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Ownership Changes National brokers, banks continue on the acquisition trail Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (www.ajg.com) acquires brokers in Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina and Texas. Arthur J. Gallagher recently announced the acquisition of Tropp & Company of Lake Forest, Illinois; Woods & Groom of Columbus, Indiana; Carpenter, Cammack & Associates of Charlotte, North Carolina; and Melton Insurance Associates, Inc., of Odessa, Texas. Tropp & Company, a retail broker, specializes in products for venture capital and private equity firms; high net worth individuals; and railroad, manufacturing, aviation and construction industries. The Mendota, Illinois, operations will remain at their present location. All other employees will move to Gallagher’s offices in Itasca, Illinois. Woods & Groom is a retail broker and group captive administrator. The firm will continue to operate at its existing location under the direction of Artex Risk Solutions, Gallagher’s international captive subsidiary. Carpenter, Cammack & Associates (CCA), a Charlotte, North Carolina-based agency, also has offices in Raleigh, Greensboro and Fayetteville. Melton Insurance Associates, a retail broker, offers risk management, commercial property and casualty insurance and employee benefits services, with specialization in products for the energy industry. Melton will continue to operate at its current location in Odessa, Texas. Northeast Insurance Group, Inc. (www.northeastbank.com), continues to acquire agencies in Maine. Northeast, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Maine-based Northeast Bank, recently acquired Southern Maine Insurance Agency of Scarborough—its third agency acquisition in six months. Southern Maine Insurance Agency, which provides Northeast with an entree into the southern part of the state, writes approximately $3.6 million in premiums and offers complete lines of property and casualty insurance. Brown & Brown, Inc. (www.bbinsurance.com), announces three acquisitions. Brown & Brown, Inc., recently announced the acquisition of ALCOS, Inc., of Sterling Heights, Michigan; United Employers Insurance Agency, Inc., of Houston, Texas; and Sobel Affiliates, Inc., of Garden City, New York. ALCOS, with revenues of approximately $18 million, is an insurance intermediary that focuses on employee benefits; commercial and personal lines; life insurance; and employee benefits administration. The company will continue to operate under its own name from its locations in Sterling Heights and Ann Arbor, Michigan. United Employers Insurance Agency, Inc., a retail agency with revenues of approximately $1.3 million, has become part of Brown & Brown Insurance Services of Texas, Inc., a subsidiary of Brown & Brown, Inc. Officers and staff will combine their offices with B&B’s existing Houston office. United handles commercial property and casualty insurance and employee benefits throughout the state of Texas. Sobel Affiliates, Inc., founded in 1904, has revenues of approximately $12.1 million and provides comprehensive risk management and insurance services to both commercial and personal clients. Sobel will become a new, freestanding B&B profit center and will continue to operate from its current location in Garden City, New York. Hilb Rogal & Hobbs (www.hrh.com) has acquired the stock of The Urman Company of Denver and Charlton Manley of Kansas. Urman is a retail employee benefits and property/casualty brokerage with 54 employees. Its 2006 revenues were approximately $4.7 million. As part of HRH, Urman will continue to operate out of its home office and branches in Dillon and Brighton, Colorado, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Charlton Manley is a $10 million revenue firm with offices in Lawrence, Topeka and Overland Park, Kansas. It is a general lines agency with specialties that include construction, medical professional liability, truckers liability, schools and athletic programs. BB&T Insurance Services (www.bbt.com), acquires Reese Insurance Associates of Riverdale, Georgia, and Carswell Insurance Services of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Reese Associates, founded in 1974, offers commercial and personal property and casualty coverage along with group benefits insurance. Its 25 employees relocated to BB&T’s main branch in Fayetteville in August. According to Wade Reece, president of BB&T, “There was one geographic void in our coverage of that marketplace [metro Atlanta] and Reese fills it perfectly.” Carswell Insurance Services is a 49-year-old firm with 45 employees. In the late 1990s the company merged with Lighthouse Financial Services, which was later acquired by SunTrust. In 2006, Carswell partners Bill Thomas and John Vann re-acquired the firm. Thomas and Vann will be named agency managers with BB&T-Carswell and continue in their client relationship manager roles. BB&T Insurance Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Branch Banking and Trust Company, operates 83 insurance agencies primarily in the southeastern and central southern states. RCM&D (www.rcmd.com) of Baltimore will acquire JZA in the metropolitan Washington area. JZA, Inc., specializes in nonprofit business, providing both property/casualty and benefits products. After integrating JZA’s business, RCM&D will have more than 250 employees and next year will consolidate its Washington-area employees in a new office in Bethesda, Maryland. Senn Dunn (www.senndunn.com) of Greensboro, North Carolina, merges with Wilson-Ramseur of Raleigh. The combined firm will operate under the Senn Dunn name. Senn Dunn, with 115 employees and offices in Greensboro, High Point and Raleigh, is the largest privately owned independent agency in North Carolina. Haylor, Freyer & Coon (www.haylor.com) of Syracuse, New York (HF&C), merges with ATS Risk Associates (www.atsinsur.com) of Utica, New York. Haylor, Freyer & Coon has nine offices throughout upstate New York and in Bloomfield, Colorado, and Richmond, Virginia. Its premium volume for 2006 totaled approximately $265 million. It has specialized programs for the brewing, environmental, construction, manufactured housing and transportation industries. It was founded in 1928. C. Bruce Wichmann, president of Haylor, Freyer & Coon, said the merger will enable HF&C to expand its commercial lines business in the Utica area. HF&C’s Yorkville office, which wrote mostly personal lines, will be closed and consolidated at the ATS location. * |
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