At the same time Kemmons Wilson was building Holiday Inn as one of the most recognizable global hotel brands, he launched a commercial insurance brokerage to insure his own growing portfolio of assets. Decades later, that legacy lives on through Virtus, whose 2022 acquisition of the Kemmons Wilson Insurance Group (KWIG) has given the firm a deeply rooted connection to the origins of modern hospitality.
“Kemmons Wilson was truly visionary and one of the first leaders in the hospitality space,” said Worth Blackman, producer in the national hospitality practice at Virtus. “We’re very fortunate to be connected to that legacy. When we acquired KWIG, it brought with it a name that still carries tremendous credibility today.”
That acquisition marked a pivotal moment for Virtus, formally establishing its hospitality practice and anchoring it in a lineage that dates back to the birth of branded hotels. While Virtus itself was founded roughly 11 years ago, its evolution into a specialized hospitality insurance and risk advisory firm has been shaped by both modern market pressures and historical insight.
Virtus began with a focus on multifamily real estate and lower middle-market private equity, developing an expertise-driven model that emphasized specialization over scale.
“We’re a specialized broker by design,” Blackman said. “Our firm was built on the idea of being an inch wide and a mile deep.” As the company expanded, hospitality emerged as a natural extension—particularly after the KWIG acquisition—bringing with it decades of industry knowledge and long-standing relationships.
Today, Virtus operates as a full-service commercial insurance brokerage and consulting firm, providing coverage placement, employee benefits and risk management services tailored to hotel owners and operators. But Blackman was quick to point out that insurance is only part of the value proposition.
“Our goal isn’t just to place a policy,” Blackman said. “We take a very hands-on approach to helping hotels mitigate risk and put smart, strategic plans in place so they’re prepared if something goes wrong. Insurance should support the business, not complicate it.”
That philosophy has become increasingly relevant as hotel owners face a rapidly changing risk landscape. Rising insurance premiums, shifting carrier appetites, climate-related exposures, labor challenges and social inflation have pushed insurance costs into the top tier of operating expenses for many hotels. According to Jackson Granstaff, Virtus’ hospitality practice leader, the stakes have never been higher.
“For hotel owners today, insurance might be one of the top two or three costs on the P&L,” he said. “Hospitality is inherently risky. You have guests, employees and property—all three major buckets of exposure—combined with broader social inflation and litigation trends that affect the entire industry.”
He emphasized that one of the most common mistakes hotel owners make is assuming there is a standard insurance solution that applies to every property. “There’s no one-size-fits-all coverage,” he said. “It depends on where the hotel is located, the type of hotel you operate, your ownership structure and your risk appetite. Too often, owners look at what a peer is doing and assume they should do the same thing. That’s not necessarily true.”
Virtus positions itself as an advocate for tailored solutions—helping owners understand not just what coverage they have, but why they have it. That consultative approach becomes especially important when owners consider changing insurers, a process that can expose overlooked gaps and assumptions.
“When evaluating a new insurer, owners need to look at the full relationship,” Granstaff said. “Has your current insurer been there for you when claims happened? Were they flexible when regulations changed? Insurance should never be a barrier. It should be a resource that evolves with your business.”
The firm’s specialization extends to understanding which carriers are best suited for hospitality risk and how programs should be structured to avoid unnecessary cost escalation.
“You don’t want a generalist broker taking your account to every insurance company out there,” Granstaff explained. “That can set a risk baseline that inflates premiums and still doesn’t give you the right coverage. The goal is to only pay for what you actually need and control the risks that are inherent to your operation—not someone else’s.”
That mindset echoes the entrepreneurial pragmatism that defined Kemmons Wilson himself. By insuring his own hotels, Wilson understood that risk management was not a back-office function, but a strategic lever. Virtus sees its role in much the same way—bridging historical perspective with modern complexity.
As hospitality continues to navigate economic uncertainty, regulatory shifts and evolving guest expectations, Virtus believes specialization will only become more important. “If you have an issue with your brain, you don’t go to a generalist; you go to a specialist,” Granstaff said. “Insurance is no different.”
