Man of steel: Joe Boures “played” his way through the TPA gridiron to lead one of the largest third-party administrators in the industry. So what was this big man’s secret? Sticking with offense, not worrying too much about defense
As a young boy growing up in a working-class neighborhood in Norristown, Pa., Joe Boures knew he would have to work hard to get where he wanted to go in life. The son of a steelworker and a clerk at a telephone company, with four siblings, Boures developed a strong work ethic that has taken him from the world of Division III college football to leading a team of dedicated employees and satisfied clients at a major third-party administrator.
As an offensive lineman in his football-playing days, Boures had the foresight to think ahead and plan his course of attack, always anticipating the tendencies of the defense. That philosophy has served him well, both on the field and off, during his 20-year career in the TPA and insurance industries.
Boures is currently serving as president of Specialty Risk Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Hartford Financial Services Co.–a long way from the small steel town and football fields of his youth.
“I always knew I wanted to do something in business, but I knew from the start that, in order to differentiate myself, I needed to have an M.B.A. or some sort of professional designation upon graduating from college,” says Boures. He financed his undergraduate education through grants and aid he received to play football at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa., along with doing outside jobs like grass cutting, snow removal and landscaping throughout high school. He received a Bachelor of Arts in accounting in 1983 and went on to earn his CPA, landing a job at one of the largest public accounting firms at the time, Pannell, Kerr & Forster, in their Philadelphia office.
After spending almost nine years in public accounting, Boures decided it was time to move on. “In the early ’90s, it was very hard to become a partner within a top accounting firm, due to the requirements for buying into the firm and having a certain amount of collateral. I knew I didn’t want to spend my life working as a senior manager, so I decided to make a career change,” he recalls. At the time, Boures was specializing in construction and insurance accounts, so he decided to take the plunge into the insurance arena.
Boures’ financial background led him to a job at Continental Insurance Co. in New York, working in the internal audit department and eventually serving as assistant vice president of corporate and Securities and Exchange Commission reporting. When Continental Insurance was sold to CNA in the mid-1990s, he moved on to a third-party administrator, GAB Robins North America Inc., in Parsippany, N.J., serving as vie president and controller.
Boures had gotten his feet wet doing third-party administration work at Continental, helping to launch the company’s TPA, and enjoyed the challenges of the job.
“When you look at the TPA environment and how it has evolved, it was essentially claims adjusting with loss runs that were reported back within the organization. But when you looked at the data over time, you saw that when clients participated in the outcomes–focusing on getting employees appropriate medical attention and getting them back to work–their bottom lines were being impacted because of their proactive workers’ compensation or general liability programs. There was a great need for information and a way to organize that information to effect successful outcomes.”
This insight eventually led to Boures’ leadership role in the TPA industry. When GAB Robins was sold to a venture capital group, he joined The Hartford in 1999 as corporate deputy controller, and in 2002 was named vice president of strategic business development for The Hartford’s property/casualty operations.
A year later, a position opened up at the insurer’s subsidiary, SRS, a leading TPA that provides claims administration and risk management services for both self-insured and insured clients, which started his focus on technology and the world of risk management information systems.
Since Boures came on board at SRS in December 2003, he has made technology a priority for the company, allocating more than $40 million for technology enhancements in 2006–up significantly from the $1 million technology budget the company had in 1990.
“Back in the mid-’90s,” says Boures, “SRS was using a legacy RblIS product that was very difficult to customize. In the late ’90s, the company realized that, in order to succeed, it would have to deliver what customers were looking for–a product that would allow them to do more than just claims monitoring.”
That need led to the development of @venture, the company’s highly customizable, Web-based risk management information system, which Boures has helped to enhance and tailor to customers’ needs.
“The @venture system provides our clients with a portal into the claims process,” explains Boures. “Using Web-based technology, risk managers have the ability to review and manage claims from their desktop, allowing them to identify hot spots–where claims are occurring and what types of injuries are being reported–look at trends within their claims data and react quickly to issues of concern.”