Star City Six – Dan Marburg
North Risk Partners provides businesses with solutions for group health, life, and disability insurance needs, as well as support to navigate all of the healthcare changes happening today. Dan Marburg is a risk advisor for North Risk Partners.
Tell us a little about your business.
For me, managing risk is about helping clients gain control through understanding. Business owners are often frustrated with insurance, because you can’t control something you don’t understand. As a part of North Risk Partners, I’m able to work with our clients to identify, understand, and manage the risks their business faces every day. By making businesses better managers of risks, we give back control and make them more attractive in the insurance marketplace. Traditionally, agents have focused on selling products to businesses. Our process allows us to approach the relationship differently, focusing on selling businesses to potential insurance carriers in the marketplace. Rather than trying to focus on simply minimizing the annual spend on insurance as a commodity, our process helps companies take a longer-range view of risk and improve their bottom line.
How did you get started in the business?
Prior to getting into the risk management business, I spent seven years selling equipment and supplies into meat processing plants and slaughterhouses. I also spent several years selling welding supplies and equipment, industrial gases, and cryogens for a variety of industrial applications. While I was finishing my MBA, a friend who was the president of the large local agency suggested I look closely at commercial property and casualty. I’ve never looked back, and I am truly grateful for his suggestion and the opportunity he gave me.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
We all get the same 24 hours in a day. Making the most of this time is the ongoing challenge. Really understanding that time is the commodity, rather than prospects being the commodity, has changed the way I plan and prioritize.
What is your favorite quote or the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
My father Jerry passed recently. After escaping Nazi Germany and coming into this country as a refugee, he became a citizen, an Army veteran, and spent his entire career in personnel management for the Veterans Administration. He was a great lover of the English language and American history. (He was especially fascinated with the Lewis and Clark expedition.) Most of the things he taught me and the example of the way he lived his life can be summed up by the poem “If–” by Rudyard Kipling. Look it up. Read it. Share it with your kids.
If you could choose only one descriptive word to be remembered as, what would it be?
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
If you had a theme song, what would it be?
“I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty. As the song says, “You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down!”
If you could have a super power, what would it be?
Helping people realize and reach their potential. Flight would be pretty cool too!
What local nonprofit organization(s) are you passionate about or involved with, and are there any special reasons why?
There is a Judaic phrase—Tikkun Olam—which roughly translates as “repair the world.” Since returning to Nebraska after college 30 years ago, I’ve had many opportunities to volunteer in this spirit. I’ve been involved with the National Eagle Scout Association, Swim Omaha, the Anti-Defamation League, Temple Israel, Leadership Omaha, Habitat for Humanity, the Tri-Faith Initiative, and others.
If our readers would like to contact you, how should they do so?
(402) 905-9054; dan.marburg@northriskpartners.com; northriskpartners.com. I am on LinkedIn as well.