About the Company

Higginbotham Insurance & Financial Services is an employee-owned insurance company based in Fort Worth, Texas. The firm provides business and personal insurance, risk management and assessment, employee, HR, and benefits services, and financial planning options, including corporate and individual consulting and retirement planning. Since its founding in 1948, the company has expanded to 21 states and currently employs approximately 4,000 individuals. According to The Hales Report, Higginbotham Insurance is the 16th-largest independent insurance company in the U.S. The firm is also an active acquirer, with the most recent transaction being the acquisition of Turbeville Insurance Agency in South Carolina in June of 2026.

Challenges

Until 2013, Higginbotham Insurance had no presence outside of Texas. Through strategic growth, the company grew its footprint across several southern states, balancing acquisitions with organic expansion. 

Mitchell Garnett, Higginbotham’s Director of New Partners, had first-hand experience with their acquisition process. He joined the company after his firm was acquired by Higginbotham in 2023. That year, Higginbotham made 11 acquisitions worth about $130 million in revenue. However, they also turned down an additional $450 million worth of deals due to poor strategic fit. At Higginbotham, goals are buyer-led and clearly defined, and any deal that doesn’t meet their cultural standards and M&A strategy does not move forward. 

By 2025, Mitchell was responsible for the partner (Higginbotham’s word for acquired companies) M&A strategy, which centered strongly on leadership and cultural fit, as well as geographic location and specific line of business. He soon found himself managing three current deals, and quickly saw the cracks in their M&A processes. Weekly meetings with prospective partners were spent reviewing outstanding action items and missing documents rather than more pressing strategic or logistical concerns. Without a centralized source of truth, due diligence requests spanned 15 tabs of a shared Excel spreadsheet based out of an unsecured SharePoint server, and a VDR housed all deal documents. Before DealRoom, every file upload triggered an email update, and less-sophisticated sellers needed significant hand-holding just to navigate Excel. A purpose-built, guided workflow replaces the spreadsheet, so sellers move through diligence with far less training and support, and Higginbotham's team spends its time on deals instead of tech support.

As a result, each deal involved significant busywork and manual updates for both the buyer and the seller. For Higginbotham, that meant longer deal cycles and slower time-to-value. For the seller, it meant frustration and disruption to their day-to-day responsibilities. 

Negative Business Impacts

Slowed Deal Movement: Rather than taking the expected 60 to 90 days to close, Higginbotham’s deal cycle was nearing 120 days. Missed due diligence tasks, fragmented tools, and poor communication drove major delays.

Siloed Tools and Processes: Without a single source of truth for deal data, teams on both sides of the deal wasted significant time tracking down files, hunting for updates, and emailing documents back and forth. 

Poor Seller Experience: Potential partners typically had their own “day jobs” to manage, but had to put those responsibilities aside to deal with frequent email requests and file updates. For a company that relied on M&A for half its growth, a reputation as a difficult seller could become a serious limitation. 

Lack of Security: Stakeholders could only access deal data via an unsecured SharePoint file, raising concerns about access to sensitive HR and financial information.  

We used to spend half the call saying, "What do you still need? What's still outstanding? That rarely happens anymore.” -Mitchell Garnett, Director, New Partners at Higginbotham Insurance

Solution

After managing three concurrent deals, Mitchell knew the firm needed to centralize their M&A process in one single location. Mitchell’s former boss had mentioned DealRoom as a potential solution, noting that it could address many of the challenges they’d been facing. His suggestion was that Mitchell introduce Higginbotham executives to the DealRoom M&A Operating System and take the lead in implementing it. 

Mitchell reached out to DealRoom and, after seeing the product in action, knew he had found the ideal tool to manage Higginbotham’s acquisition activities. With deal data in a single location, stakeholders no longer had to hunt for documents or dig through action items. Drag-and-drop capabilities, granular permissions, deal templates, and dynamic dates quickly became part of the team’s daily workflow and diligence task completion rates climbed.   

Why DealRoom?

‍Centralized Communication: The Higginbotham M&A team could now send automatic reminders about upcoming due dates, meetings, and to-dos directly within DealRoom, eliminating constant email updates and reducing deal “noise.” 

Easy Template Setup: The DealRoom team provided Higginbotham with several repeatable templates that streamlined each stage of the transaction process. 

Clear Permissions and Robust Data Security: The average acquisition at Higginbotham includes five separate permission groups, with some deals encompassing as many as 11. DealRoom allows the team to set visibility and edit permissions by group, and offers multiple layers of data protection. 

Dynamic Due Dates: In Excel, due diligence tasks lacked rankings or priority levels. With DealRoom, the team now sets dynamic due dates and milestones to indicate importance or time-sensitivity, as well as update entire projects instantly if a key date shifts. 

Outcomes

Improved Diligence Task Completion Rates: Before implementing DealRoom, about 60% of due diligence requests were completed on time. Now that number is nearly 95%.

Efficient Use of Meeting Time: Instead of spending 30 minutes per hour-long meeting reviewing outstanding tasks and providing status updates, stakeholders can focus on other concerns and strategic initiatives.

A Single Source of Truth: All M&A data is now housed in a single operating system, connecting teams that used to work in separate tools  and ensuring key stakeholders have instant access to the information they need to complete their part of the transaction.

Faster Deal Closure: With cleaner diligence, less back-and-forth, and clear priorities, Higginbotham has cut diligence time by roughly 50%. Deals close faster and the firm captures value sooner.