George Wall

In the early years of the past century, two men, Saul Ackerman and Irving Bean, who were both accountants and attorneys, determined while assisting their clients that there was a tremendous lack of understanding of the world of insurance by otherwise astute business owners. They found that there was no unbiased objective service that assessed the risks of a business and counseled them on a fee for service basis without any interest in the sale of insurance. They then developed a specialty in advising their clients on what to look for in their policies, how best to contractually protect themselves and their assets from physical loss, and how and where to purchase their insurance. As a result of this well received counsel, these individuals started providing insurance consulting services on a fee for service basis only, thereby becoming one of the pioneers in what was to become the industry we know today as risk management consulting.

It was under the tutelage of these two learned individuals that the late George Jack Wall, a summa cum laude MBA graduate of New York University, first came to work in 1947, to learn the business of insurance and risk identification from the standpoint of the unbiased third party, to learn the nuances of the insurance contract, the flaws and pitfalls of the insurance community, and to learn how a business owner can benefit from pure consultative guidance.

Thereafter, in 1956, George Wall and Irving Bean together established Insurance Consulting Associates, ICA, with their mission being the pursuit of the Four C’s of Risk Management, Coverage, Company, Cost and Counsel. First and foremost, Mr. Wall and Mr. Bean stressed that an insurance policy is a contract and each and every term within that contract is negotiable, is amendable and improvable. Second, the insurance company insuring a client must be solid and secure, ethical and trustworthy. Third, the cost of insurance can vary so significantly and must be tested, challenged, and not just blindly accepted. Finally, as counselors, the founders of ICA, sought to provide invaluable counsel to their clients in all areas of risk management.

Since 1956, ICA has grown from a small boutique insurance consulting firm to a national risk management consulting firm comprised of a multi-talented, diverse collection of professionals, numbering almost fifty strong. Barron S. Wall joined ICA in 1973, and he and the current Associates have worked together for many years to grow ICA into the successful service firm it is today. ICA is currently rated as one of the top risk management firms in North America, and with its nine Associates in five different offices, ICA serves a multitude of clientele both nationally and internationally, and looks forward to another hundred years of success.