While most businesses have focused solely on surviving COVID-19, insurance brokerage Poms & Associates has launched a rebranding campaign. The Woodland Hills risk management firm debuted this week a new logo and website, and announced a series of television commercials around the slogan “Smarter Insurance for Smarter Business.” The 30-second commercials were produced by West Hills ad agency Glyphix and will air over the next year in Los Angeles and Albuquerque, N.M. – two of Poms’ core markets. The ads target C-suite executives with information on how Poms’ risk control services can raise a company’s bottom line, especially during the pandemic. The first TV spot, titled “Relax,” began airing in April. Chief Executive David Poms told the Business Journal the coronavirus hasn’t slowed down his company. “We’ve been working on this (rebrand) pre-COVID-19. It’s been in the works for six or eight months,” he said. “The way we’re dealing with this whole crisis is we’re trying to continue to operate business as usual. Marketing efforts have not stopped.” Along with the rebrand, Poms announced this week the launch of four risk reduction programs: Quarterback, a promised 25 percent refund if clients don’t see tangible results; Lookback, a comprehensive review of past claims; Backstory, a review of employee categorization; and Fallback, a program focused on preventing injuries at the workplace. Poms has hosted free weekly webinars about insurance and risk control issues related to coronavirus, such as employer obligations under the new federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act and OSHA recordkeeping requirements for employee use of personal protective equipment. While Poms expects revenue to dip slightly, he said workloads have actually increased to such an extent that he’s had to hire five new employees in the last month. “We had to add staff to accommodate all the business interruption and workers compensation claims,” he said. “One of the great things about the insurance business is it’s very resilient. Our business will not be greatly affected. … For our agency, we don’t see more than a 5 or 10 percent drop in revenue.” In addition to Woodland Hills and Albuquerque, N.M., Poms has offices in Sacramento, San Francisco and Dayton, Ohio.
