A premium asset on Wall Street: after 40 years of running a successful insurance firm, Ernesta and John Procope are expanding their financial empire.

Insurance may not be the glitziest of industries. And its most elite tier--insurance brokering--has never been all too welcoming or accessible to blacks. But if there's one couple in the business who defies the "white-male-bastion" stereotype, it's Ernesta and John Procope.

As principals of the E.G. Bowman Co. Inc., the first and largest minority-owned brokerage firm on Wall Street, Ernesta (sturdy and dynamic at 5[feet]3[inches]) and John (a dapper former publishing executive) preside over a growing financial empire, raking in $35 million in premiums for 1993. Having celebrated four decades in the business this year, Ernesta has this to say about her field's stodgy reputation: "Some people might find it drab, but we think it's sexy!"

Truly the words of an innovative thinker. Moving as gracefully in social circles as they do in the financial and political arenas, the Procopes, both in their late 60s, have culled the kind of contacts and clients to rival competitors large and small. As for their clout with major corporations? Ernesta, the company founder, president and CEO, holds directors chairs at both Avon Products and The Chubb Corp. Their connections with politicos? The Procopes have been welcomed into the chambers of New York's Mayor Dinkins and Governor Cuomo, as well as President Clinton. And, Ernesta and John (Bowman's chairman since 1971) have long been part of the inner sanctum of New York's social scene. Just last June, "The First Lady of Wall Street," as she's often called, was elected chairman of the board of trustees at Adelphi University--the first black woman to command such a post at a white private university.

With so much going for the pair, it's not difficult to see why E.G. Bowman elicits so much fanfare. Long gone are the days when $25 auto and home premiums fueled the firm. Today, large corporations and government entities--over 2,000 in total--make up the customer base. Licensed in all 50 states plus Canada and Puerto Rico, the company offers services and products spanning the insurance map--from property/casualty and health insurance to corporate risk management, and comprehensive liability coverage for churches and schools.

Equally significant, E.G. Bowman, with 40 employees, isn't limited to selling life insurance (such as the companies making up the BE Insurance List). Rather, it is one of a tiny corps of minority brokerage firms to offer one-stop commercial service, working hand in hand with the nation's largest insurance carriers.

While the Procopes are most definitely a pioneering pair--building a blue-chip client base and, more recently, co-founding a successful investment firm--they have come to greet their 40th anniversary with equal doses of pride and disappointment. "This is a good year, and we're well within our projections," stresses John, noting that the firm's growth, though modest, has been steady, rising from $26 million in premiums in 1987 to $35 million in 1993. That's no small feat, given how 1993 has been one of the most challenging years for the insurance industry. Nevertheless, he continues, "We're disappointed that in our 40th year, we're not handling a billion dollars worth of [premiums]. Were we white, I know we'd be doing a minimum of half a billion dollars."

He may be right. After all, Ernesta Procope, the company's founder, has never settled for a half-baked job of any kind. Born in Brooklyn to parents of West Indian descent, Ernesta was an anomaly even in her preteens. A star pupil at Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, she earned a solo piano recital at Carnegie Hall at age 12, playing Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C Sharp Minor."

If Carnegie Hall was an unlikely landing spot for a black female in the '40s, so too was the world of business. Yet in the early '50s, at the encouragement of her first husband, real estate tycoon Albin Bowman, Ernesta tested her smarts. The assignment: to handle insurance coverage for the numerous properties Bowman bought and sold. "Before he passed," recalls Ernesta, "he said he was going to make me the most influential entrepreneur in the country."

THE EARLY YEARS: TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS

It wasn't until Bowman's death in 1953, though, that she founded E.G. Bowman Co. Inc. One year later, she married John Procope, former publisher of the New York Amsterdam News, whom Ernesta instantly recognized as "a man who thinks like an entrepreneur." Ernesta got in gear on her home turf, selling $25 auto and home insurance policies to the residents of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section. As it happened, their timing was right-on: African-Americans were gaining economically, and the demand for insurance--not readily available to them elsewhere--soared.

Then the riots of the '60s hit. Threatened by rampant "redlining" practices, when insurers began pulling out of black neighborhoods, E.G. Bowman stood on shaky ground. In a single day, one of Bowman's fire insurers cancelled 88 accounts. Frustrated by bureaucracies at the city level, Ernesta appealed to a much higher power--then-governor Nelson Rockefeller. He staged hearings on the matter, which ultimately spawned major insurance reform: New York State's "The Fair Plan," in 1968. The new rule made it possible for property owners in high-risk areas to purchase insurance. Today, nearly 26 states have adopted similar versions of the plan.

A PIONEERING PAIR

Ernesta recalls the redlining scare. "Sometimes the waves have come pretty high," she mulls. "But we have hard backs." Indeed, the crisis did yield an important lesson: that diversity was necessary for survival. By 1969, aided by progress in affirmative action policies, the firm began to eye lucrative commercial and government accounts, the sort that promised steady income and increased profits. The company's hard-won clients today include Pepisco, RJR Nabisco, IBM and Apple Bank.

Yet a walk through the pages of Bowman history illuminates their bittersweet success: Shortly after moving into their offices at 97 Wall Street in 1979, the firm experienced perhaps its greatest setback to date. During the height of the Koch Administration in 1982, New York's Investigations Dept. named Bowman in the mishandling of the city's Human Resources Administration insurance funds. The Procopes denied any wrongdoing, and angrily dismissed the charges as politically motivated. Still, E.G. Bowman was banned from further city business and, as a result, was forced to lay off 16 employees. Two years later, in an unusual move, the city admitted its error and cleared Bowman of any foul play.

In 1980, when People magazine profiled the woman who had stormed Wall Street, Ernesta spoke of the year 2000 and the progress she hoped to make by the new millennium. "I thought by now, with so many minorities becoming executives at big corporations, that we'd be completely integrated into mainstream America," she reflects. It hasn't happened. Says John, "It's still tough for us to get appointments with major corporations--and still tough for us to write insurance with black companies. Business on our end hasn't dwindled. But we have to run three times as fast to get the business."

The troubles of the insurance industry at large put things in perspective. Even among the top 20 U.S. insurers, revenues lagged in 1992, eking out 3.1% growth, compared with 3.7% percent in 1991, according to Business Insurance magazine. Intense competition has knocked down rates and premiums, and low interest rates have eroded brokers' investment income. Mergers and acquisitions continue to roil the industry. Worse, fully half the 42 black-owned insurance companies doing business in 1973 have since folded or merged with other firms.

Given such harsh realities, Bowman has managed to roll with the punches. As far back as 10 years ago, E.G. Bowman began chasing down eightfigure deals. In 1982, the firm served as the broker of record to insure the U.S. portion of the Alaska pipeline for the Northern Border Pipeline Company in Omaha. Bowman wrote the general liability and the workers compensation "wrap up" in the $2-billion project, which lasted two years and included five western states.

Among other recent trophies, the company today has a piece of a multibilion-dollar safety program at New York City's Port Authority facilities, encompassing 34 contractors in buildings that range from the World Trade Center to LaGuardia Airport. The firm also provides health benefits for all Fulbright scholars, and the U.S. Government Information Agency.

So, how has a relative small-fry in the $305-billion life/health insurance industry managed to stay afloat--and optimistic? "Credibility," says John. "This is especially important with large corporations. If we call on companies that advertise in BE, they may still question our credibility." Which is one reason why the pair has played up their firm's 40th anniversary. The insurance trade press has touted the firm's rise and the company letterhead bears a special commemorative seal: "E.G. Bowman & Co--1953-1993." Has the campaign helped? Ernesta says it made the difference with at least one potential client, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae). "The thing that made them call us back was my last follow-up. They figure if you've been in business for 40 years, you must be doing something right."

Doing the right thing has also meant setting service standards way above large firms--and outbidding the big boys to boot. "We are underestimated in our ability to compete," says a bemused John. "Sometimes we win bids against the large white insurance companies, and they are embarrassed. They wonder, 'How could this happen?'"

The Procope's secret, they say, lies in the ever-so-important details. "If you're not responsive, something will fall between the cracks," notes Ernesta. "That's my theme song." For example, when the company was courting Apple Bank, a top priority was developing quarterly reports to managers at each of the bank's 28 branches. "We discovered where and why they have losses," says John. "Other [insurance] brokers don't do that." Such tenacity has helped them hang on to the lucrative account.

Bowman's 23-year relationship with Pepsico Inc.--its first commercial client--is another example of the firm's penchant for detail. Says Steven H. Lawrence, Pepsico's director of risk management and insurance: "[Bowman] is a responsive organization that listens when we ask them to change things here and there." And unlike the virtually anonymous larger insurers, "we talk face-to-face," he says.

STREET SMARTS 

Given their location on the "Street," it was only a matter of time before the Procopes tapped stock market opportunities. So two years ago, at the urging of former city comptroller Harrison J. Goldin and George F. Baker Ill (grandson of the founder of Citibank), they helped found an investment advisory firm. Headed by 31-year-old wunderkind Alan Bond, the firm, Bond, Procope Capital Management has attracted assets of $315 million in just two years. "We invested because we thought there is a market for pension funds to be managed by minority money managers," says Ernesta, who with John owns a 36% stake in the company.

"The value they add is that of experience," says Bond, the former senior equity portfolio manager with W.R. Lazard, adding that the Bowman story is one that should have been told while he was in Harvard Business School. "I was amazed there were no cases at Harvard of places like theirs that started as a storefront operation."

Today, "our competition is coming from large white companies," acknowledges Ernesta, adding with a laugh, "They prefer that we go away." Far from staging any disappearing acts, the Procopes have big plans. For instance, as more and more churches exercise economic influence within their communities (see cover story), Bowman is pursuing religious accounts with renewed fervor. Currently, the firm underwrites 400 churches--a low figure that they hope will more than double by 1996. Referring to the National Baptist convention, which drew over 58,000 delegates and convention members to New York City last August, John notes, "They represented 30,000 churches. Thirty thousand! You know, 29,990 have white brokers. We take that very seriously."

On a more upbeat note, Ernesta reports that the company is in an acquisitive mood. "We'd like to identify a company to buy with assets of more than $35 million. Maybe a loss control and safety firm--anything that's ancillary to our business." Ironically, their biggest barrier to absorbing another concern isn't money, it's access. "We're handicapped in a sense, because the person who sells us their business can't guarantee that their clients will stay on with us," says John. "Not because of competence, but strictly on a racial basis. White firms don't have to worry about that."

THE NEXT 40 YEARS

The Procopes realize that prospering for another 40 years means careful planning and management. At the top of their list of concerns: future leadership, and keeping the firm under African-American control. The Procopes have no children, but, "we are building a proper succession behind us," assures Ernesta.

At this point, top contenders to take up the Bowman mantle are executive vice presidents Harry Ennever and Henrietta Little. Each has been with the company for 24 and 30 years, respectively. "We're like a family here," says John. "We've learned that you need to have a participatory management style, not just a benevolent dictatorship." As for preparing the talented team that will pilot their company into the 21st century? John and Ernesta know what other entrepreneurs only learn the hard way. "You have to grow your own."