
Just a few years ago, amid strong profits and solid premiums, the private equity world was keen on getting into the insurance industry. But that was then. Now, given the soft market and the current difficulties of the down-cycle, those moves by private equity firms, banks and other non-traditional buyers in the early part of the decade seem, in hindsight, like botched thinking. So says Alan Kaufman, head of Burns & Wilcox, who recently spoke with Insurance Journal. In this interview, Kaufman analyzes private equity’s brief love affair with insurance and gives his expectations for future mergers and acquisitions in the insurance industry.
Amy Bryan, owner of Bryan Insurance Agency in New Windsor, N.Y. opened her own independent insurance agency at the age of 22. She had no carrier appointments and no customers when she launched her agency in 2004, ut it didn’t take long for Amy to attract quality carriers and customers. Now, at just 28 [...]
To the 77 percent of independent insurance agencies that don’t have a social media presence, creating a profile and trying to form “friendships” via a computer can be daunting. Once you get online, however, tools such as blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and RSS feeds actually can help an agency build more thoughtful relationships with other agents [...]
London Based specialty insurer Hiscox, which launched a significantly expanded US presence in 2006, saw its gross profits reach record levels of 481 million dollars last year. Recently, the company’s chief underwriting 0fficer, Rob Childs, sat down to discuss the profitability for the company and what he sees as the outlook and obstacles for [...]
Opened in 1949, Gatorland is central Florida’s oldest theme park. The 110-acre attraction is home to a multitude of animals, including the powerful alpha predators that are the park’s namesake.
With over 100 employee roles, ranging from custodial and food handling to gator wrestling, the potential for injury is great; however, the incident of harm at [...]
Don Reha is the winemaker for Orfila Vineyards and Winery in Escondido, California where he oversees the winemaking process from vine to bottle. In this episode of Watching the Risks, Reha talks about insuring and protecting the product and business income through its various stages.
Based in San Diego, Jack in the Box Inc. was founded in 1951 and is the first major fast-food chain that started as a drive-thru. Today, it has approximately 43,000 employees with more than 2,200 quick-serve restaurants in 18 states. In this episode, Jack in the Box deputy general counsel of 12 years, [...]
In today’s technology world, everything seems to be coming together: from email, to telephones, to cameras – there’s a convergence of technology products in the industry today. Brian Brown, Vice President of Marsh’s National Technology Practice, sat down with Insurance Journal at a PLUS conference to tell us a little about the industry’s convergence of [...]
Rick talks about the merging of the ACORD and LOMA conferences (a combined 37 years of conference
William R. Berkley, founder of W.R. Berkley Corp., discusses his firm’s 1999 decision to get out of personal lines and how it is managing the property insurance situation in Florida in this excerpt from an exclusive video interview with Insurance Journal.
Watch the entire interview.
October 13, 2009 at 9:29 pm