BB&T Eyeing Langan Insurance Agency, Its Fourth Kentucky Acquisition

The Lousville-based Langan Insurance Agency is being acquired by BB&T Insurance Services of Raleigh, N.C. Lagan has 41 employees.
According to Wade Reece, BB&T president, Bill Roby Sr., Langan president and Tom Barrett, vice president will become agency managers of BB&T-Old Colony/Langan. The agency’s chief operating officer, Kim Roberts, will hold a similar position with the combined operation.

Founded in Louisville in 1913, for eight years in a row, Langan has been awarded the Best Practices Award by the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America. As a privately held company, it doesn’t disclose revenue and premium volume.

The deal is expected to be completed next month. Langan would be BB&T’s fourth insurance acquisition in Kentucky and second in Louisville.

This year BB&T acquired Lexington-based Employee Benefit Services of Kentucky, which provides life, health, dental, vision and disability-income insurance as part of employee-benefit plans. In 2003, BB&T bought Old Colony Insurance Service of Louisville and its sister agency, Cromwell Insurance Agency of Lexington.

David Pruett, a BB&T spokesman, said no further Kentucky insurance acquisitions are planned.

The Langan acquisition “makes us a fairly dominant player in the Louisville area,” he said. “Now our plans are to take this and grow it internally.”

BB&T Insurance is a subsidiary of regional banking giant BB&T Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C., which in 2002 acquired MidAmerica Bancorp, the parent of Bank of Louisville, and Area Bancshares of Owensboro.

The insurance subsidiary operates 77 agencies in 10 states and is the nation’s sixth-largest retail insurance broker.

BB&T Corp., with more than $97billion in assets, is the nation’s 11th-largest financial-holding company and operates more than 1,400 financial centers in 11 states and Washington, D.C.

Since 1989, BB&T has acquired 58 community banks and thrifts, more than 70 insurance agencies and 23 non-bank financial-services companies.