If you live in Utah, you likely recognize the gold medallion icon that signifies a Best of State winner from the advertisements and websites of prominent local companies. But what exactly is the Best of State award, and what does it really mean?
Simply put, the award was created to recognize and celebrate the organizations and businesses that make Utah such a wonderful state. As the awards organization puts it, “By recognizing excellence in our community and sharing examples of success and triumph in so many worthy endeavors, we hope all will be inspired to reach a little higher, to try a little harder, and to work a little smarter for our dreams and goals.”
The Best of State award is evaluated through an essay submission explaining how your organization meets their three core criteria:
- Achievement in the field of endeavor
- Innovation or creativity in approaches, techniques, methods, or processes
- Contribution to the quality of life in Utah.
Noteworthy Achievements
For over a century, Moreton & Company has consciously shaped our internal policies and culture to encourage excellence in the way we serve our clients. Our longevity in the face of major changes to the insurance landscape and periods of economic uncertainty is itself a testament to the quality services we provide. With this combination of dependability and positive outcomes, it’s easy to see why we have a client retention rate of 96%, with many clients choosing to remain with us over decades. Similarly, Moreton & Company fosters decades-long careers in our employees; we have maintained less than 10% turnover in the past few years, and many of our applicants come from referrals by employees who identify with the vision and mission of our company. These internal metrics demonstrate that we are well established as experts in our field.
This expertise is recognized throughout the insurance industry. Moreton is the only Utah member of Assurex Global, the world’s largest privately held commercial insurance, risk management, and employee benefits brokerage group. Membership in this group is an exclusive privilege; potential partners are extensively vetted to ensure that they meet the ethical and capability standards held by Assurex Global. That is why, out of thousands of brokers worldwide, only about 100 have qualified to belong. Moreton & Company also sits on the Broker Advisory Boards for some of the largest carriers in the state:
- United Healthcare
- Regence BlueCross BlueShield
- Aetna
- Cigna
- MotivHealth
- SelectHealth
We are proud and honored to have earned the respect of our peers through the value we have provided to our clients. Moreton & Company has also been recognized time and time again by independent, impartial sources:
- Mployer Advisor, a rating organization for insurance brokers, listed us as a top-rated consultant in 2024.
- We were named a Best Practices Agency in an annual study of privately-held agencies conducted by IIBA and Reagan Consulting.
- Business Insurance Magazine, one of the industry’s most reputable publications, ranked us #64 in a “Top 100” list that includes insurance brokerages across the nation.
A Culture of Innovation
The insurance industry is often characterized by the phrase, “That’s just the way things are done.” While tradition and experience are valuable tools, Moreton & Company has chosen to reject that philosophy in favor of our motto: “Learn, Empower, Serve, and Find a Better Way.” This is more than a platitude to be posted on our website and forgotten; these words, especially finding a better way, affect every aspect of how we approach client service and informs our internal policies and workplace culture.
We begin our process by simply listening to our clients. When we truly understand their needs—and the struggles that prevent them from filling those needs—we form a clear understanding of the best solutions to pursue. In the face of astronomical health care costs in recent years, many of our most successful innovations have been in the employee benefits space. Providing our clients’ employees with affordable benefits that they feel comfortable utilizing is about more than a bottom line; it’s our way of serving our community. With this in mind, we have focused our creative solutions on the two most critical issues: benefits literacy and the cost of healthcare.
Benefits Education
All the insurance coverage in the world means nothing if employees don’t understand and feel comfortable using them. We have recently partnered with an outside vendor to create a revolutionary benefit guide platform. This tool—unlike anything available in the Utah insurance market—focuses on delivering benefits information in a way that fits our digital age. Information, links, and necessary documents are available to employees on their computers, tablets, or phones. To enhance this offering, we created a Benefits 101 library that provides bite-sized lessons on the basics of health insurance—removing barriers to healthcare by making benefits literacy an easily attainable goal.
Affordable Coverage
Employee participation in things like preventive care, wellness programs, and alternative offerings are the first step in providing exceptional benefits packages to our clients. When employees are active participants in these solutions, the claims on the health plan go down. When the health plan’s costs go down, employers experience savings on premiums that they can pass along to their employees—and the cycle begins anew. Our successes in this area have had a substantial impact on our clients.
Community Engagement
Moreton & Company could not have gotten where we are today without the support of our employees and the Utah community, which is a large part of the reason that we find every available opportunity to support them in return. We have found that service has a ripple effect. Our company’s dedication to improving the quality of our employees’ lives empowers those employees to do the same for their community, both as part of their work and through donations of time, money, or goods.
For many employees, Moreton is more than just a workplace. It is an environment where individuals can challenge themselves, receive support, and continue to grow. Management consistently works to ensure that employees feel seen and supported through open-forum meetings, regular employee appreciation and wellness events, and a monthly shout-out program where coworkers can recognize the achievements and “wins” of their peers. Moreton & Company incentivizes continued education and prioritizes promoting from within. Each decision we make is geared towards maintaining and enhancing the safe, positive work environment that has come to be synonymous with Moreton.
We are proud to support many local causes through donations, sponsorships, fundraising, and volunteer service. Throughout the year, Moreton hosts various opportunities for employees to give back to our community, and our employees continually rise to the occasion. Every summer, during our Employee Appreciation Week, Moreton coordinates a volunteer day in which employees can get out of the office and participate in community service projects. In 2024, we worked with:
- Project Connection
- Utah Food Bank
- USANA Kids Eat
- Junior Achievement
- The American Heart Association.
We have been fortunate to see great success in our company’s year-over-year growth, and it is a core belief that passing that good fortune on to our communities and employees will contribute to our longevity. That way, we can still be around as a trustworthy broker and a fantastic workplace for another century.
2025 Best of State in Insurance
The Best of State team takes great pride in its judging process, placing an emphasis on fair and objective results:
More than 100 judges review the nominations. Each nomination is judged on its own merits and is not ranked against each other by the judges. Unlike many older judging processes, the Best of State judges perform their assignment(s) individually, away from the possible comments, persuasion or lobbying of other judges. … After reviewing each nomination, judges assign numerical scores for each of the three judging criteria. … The paper ballots are mailed directly to the official Best of State accounting firm, Gilbert & Stewart, CPA, where scores are tabulated and the results are triple-checked for accuracy.
Of all the brokerages and carriers in Utah who submitted their organization for consideration, Moreton & Company was chosen as this year’s Best of State in the category of Insurance. We are deeply honored to receive this award, as it aligns so closely with the values that our company has held for over a century. This achievement newly inspires us to excel in the services we provide to clients, the workplace we create for our employees, and the impact we have on our community. We would also like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to the winners in the many other categories. Thank you for making Utah a great place to live and work!
