GOLD AWARD WINNER

Key Energy Inc.

In early 2003, Key Energy Inc. was experiencing some of the typical growing pains of a rapidly expanding enterprise. The Texas-based onshore oil-and-gas-well servicing company had completed a string of acquisitions that led to 10-fold growth over a decade. But its appreciation of the complexities of the insurance market had lagged, and a thorough, centralized strategy for risk management was lacking. "We were taking the approach of a Ma-and-Pa-sized company," says John Lawson, Key's director of risk management. "The 50 or so companies we had acquired had their own insurance programs. We wanted to pull those together and take the exposures and dollars and find the best retentions and brokers."