By Holt Hackney
Mark Grossman, founder and president of Monument Sports Group, has spent more than two decades carving out a unique niche in the sports insurance world — an industry he knows from the inside out thanks to his years running an indoor sports facility in Richmond, VA.
What began in 2000 as an independently owned agency dedicated to serving sports organizations big and small has since grown into a trusted hybrid model in the insurance landscape, ultimately attracting the attention of DOXA, which acquired the company in October 2024.
To learn more from Grossman, we reached out to him for this exclusive interview.
Question: How did the idea come about to start Monument?
Answer: I opened Monument Sports on August 1, 2000. I was an insurance generalist who had been doing sports insurance for a few years. I realized that there really wasn’t an independently owned insurance agency that was concentrating on sports. There were companies like K&K and American Specialty, which were more of an insurance carrier. But there was nobody who rolled up their sleeves and helped indoor sports facilities, pro leagues, etc. Luckily, my intuition was right. At the time, I had a business partner, Chris Fox, and another guy who had opened an indoor sports facility in Richmond. There’s a loyalty factor in the sports industry, especially when you have sports people who had played in college and in some cases, the pros. Then, there was the fact that we had someone, who owned a facility.
Q: How did the acquisition come about?
A: We had street cred for lack of a better term. For years, we have been approached by people, who wanted to buy monument, because it was a niche. Even though some of the offers were interesting, we had always turned them down.
DOXA first approached us about 6 years ago. Their CEO is a guy named Matt Sackett, who I worked with for years. He actually worked at K&K and then at American Specialty, so it was somebody I knew from the sports industry. He was also entrepreneurial, like me.
DOXA is basically a program administrator, providing all kinds of services from benefits to licensing. They also help with the negotiation with insurance carriers. And given the fact that they’re not an insurance agency or company, it allowed us to have more markets we could go after. We closed the deal a little over a year ago.
Q: Has this opened doors to new clients?
A: There’s some of that. But it hasn’t fully happened yet because the transition has been slower than we’ve wanted. That’s mainly due to DOXA’s growth. We were like their 19th purchase. They are all in different industries. We had a company meeting in February, where it was different than what I expected. The last thing I wanted to do was hang out with a bunch of insurance people. They were all entrepreneurs. It was energizing.
Q: Tell me about your team?
A: It’s small, but effective. When I started monument, I wanted to do things differently, then how other insurance companies would do them. None of our employees are paid on commission. It has more of a teamwork mentality.
Among the lead people there is Chris Fox, my business partner and director of underwriting and operations. Chris played pro soccer for nine years and was an academic and a soccer all-American at Brown. He’s become one of the best insurance people I’ve ever seen. He’s incredibly smart.
We also have a guy named Will Jorgensen, who started out working as a coach at our indoor soccer facility when he was 17. He went away to college, played soccer, and started getting into rock climbing. He came back to us with the ability to work. He is now our program manager for the entire CWA climbing insurance program, which is big.
We have young guy named Jacob Franks. He grew up with my son, and was the best man at my son’s wedding in March. He’s been with us for almost 9 years. He went to South Carolina, where he was a risk management major. He’s kind of the mini me in that he’s very salesy and works with me specifically on indoor sports facilities and pro sports.
Then we’ve hired another guy named Dan Francis. Who worked in the climbing, indoor climbing gym industry for 10 to 12 years. He worked for one of the biggest franchises in the country. He’s been with us for over 2 years now.
One of our ad campaigns is, “We’ve Been in Your Shoes.” As a team, we’ve experienced the claims uh of almost every type. I once owned an air dome that collapsed in 2016. So not only do we know how to insure them, but we’ve also lived through it. It is the differentiator for us.
Q: How does Monument fit in wither Insurance entities?
A: In the sports insurance world, there are three models.
A consumer can go directly to what’s called an MGA, or managing general agent, like an American Specialty. They can write; some of them can write directly. They have underwriting authority for an insurance carrier, you know, like Arch Insurance or Everest or the Hanover Insurance. They have underwriting authority, these MGAs, so you can go to them, and they can quote coverage, bind it, and issue the policy.
A consumer can also go through a local insurance agent to insure their sports facility. But they don’t understand the specific coverages and needs of an indoor sports facility, climbing gym, etc.
A consumer can also go to a hybrid, like us. We’re an independent, which means that we can go to whatever carriers we want. We’re not beholden to just one insurance company. We are comfortably right now in the hybrid space. We may become an MGA where we have underwriting authority.
