The experience behind SIG National
Stu Thompson grew The Builders Group from $5.6M to $46M in annual premium. The numbers are not the main reason we built SIG National around him.
By John Sherk, Co-Founder
My co-founder, Stu Thompson, became administrator of The Builders Group, a Minnesota self-insured group, in 2002.
At the time, TBG had $5.6 million in annual premium and no investment portfolio. When Stu retired in January 2026, the group had grown to $46 million in annual premium and had built a $77 million investment portfolio.
Those numbers are impressive, but they are not the primary reason we are building SIG National around Stu's experience.
Over more than two decades of leading TBG, Stu encountered the full range of challenges that come with operating a SIG: board relationships, regulatory concerns, underwriting and claims decisions, investments, safety, service providers, leadership development, and succession.
Some of those lessons came from good decisions. Others came from difficult situations that could not have been anticipated. Very few of them could have been learned from a textbook.
SIG National is being created so that other SIG leaders do not have to learn every lesson alone. Stu's experience will provide the foundation, and the experience of participating SIG leaders will expand it.