The Agent’s Advocate | November 2025
Agency Profile: Full-Service New York Brokerage Is in a Class of Its Own
If you type the term “all-inclusive” into your favorite search engine, you’ll get pages and pages of results offering you vacation packages.
It’s a shame that Brian Hurley, Senior Vice President, Health Care and Business Specialist, and Lynn Trentini, CIC, Business Insurance Account Executive, have not yet cracked the algorithm for bringing OneGroup to the top of the search results—because that’s exactly what OneGroup is defined by: all-inclusiveness.
With over 100 years in the insurance business—OneGroup was founded in Oneida, New York, in 1916 and has operated under various names—you’ve got to figure there is something special the company offers its clients. Fortunately, I’ve been OK’d by Brian and Lynn to reveal the recipe for their secret sauce; in fact, they’re more than happy to share it with you themselves.
Spreading the Wealth
“We reinvest our commissions back into resources for our clients,” Brian explained. “We’ve taken a large part of our broker fees and intentionally built a very deep bench of employees who have experience attacking challenges in the medical field. Occupational and physical therapists, engineers, HR professionals, attorneys, risk management experts, loss control specialists, licensed cyber experts—the list goes on. These resources and services are all included in us being their broker for their professional liability insurance. Our clients have access to everyone across the board, and very rarely at any additional cost whatsoever.”
Although OneGroup operates under a different business model than most agencies and brokerages, its purpose is clear: Be one source, one call, for all of one client’s needs. The name OneGroup was coined in 2015, but Brian tells a funny anecdote about the rebrand that got him and his team rethinking whether it was the right name for the company.
“I thought it was a solid concept, and the O-n-e also pays homage to our founding place—Oneida—but I’ll admit, it took some time to catch on as to what it meant. I love to tell the story of how I was talking to a leader of a large plastic surgery practice down on Long Island, and I said to him, ‘Oh, we’re so excited! We’re finally bringing all of our resources together under one umbrella, and we’re going to be known as OneGroup.’ And he replied, ‘That’s great, but what’s the name going to be?’ And I said to myself, ‘Hmmm, maybe we didn’t think this all the way through.’”
The name eventually started resonating with clients and prospects, but it wasn’t until 2021 when Brian felt all the pieces of the puzzle came together for OneGroup and the healthcare vertical he led.
“New York is a tough state to do business in. You hear it all the time from carriers when they talk nationally about coverage and then pause and say, ‘Except in New York.’ It has a difficult claims environment, limited admitted carriers, which causes a need for risk retention groups, or RRGs, and a Section 18 excess coverage program that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the country. As a brokerage, you need a seasoned veteran that’s well-versed in the idiosyncrasies of New York State to address all of your clients’ concerns.”
And that’s where Lynn came in, but with a catch.
“Catch is probably a good word to describe it,” Brian said with a laugh. “I had been trying to capture Lynn and bring her over to the broker side for what seemed like forever. Lynn was the head of underwriting for a company on the carrier side and we developed such a tight working relationship over the years. I always thought if I could just get Lynn to join us, we’d be unstoppable—a real force to be reckoned with in the professional liability market. Her knowledge base of coverages and solutions in this state is second to none. And to be honest, before she finally agreed to come onboard after years of begging, I had my doubts because I didn’t think we could afford Lynn because of her success. I had to twist some arms to get folks to agree that she is worth the investment. And being able to get Lynn to join the team has been my biggest accomplishment to date at OneGroup.”
Keys to Retention
Lynn joined the healthcare vertical team in a hybrid role as an account executive with producer responsibilities, prospecting for new clients and helping existing ones with all their needs. With her and Brian leading the segment together, OneGroup established a level of servicing efficiency its professional liability clients would have a hard time finding elsewhere.
“Retention is huge,” Lynn said. “You need to be able to respond to clients as fast as possible if you want to keep them. That’s one of the key things I bring to the table. Clients come to me because they have questions and they need answers quickly. And instead of me having to turn those questions over to the insurer, in most cases, I can just answer them myself because I had been in the business on the carrier side for so long. Whether it has to do with coverage or limits, pricing, policy forms, you name it. For the most part, I can just answer the questions and that’s valuable to our clients because they don’t have to wait for an answer—they get it right there on the spot.”
Lynn is also considered an expert in her field at navigating the complex world of Section 18 excess coverage, which is an additional layer of free insurance on top of primary policy limits that is funded by the State of New York. It’s only offered to physicians with admitted carriers and comes with a host of specific requirements that must be met in order to qualify.
“It’s really a nice perk for New York physicians if they can go through the rigorous process and qualify for it. They must have certain limits, hospital privileges, fill out an excess application, provide a renewal application each year, as well as complete a risk management program every two years. So, I guess it can be described as highly selective. But I’ve helped groups coming from an RRG get back with an admitted carrier, and worked with the hospitals to help the doctors qualify for the hospital-sponsored slots in the Section 18 program. Because of my experience I’m able to support these physicians and help them get better coverage.”
For What It’s Worth
If that is not enough to convince you that OneGroup is truly a unique offering, there is yet another added dimension to its business: It’s owned by Community Bank.
Brian explained: “Community Bank is another resource for our clients and the banking services they may need. And because the bank has expanded aggressively up and down the East Coast, we have too. OneGroup now has offices in Florida, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. So this model we’ve built, where we bring in a lot of services and solutions that are created for a specific vertical, like healthcare, we can take that to other markets. What we do in New York can be done in other states and have that same model be very effective because we thoughtfully create teams and solutions for specific business verticals. We make sure that we’ve had experience and our solutions are tested—field tested—and are successful in their unique exposures. An orthopedic practice in South Carolina faces 95 percent of the same issues as one in New York. So our goal is to continue growing our footprint and continue expanding our internal expertise and resources for our clients in all of those areas.”
Further describing OneGroup and the work she does for such an extraordinary company, Lynn added, “You know, I’ve collaborated with a lot of agencies in my career and had plenty of offers over the years. There was no other brokerage I would have chosen other than OneGroup because of its uniqueness, the wonderful people, and the camaraderie—just so many important things that were attractive to me. You can talk to anyone at OneGroup and the passion for what we do is evident. And the fulfillment we get from this, the ability to help people—not only in their day-to-day business—but in times of personal crisis, from the claims perspective of professional liability, is so rewarding. When there’s a malpractice claim, it’s very personal. So for us to be able to advocate for the client alongside the carrier for the best possible outcome—and then it happens—you feel the relief that they have after getting through that and knowing someone had their back, and that makes it all worthwhile.”
