Business Moves

Quirk & Company

Quirk & Company announced the opening of a Pacific Northwest branch, with the addition of Robert Hope as senior vice president, and Merry Palmer as senior account executive. The physical office will be on Bainbridge Island, Wash.

Hope and Palmer each have more than 25 years of specialty/surplus lines experience. At the initial stages, Palmer will be focusing on professional lines, and Hope will be
working with all lines.

Quirk & Company, based in San Antonio, Texas, is a full service, family owned, MGA/surplus lines wholesaler, currently celebrating 75 years of integrity, service, security, and stability.

Robert Hope can be reached at: (800) 299-9421 ext. 149, or e-mail to bhope@quirkco.com. Contact Merry Palmer at (800) 299-9421 ext. 149 or mpalmer@quirkco.com.

IIAT, Agility Recovery Solutions

Recognizing that rapid recovery from such disasters is critical and to help members meet disaster recovery needs, the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas announced it has endorsed Agility Recovery Solutions, a provider of onsite disaster recovery solutions.

“Our endorsement of Agility is part of our continuing effort to provide the best service and support to our members. We feel it’s vital that we highlight the importance of being prepared,” said David VanDelinder, IIAT Executive Director.

The Agility Recovery turn-key solution includes the delivery of everything necessary to get a business back up and running within 48 hours of any declared emergency. If need be, Agility will provide a mobile office fully equipped with power, communications and computer equipment. Work stations in which core personnel can conduct business and maintain the all-important connections to keep a business going.

“Statistics show that 60 percent of businesses suffering a serious loss never reopen, and of those that do, more than 25 percent will close within three years. When we discovered that Agility helps their clients build a continuity plan and then backs that plan with extensive equipment and resources, it became apparent that this solution is the best for all of our members,” VanDelinder added.

“The Agility ReadySuite membership was designed to provide small and medium-sized businesses access to disaster recovery services,” said Bob Boyd, president of Agility Recovery Solutions. “For a minimum monthly fee, a small business can have access to our service and the ability to recover their business in the event of an interruption. The ability to recover your business when faced with a disaster is invaluable,” said Boyd.

Agility Recovery Solutions is a former division of GE Capital IT Solutions. It has more than 16 years of experience providing disaster recovery solutions. Agility has successfully responded to 100 percent of all emergency declarations.

IIAT will educate all member agencies on the benefits of the Agility Recovery turn-key solution.

LWCC

The Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation announced it has been named to the prestigious 2005 Ward’s 50 Benchmark Group from the Ward Group, a distinction that recognizes the top 50 property and casualty insurers in America. LWCC was selected among more than 1,300 property/casualty insurance companies nationwide and has received the award for four consecutive years.

“We look for companies with an excellent return on equity, strong underwriting results and a commitment to operating efficiency,” explained Jeffrey Rieder, Ward Group partner. “LWCC exceeds in all those areas and has demonstrated the ability to meet all safety and consistency tests during an extended period of time.”

The objectives of Ward’s analysis is to recognize the 50 companies that have excelled at balancing safety, consistency and performance over the past five years and then to benchmark their performance with the industry overall.

“The fact that LWCC is in the top three percent of our industry nationwide and is the only Louisiana company to achieve this distinction speaks volumes of how we’re serving our policyholders,” said Kristin Wall, LWCC president and COO. “We’re not only making sure their workers are taken care of, but that their dollars are being spent wisely.”

Comparative benchmarking among peer companies can be used to thoroughly analyze an insurer’s operation, including its operating expenses, its profitability by line of business in order to identify divestiture opportunities and to search specific attributes or combination of attributes to assist in identifying acquisition opportunities.

General Casualty

General Casualty Insurance Companies has introduced enhanced commercial coverages and capacity, and is now a market for additional manufacturing lines of business. The Sun Prairie, Wis.-based property and casualty insurer is seeking to write accounts with property values up to $60 million. Risks must fall within targeted classes and have adequate private and public fire protection. The company said it will consider increasing those limits to $75 million or more based upon class of business and an underwriting review.

“As a regional carrier, we’ve historically written smaller property accounts with less emphasis on manufacturing business classes,” says Jon Borgen, assistant VP of commercial property at General Casualty. “However, we’ve become a billion-dollar company with a full menu of services to support this business. We’re now a market for larger properties, and we’re striving to grow market share specifically in the manufacturing sector.”

General Casualty also introduced enhanced supporting property coverages and limits, as well as a blanket coverage extension to its Comprehensive Insurance Policy.

In addition, the company has partnered with Hartford Steam Boiler to provide enhanced systems breakdown coverage, which can be written directly through General Casualty underwriters and covers a wide variety of mechanical or electrical failure of equipment, machines, computers and heating/cooling systems.

General Casualty writes many manufacturing classes, including plastics, food, metalworking, printing, wood products, textiles and paper goods manufacturers. Plastics manufacturing is a new market for General Casualty, and the company is targeting the following classes: injection molding, extrusion molding, blow molding, compression molding, rotational molding, transfer molding and thermoforming.

General Casualty markets its products through 1,500 independent insurance agencies in 25 states. For more information visit generalcasualty.com.