From Georgia to Georgia and Beyond Be Group Raises the Bar on Loss Management in Georgia and to the Wider Region, Powered by McLarens

Had fire not broken out in Thomas Farynor's bakery on Pudding Lane in London 360 years ago, on a less-than-wonderful Sunday night in early September, the profession of loss adjuster might never have existed, or it might have emerged some other way, in some other country, after some other disaster. Either way, insurance was first born as a solution precisely in London in 1666, when fire engulfed the capital and, over four days, destroyed a fifth of what was then Europe's third-largest city. The losses at the time reached 10 million pounds, more than 2 billion in today's money.

In the aftermath of that massive fire, insuring buildings from fire emerged as a product and with it, the loss adjuster as a profession. By the end of the 18th century, insurers were already relying on independent adjusters as a matter of course, and that's where the story of today's largest loss-management firms really dates back.

Not London, not that era, but not far off either: McLarens picks up that same thread a little further down the line - Scotland, 1932. A 2004 merger with the Atlanta-based firm Maxson Young, followed by further expansion, turned the company into one of the leading names in the global loss management market.

Since April this year, McLarens, backed by nearly a century of experience, has entered the Georgian market through its local partner, Be Group. The latter pioneered independent loss assessment in Georgia and it took the company just seven years to reach the point where it now serves local insurers with McLarens' global standards. Getting there wasn't simple, though.

When Be Group started out seven years ago in Tbilisi, independent loss adjusting barely existed as a profession in Georgia. Back then, trust between consumers and insurers was still being built, and working to international standards felt like something for the distant future - except to the people standing at the profession's roots.

Be Group's founders, Giorgi Barbakadze and Zuka Chkoidze, built the culture and professional standards of loss management in the Georgian market almost from scratch. In just seven years, they grew their monthly caseload tenfold, and these results appeared strong enough to attract a global partner. Today, Be Group is the only company in Georgia, and the wider region, that adjusts major losses backed by McLarens' global standards. And the story of this partnership continues to unfold: Georgia was the first stop, the whole region is next.

Both founders see the entry of a global leader in Georgia as great news for the wider region too, and feel ready to keep pushing the insurance business forward - not just locally, but across the South Caucasus.

Getting to that partnership wasn't just about ambition, though — proving the quality was the main hurdle along the way. Alongside raising its own internal standards, Be Group pursued ISO certification specifically to meet the bar McLarens sets for its partners.

"Our main goal was to convince McLarens that we're reliable partners they can trust, and to show them the potential of the market as a whole," recalls Giorgi Barbakadze, Executive Director and CEO of Be Group.

"The Georgian insurance market is minimally developed in terms of international players' presence, and it needs support, an international partner among them, to build consumer trust. We showed our partners the opportunity in the South Caucasus, and that's what drew them in."

Shared Values, One Vision, One Ambition: The McLarens Perspective

Ask McLarens why it chose Be Group as its official partner in Georgia and the region, the answer is simple: strong professional capability, a solid footing in the Georgian market, and ambitions to grow across the Caucasus. Together, they match exactly what McLarens look for in a partner.

"We have a presence in Europe, Middle East and Africa, the US, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, Australasia, and Asia. Like many insurers and brokers, we strengthen our owned office network with affiliate partners. Our affiliates have been diligently selected, and we have actively sought partners who share our passion for technical loss adjusting and claims handling and our "delivery" ethos, which puts customers at the centre of all that we do. Our partners also recognise the balance of providing a service that meets local regulatory requirements, customs, and practices, with the need to operate consistently across the globe.

Be Group stood out as the right partner because it combines a strong professional resource and an established footprint in Georgia with ambition to extend services further across the wider Caucasus region. Be Group's focus on regulatory governance and compliance - reflected in its ISO 9001 accreditation - closely mirrors McLarens' own approach," says Neil Baldwin, Executive Director of Commercial Development at McLarens, adding that the company is keen to strengthen its presence in the region with Be Group, particularly as they see a growing demand and continue to build out specialist service lines such as marine.

"This partnership is a direct response to that opportunity. Many of our affiliate relationships have lasted 20 years or more, and we see the same long-term potential with Be Group," Baldwin adds.

For a company that built itself from nothing and reached global standards in just seven years, the prospect of a 20-plus-year partnership with a global leader is a major milestone. It matters for Georgia and the region too: McLarens has ambitious plans here, and Be Group sits at the center of them for the Caucasus. McLarens says Be Group will lead its expansion in the region, bringing global-standard service to corporate and real estate clients and offering specialized solutions in sectors such as marine and overland cargo.

"McLarens core services are focused on complex, commercial and specialist lines. BeGroup will bolster our credentials in global corporate and real estate account management and they will offer strong and efficient solutions in specialist sectors such as marine & cargo. We envisage Be Group will act as a hub for McLarens services in neighbouring local territories and this will be a catalyst for joint new business opportunities," Baldwin says.

Truth and Equity: What Does an Independent Adjuster Actually Do?

The term "loss adjuster" dates back to 1941, when the Association of Fire Loss Adjusters was founded in Great Britain by a group of prominent claims experts actively involved in dealing with damage as a result of bombing in World War II. The association later was granted a Royal Charter and its own Grant of Arms with its motto "Truth and Equity" - those two principles remain the ethos of the profession.

With good reason. The moment that matters most in insurance is when a policyholder suffers a loss and needs to be compensated fairly. Determining what "fair" means, accurately and impartially, is the independent adjuster's whole job. But in a market where insurance culture is still young, that is exactly where consumer skepticism creeps in. What if the assessment isn't objective? What if it favors the insurer? Is insurance even worth it if the numbers might be skewed?

"What matters most to the customer is knowing that if something goes wrong, they'll be compensated fairly, and that's exactly what our partnership with McLarens is meant to reinforce," says Giorgi Barbakadze. "Trust in the insurance sectors is growing, step by step, though plenty of skepticism remains. When there's a reliable, objective adjuster in place, people can see that a modest monthly premium genuinely protects them against much bigger losses. We've handled cases where the payout was a hundred or even a thousand times the premium paid." He adds that an independent adjuster doesn't take sides.

"For us, there are only the facts: the damage that occurred and what the contract says. That's the basis for fair compensation. Our job is to get to the truth," adds Zuka Chkoidze, Be Group's co-founder.

Under McLarens' standards, Be Group now assesses damage to real estate, both residential and commercial; office, industrial, and specialized equipment, as well as construction and agricultural machinery; commercial inventory lost to fire, flooding, or theft; cargo damaged in transit or by unforeseen risks.

Be Group has worked with every major player in the Georgian insurance market for years. Since partnering with McLarens, it has already handled a number of major insurance claims with the global partner's direct involvement. After the heavy rain, hail, and flooding of Summer 2026 in Georgia, these included a case of damage to hundreds of vehicles owned by a single company, as well as losses at major industrial and commercial sites.

"An independent adjuster's report is always the decisive factor in a payout, because that's what the insurer relies on to make its final call. The cases we've worked on directly with McLarens, applying their best practices, stand out in particular," Barbakadze notes.

Those cases suggest that having a global player in the market has raised trust in independent adjusters and, by extension, in Be Group.

"Having McLarens' global standard behind our loss adjusting gives the market an extra guarantee of objectivity. There's essentially no room left for bias, and that raises trust across the whole insurance industry," Chkoidze adds. "By bringing McLarens into Georgia, we haven't just moved the local market forward. We're helping develop the insurance sector across the entire region, because McLarens sees the whole region as an opportunity."

The Road to Trust

Behind most success stories lies an idea that seemed modest at the outset, sometimes even to those who conceived it. Be Group is a fitting example.

Giorgi Barbakadze and Zuka Chkoidze founded Be Group in 2019 as an accounting outsourcing business. The turning point came when a client asked them to calculate a business-interruption loss. The work was so well received that it planted the seed of a loss-adjusting practice, one that grew from that single case into the company's core business. In 2024, the accounting side branched off as an independent company, Countman.

First There Was the Accountant: The Story of Countman

Back in 2017, Be Group (Business Engineering Group) launched as Georgia's first accounting outsourcing company, with zero outside investment and big ambitions. Even its founders couldn't have guessed that within two years the business would be running in two directions: accounting service first, then loss adjusting.

The accounting side grew into what is now Countman, a kind of quiet superhero for small and mid-sized companies. Hundreds of them hand it their accounting and routine reporting, and get back the time and resources to grow.

There's a reason Countman understands its clients so well. They are people who turned down a stable corporate job to build something of their own, and the founders were once in the same position. They had spent years in finance, seen what businesses actually needed, and set out to fill the gap. They know the startup grind firsthand: a small team, a tight budget, and every hat on one head. They know what a relief it is to hand off the accounting and get back to the business itself.

Over the years, something shifted. Accounting stopped looking like a record of what had already happened and started looking like a forward-looking partnership, one that was increasingly driven by technology.

And the company isn't standing still. Through years of hands-on experience, for the Countman team accounting stopped looking like a record of what had already happened and started looking like a forward-looking partnership, increasingly tech-driven partnership.

"Right now we're responding to the market along three main lines," says Bachuki Khetsadze, Head of Countman's Accounting Services Department. "First, AI and speed. We're actively using AI tools to process large volumes of data, run analytics, and pull up information fast. We're also building our own internal chatbot so we can handle client communication and standard requests around the clock. Second, we're building out digital infrastructure to cut down on risk wherever we can, implementing modern ERP systems for clients while running our own internal operations through a well-structured CRM. That takes a lot of the human error and manual risk out of the equation. And third, we're putting real weight behind developing our people and their expertise, because technology only works well in the hands of strong professionals. Investing in our team's skills is a top priority for us, and a flexible, hybrid work setup helps us bring in and keep the best people in the market."

Along the way, as the market evolved, the founding team learned a lesson that Khetsadze says has stayed with them: good accounting doesn't just keep a business compliant. It actually saves people time, money, and a lot of stress.

Countman was practically alone in this space back in 2017. Today, competition has picked up considerably, with more players entering the accounting outsourcing market. Even so, Countman has held onto its niche.

"What sets Countman apart is attitude, and it shows up everywhere, from how we sell to how the team works day to day, right down to the internal structure the company is built on," says Koki Gakharia, Head of Countman's Sales and Marketing Department. "That attitude is what keeps our partners satisfied with the work we deliver. We've worked with all kinds of businesses, and that's shown us how important it is for a company to be able to put its time and energy toward what actually matters. Our whole mission is to take the burden of accounting off small and mid-sized businesses and startups, because it's genuinely hard to manage and it gets in the way of focusing on growth."

The numbers back him up. Countman is the fastest-growing accounting firm in the Georgian market, having roughly doubled in size over the past year. And the next chapter is already taking shape: after cementing its lead at home, the firm plans to cross Georgia's borders, with a reliable system and a team ready for bigger challenges. The mission stays the same, which is to make accounting simpler for any business, in Georgia and beyond.

Both of Be Group's co-founders started out with one goal: to build a loss adjusting firm with a reputation for objectivity, trusted equally by insurers and the insured. A global partnership wasn't part of the plan at first.

That idea came only after years of accumulated hands-on knowledge, in-depth market analysis, and tireless work made adopting global standards an unavoidable necessity. That was when McLarens appeared, having clearly recognized both the reliability of the services on offer and the potential of the market.

Be Group's success also owes a great deal to its multidisciplinary structure. Every loss is different: a collapsed building calls for one kind of expertise, a commercial facility destroyed by a natural disaster calls for another, and a financial loss caused by business interruption calls for an entirely different kind of analysis.

That's why the company brings engineers, financiers and auditors, and risk managers together in a single team. Engineers assess damage to real estate, infrastructure, and constructions. Financiers and auditors account for business-interruption losses and commercial inventory. Risk managers carry out preventive audits and forecast insurance risks.

"What matters most to us isn't simply counting numbers but real technical precision. That's why we keep investing in our team's development. Right now, Be Group's adjusters are going through a retraining program run by the UK's CILA (Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters). CILA-certified professionals will establish entirely new, international rules of the game in the Georgian market," says Giorgi Barbakadze.

Given all that, it's no surprise that the company's internal culture rests on two pillars: qualification and trust. ISO certification played a particular role in strengthening both.

"That was another step forward that brought us closer to our goal of becoming a global-level player alongside the right partner. Beyond the progress and success, we had already achieved, ISO certification gave us an extra advantage in negotiations with McLarens. It was a guarantee that the quality of our service met global standards," says Zuka Chkoidze, adding that the global standard now applies not only to insurance loss adjusting but to risk assessment as well.

This is an important development for the Georgian insurance market. Until now, risk survey has been a luxury in Georgia for local and foreign investors alike.

When Risks Are Known in Advance: Risk Survey

Not long ago, anyone building a hydropower plant, a factory, or a major shopping center in Georgia had to look abroad to find out what could go wrong. International-level risk surveys didn't exist locally, so experts were brought in from other countries. The market simply had no global standard of its own.

That has changed. Today the same service is available at home, thanks to Be Group, and it comes with McLarens' expertise behind it.

A risk survey unfolds in two stages. First, specialists carry out an in-depth technical and operational analysis of the site, searching for anything that could go wrong: fire, natural disaster, equipment failure, or any other interruption to business. Then comes the insurance risk assessment itself, a quantitative and qualitative calculation of how likely each threat is and how large the financial damage could be.

Why does this matter? For the insurer, it ends the guesswork. Instead of setting terms on assumptions and surface-level disclosures, it has an accurate picture to set a fair, individual premium rather than a generic rate. For the business owner, it means an international-level report that lays out all the weak points and shows how to avoid financial loss before it ever happens.

Only a few months after the partnership agreement, Be Group is already working with McLarens on major insurance risk surveys in the Georgian market. Georgian business needed a global player, and now it has one. The same is true of the whole region.

Four Filters and an AI

How does a loss adjusting report come to be, one that the local insurers, and McLarens itself, trust without reservation? At Be Group, the answer is a system of layered checks in which human expertise is backed by modern technology.

From the first visit to the scene to the final settlement, every claim passes through four stages: the expert's findings, an underwriter review, a REPO audit, and finally AI verification.

It begins on site, where a specialist studies and documents the damage. Underwriters then check whether the data matches the terms of the policy. Next, REPO specialists audit the reporting and technical details. And last, artificial intelligence steps in: a system built by Be Group that examines the critical parts of the report and catches the small human errors or inaccuracies that could slip past even the most attentive eye.

"Our goal is for every piece of information to be verified," explains Giorgi Barbakadze. "We've equipped the AI with knowledge of what to focus on. We identified in advance the specific parts of a report where human error might creep in. AI will eliminate these gaps completely."

A New Everyday with McLarens

A business is usually judged by two things: numbers and reputation. For Be Group, both are strong. Since 2019, the company has adjusted losses worth more than €300 million - a figure that signals something beyond scale. It signals trust. That kind of trust is earned, not assumed. So what's behind it? Why do local insurers and major investors turn to Be Group for their assessments?

"Our core values are impartiality and objectivity," says Irakli Datishvili, COO of Be Group and Countman. "In the loss-adjusting process, we act as an intermediary between insurance companies and clients to adjust the loss impartially. The policyholder shouldn't feel the insurer is running the assessment to serve its own interests. And insurers, for their part, need a reliable partner who can show the customer objective, transparent service. That trust is what strengthens the insurance sector's reputation and makes more businesses want to insure their assets."

"Objectivity," as he puts it, isn't a marketing line — it's backed by ISO 9001 certification from Bureau Veritas, a globally recognized authority. It's also well reflected in McLaren' s own confidence in the company: McLarens chose Be Group as its face and affiliate partner in the region, for the long term and with ambitious plans.

In practice, that means every step, from claim submission to final settlement, follows the highest global standards, with multi-level quality control, defined action plans, and daily monitoring. While many companies talk about minimizing human error and operational risk, Be Group actually does it.

Today, Be Group is the only loss adjuster in Georgia, and in the wider region, with an affiliate partnership with a global giant and a unified team of specialists across disciplines. For insurers, that means no more hunting for separate experts, whether the claim involves minor property damage, business interruption, a major fire, or a logistics incident. Be Group has an international-level expert with the right profile for each.

Beyond Georgia: What's Next

McLarens has its eyes on Georgia and the region, with a twenty-year horizon. Be Group's own outlook is closer to five years but it's a clear one, covering where the company, and the South Caucasus as a whole, should stand in insurance products and loss adjusting.

The plan is to expand across the region alongside McLarens, working with insurers beyond Georgia's borders. At the same time, the company intends to keep refining its own services: sharpening accuracy and tightening multi-stage quality control so losses are adjusted faster and with greater precision.

That ambition has a new physical address, too. Be Group and Countman recently relocated, marking their global partnership by moving into one of the capital's most striking buildings: a glass-and-concrete, four-story modernist space on Sandro Euli Street, designed by Giorgi Khmaladze Architects. Its geometric facade echoes the company's own trajectory: new directions, new markets, new horizons.

Technology is no exception to that trajectory. Be Group is actively integrating artificial intelligence into its internal processes, raising the accuracy of loss and risk assessment to a new level.

Then there's the next generation. Independent loss adjusting is still a young profession in the region, and Be Group has taken on the task of shaping how it's passed down through internship and training programs and support for international certification, including CILA.

"Our vision is for Be Group to become a platform that not only provides reliable assessments in Georgia but also helps develop and promote the profession turning the country into a regional hub for loss adjusting," Datishvili says.

"Hub" is not an empty word: McLarens operates across nearly every industrial sector, from energy and logistics to aviation and marine shipping. Be Group is working to match that scale, so the partnership can deliver its full value in the region.

The benefit runs both ways, for Georgia's insurance market and its neighbors. Access to McLarens' global expertise makes Be Group a regional player capable of handling losses of any complexity or specialty — including kinds the local market had no access to before. Now it does. Be Group already operates in Georgia to McLarens' standards. The next stage is the region.

The benefit runs both ways, for Georgia's insurance market and for its neighbors. With McLarens' expertise behind it, Be Group can now take on losses of almost any complexity or specialty, including kinds the local market could never handle before. Georgia already works to McLarens' standards. The region is next.