Business Moves

AmWINS, Beacon Risk Strategies

Charlotte, N.C.-based AmWINS Group Inc. acquired Beacon Risk Strategies, a Seattle-based managing general underwriter of excess-loss benefits insurance. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 1999, Beacon Risk Strategies provides stop-loss products to protect companies and their health plans from unexpected catastrophic claims. Beacon represents several carriers and can offer products in all 50 states, which enables the company to provide tailored packages to Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan markets and large self-funded employers.

The Hartford, Progressive

The Hartford Financial Services and Progressive are offering their insurance products for community banks to each other’s independent agents and brokers.

The new alliance allows banks and their agents the option of getting all of their business insurance from one source.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. is the underwriter for the American Banking Association-sponsored program, which the insurer says currently provides professional liability and bond products to more than 1,700 community banks.

The Hartford offers banks industry-tailored property and casualty insurance that includes bank-specific coverages such as mortgage protection and foreclosed properties as well as standard-lines coverages like workers’ compensation, property and general liability.

“Agents can now write a complete insurance package through either company,” according to John Wells, director of Progressive’s Professional Liability Group.

Penn National, ESL Inc., Atlantic Specialty

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based Penn National Insurance completed the sale of its wholesale insurance brokerage subsidiary, ESL Inc., to wholesale brokerage Atlantic Specialty Lines of Pennsylvania for an undisclosed amount.

Penn National Chairman and CEO Dennis C. Rowe said the company was “not able to grow the business enough to gain access to the depth and breadth of non-standard markets that our agents need today” and decided to focus on its core standard-market business.

Penn National Insurance sells property/casualty insurance in much of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast through a network of approximately 700 independent agencies. It had a combined $568 million in premium in 2007.

Arthur J. Gallagher, RSI

Insurance broker Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. reports it has acquired RSI of Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

RSI offers employee benefit consulting and brokerage services for middle market businesses in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and northern Delaware, with 50 to 1,000 employees.

Ironshore, New York

The Excess Line Association of New York has approved Ironshore Insurance Ltd. as an eligible excess and surplus lines insurer in the Empire State.

Ironshore — a Hamilton, Bermuda-based specialty insurer with roughly $1 billion in capital — said it will provide commercial property and property catastrophe insurance on an excess and surplus lines basis for risks located in the state.

Topics New York Pennsylvania