View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2010/04/28/109338.htm
Agoura Hills, Calif.-based Pacific Compensation Insurance Co. (PacificComp), formerly Employers Direct Insurance Co., has relaunched its business with a new name and transformation from a direct writer of workers’ compensation insurance to an agency company. PacificComp will now partner exclusively with independent agents and brokers to provide workers’ compensation coverage for California businesses.
In August 2009, citing the strain of escalating medical costs on the workers’ compensation system, increasingly intense price competition, and the uncertainty over the sustainability of the 2003-2004 legislative reforms due to recent Court decisions, Employers Direct stopped soliciting new and renewal California business on a direct basis.
Yet in today’s difficult economy and volatile workers’ compensation market, PacificComp President and CEO James E. Little said many independent agents and brokers are striving to grow and operate more efficiently and profitably.
“The best long-term strategy in the California market is to serve as an agency company,” he said. “Agents are viewed by businesses as trusted advisors, across all lines of insurance and provide many valuable services to their clients. We look forward to building partnerships with independent agents and brokers to provide our proven track record of unmatched service and strong financial security.”
Little said the company has gone through an extensive internal transformation, in which it has retooled its organization.
“We’re excited about our brand new, multi-million dollar agency portal system, which will enable independent agents and brokers to efficiently close, retain, and renew more business, and facilitate a greater ease of doing business with us,” he said. “Overall, we offer the products, services, and expertise to help agents grow their California workers’ compensation book of business efficiently and profitably.”
PacificComp will offer competitive coverage along with in-house claims management and loss control teams. The company is led by the same management team with decades of experience in the California workers’ compensation market, Little said.
“We’ve worked hard to understand what’s happening in the California workers’ compensation market. It’s our ability to identify and address trends as they emerge — not after they’ve happened — that makes us uniquely suited to meet the needs of California’s agents and brokers and the businesses they serve both today and in the future,” he said.
PacificComp, formerly Employers Direct, was founded in 2002 as a specialty writer of workers’ compensation insurance. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alleghany Corp.