About Us
Meet the Leaders Behind CRML LLC
Matthew Cooper and Bennie Jones
Matthew Cooper is CEO of Community Insurance Center, an agency carrying nearly 65 years of history in the insurance industry. Founded by Ralph Metcalfe, Community Insurance Center has endured through generations of leadership and industry change—a history that has heavily influenced Cooper’s perspective on acquisition and business growth.
For Cooper, acquiring an agency isn’t simply about purchasing a book of business. Every established company represents years of relationships, reputation, employees, community service and sacrifice from the people who built it. That understanding helped shape the philosophy behind Community Risk Management Legacy: growth and preservation don’t have to be opposing goals. An organization can expand while respecting the history that came before it.
Matthew Cooper
Matthew Cooper is CEO of Community Insurance Center, an agency carrying nearly 65 years of history in the insurance industry. Founded by Ralph Metcalfe, Community Insurance Center has endured through generations of leadership and industry change—a history that has heavily influenced Cooper’s perspective on acquisition and business growth.
For Cooper, acquiring an agency isn’t simply about purchasing a book of business. Every established company represents years of relationships, reputation, employees, community service and sacrifice from the people who built it. That understanding helped shape the philosophy behind Community Risk Management Legacy: growth and preservation don’t have to be opposing goals. An organization can expand while respecting the history that came before it.
Bennie Jones
Bennie Jones brings more than three decades of insurance experience as the CEO of Risk Management Services of America and extensive knowledge of the financial and strategic sides of the business.
His experience complements Cooper’s strengths, creating a partnership in which responsibilities can be divided according to expertise rather than duplicated. Jones’ perspective has also helped shape CRML’s approach to sustainable growth, acquisitions and the long-term financial realities of bringing independent agencies together.
Together, Cooper and Jones bring decades of institutional knowledge to a rapidly changing insurance marketplace.
From Longtime Colleagues to Business Partners
Although CRML is relatively new, the relationship behind it isn’t. Cooper and Jones have known each other for nearly three decades while operating their respective agencies independently.
Their eventual partnership developed organically when both encountered opportunities to acquire insurance agencies. Those opportunities included firms in Chicago and California and prompted a larger conversation about what they could accomplish by joining resources and expertise. The result was Community Risk Management Legacy.
Cooper and Jones have been successful in navigating the transition of being independent entrepreneurs to becoming partners through mutual trust, communication and a willingness to rely on each other’s strengths. Their longstanding relationship provided the foundation. Their shared vision gave the partnership direction.
A Shared Commitment to Legacy
The name Community Risk Management Legacy speaks directly to what the organization intends to accomplish. CRML helps existing insurance agencies expand their capabilities while creating transition opportunities for owners considering the future of their businesses.
Agency owners may choose different paths depending on their goals—from acquisition to aggregation and continued involvement. What remains consistent is CRML’s focus on protecting customer relationships and delivering additional value.
Cooper and Jones believe any acquisition or partnership should ultimately answer one question: Does this create a better experience for the customer? That customer-first philosophy guides the organization’s approach to growth.
Building a National Organization
Cooper and Jones aren’t building CRML solely for today’s insurance market. They’re building for what comes next. Their vision is to establish a truly national African-American-owned insurance organization capable of serving clients and supporting agencies across the country.
CRML’s footprint already stretches across multiple regions, with clients from California to Virginia and north to Minnesota. Future growth is expected to come through both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions. Technology will be central to that strategy.
As cloud computing and other tools continue to transform the insurance industry, Cooper and Jones believe smaller and independent organizations have an unprecedented opportunity to compete with much larger firms—provided they have the right technology, market access, expertise and strategy. CRML intends to help provide that infrastructure.
Building the Next Generation of Leadership
For Cooper and Jones, legacy isn’t only about preserving companies. It’s about developing people. They believe smaller organizations can provide employees with broad exposure to business operations that isn’t always possible in highly specialized corporate environments.
Team members are encouraged to learn, stretch beyond narrow job descriptions, gain confidence in unfamiliar situations and understand how different areas of the organization work together. The desired outcome is bigger than employee development. It’s leadership development.
The people learning inside CRML today could become executives and entrepreneurs shaping the industry tomorrow.
One Partnership. A Larger Purpose.
Matthew Cooper and Bennie Jones spent decades building businesses independently.
Community Risk Management Legacy represents what happens when that experience comes together. Their partnership combines complementary strengths, shared experience and a belief that independent agencies deserve more options for their futures.
For agency owners, that means a potential partner for transition and growth. For clients, it means broader capabilities and continued relationships. For employees, it means opportunities to learn and lead.
And for Cooper and Jones, it represents the opportunity to leave something bigger than either organization could have created independently. Their objective isn’t simply to participate in the future of insurance. It’s to help shape it.
The Specialist
Technical Assistance Team
Community Center Insurance is part of the Illinois Tollway Technical Assistance program. Check out our team