Texas Insurance Agency Acquired by Compass

Compass Bancshares and one of Texas’ largest independent insurance agencies have signed a definitive agreement for Compass to acquire the agency.

Texas Insurance Agency, with offices in San Antonio, Austin, Uvalde and Houston, is expected to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Compass by the end of the fourth quarter. The Houston agency, however, is not included in the deal and will remain independent.

Terms of the agreement were not released, but Joe Minihan, TIA president and chief executive, said he believes TIA will continue doing business under the name it established in 1973. “We’ll most likely be Texas Insurance Agency, a division of Compass Insurance,” he said. TIA’s senior management and most of its staff will remain the same, Minihan said.

TIA specializes in providing property and casualty insurance, personal insurance, employee benefit plans and financial planning for businesses and private banking customers as well as home and automobile insurance for retail customers. The company, with approximately 115 employees statewide, had total written premium of around $95 million in 1999. Its goal this year was to reach the $10 million mark in gross revenue. By joining Compass, Minihan said TIA will be able to reach an even wider audience.

“We think it’s going to be an important move in getting our products to customers,” he said. “There’s going to be a major emphasis on referral business. That’s the culture we’re trying to create—a good, solid referral-based culture.”

TIA customers will now be offered banking products through Compass, and Compass customers will be referred to TIA for their insurance needs. Minihan also hopes that the number of companies TIA represents will grow through the affiliation with Compass.

“We have a great number of companies already, but I would expect those numbers would increase,” he said.

Compass will likely continue its agency acquisitions throughout Texas, Minihan said. Compass Insurance is a subsidiary of Compass Bank. The $19.4 billion company operates 317 full-service banking offices in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Texas. It is among the top 40 U.S. bank holding companies by asset size and ranks among the top earners of its size based on return on equity.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Texas