of the architecturally attractive
office buildings along the way.

But a peek inside one of them, a
huge red brick building on the west

ness, Burns & Wilcox, that generated
gross revenue of $166 million in 2008

— and continues to "hold its own" this
year despite the sagging economy.
The building, with three floors and

80,000 square feet, is the home of the

H.W. Kaufman Financial Group, the par-
ent company of Burns & Wilcox. It also

houses the Kaufman, Payton & Chapa
law firm.

side of Northwestern just south of
13 Mile in Farmington Hills, reveals a

The driving force behind the success-
ful enterprise is Jewish sales entrepre-
neur Alan Jay Kaufman, the company's

gigantic international insurance busi-

chairman, president and CEO. The for-

3 0

February 11 • 2010

mer Fuller Brush salesman has turned
Burns & Wilcox into one of the world's
largest specialty wholesale and under-

writing insurance firms — and, along

the way, has become one of the Detroit
Jewish community's most ardent phi-
lanthropists.

No one is quite sure who "Burns"
and "Wilcox" were, except that their

names were included in the titles of
companies acquired by Kaufman's

father, after he launched the Herbert W.
Kaufman Insurance Agency in Detroit
in 1969. Expanding the business to

several larger locations in Detroit and
Southfield included switching to a

catchy, "insurance-sounding" name.

And Kaufman took the business pub-
lic along the way, settling in the big red
edifice in 1994.

Messrs. Burns and Wilcox weren't

there to celebrate, but Alan Kaufman
and his organization marked 40 years
in the insurance business in November.

Now, from a huge portrait in the lobby
of the building, Herbert Kaufman looks

down approvingly as his son carries on
the family insurance business tradition.
The father died at age 77 in 2001.

Up To The Challenge

The four decades have been punctuat-
ed by a number of market expansions,

technology improvements and strategic
mergers and acquisitions "that have

strengthened our position in the mar-
ketplace," Kaufman declared. "During

