Southeast Agencies, Carriers Now Hiring

Here is some of the positive insurance employment news for the Southeast:

Allstate

In February, Allstate Insurance announced it was looking to appoint 124 new agency owners in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina this year.

“We see a significant opportunity in the current economy to attract entrepreneurs and mid-career, mid-level managers who are looking to own and operate their own business and represent Allstate,” said Jay Wischum, Allstate regional sales leader.

He said the insurer is working with existing Allstate agents, business brokers and recruiters to find professionals with financial or sales backgrounds. Candidates need a minimum of $75,000 of liquid capital to invest.

The company is also taking its recruiting one step further: offering consumers the opportunity to cash in by helping to identify candidates who are dedicated to customer service. The insurer is offering a $5,000 referral award to anyone who refers a candidate who is qualified and appointed as an Allstate agent in 2012.

About one year ago, Allstate embarked on a mission to appoint nearly 50 new agency offices in Florida, about half of them in north Florida, which the company said has shown “incredible growth” for its agencies. Bob Jackson, regional sales leader in St. Petersburg, said then that each new office would mean multiple job opportunities for licensed staff, perhaps as many as 130 new jobs statewide.

AmWINS

Charlotte, North Carolina-headquartered global wholesale broker AmWINS Group acquired London broker THB last year. The company now has more than 2,300 employees in 21 countries worldwide.

Leslie McNeice, communications director for AmWINS, said the firm’s Atlanta and various Florida offices grew “quite a bit over the last few years” and the firm expects continued growth. “We are very interested in training and developing young talent and will continue to do so, especially in the Southeast,” McNeice told Insurance Journal.

Appalachian Underwriters

Cate Semrau, human resources director for national wholesale broker Appalachian Underwriters, said her firm would be looking for new people in 2012 in the Southeast. Areas of expansion include underwriters and underwriting support staff, claims management and related staff as well as general back office positions. Most of the hiring will be concentrated within the organization’s Oak Ridge, Tenn. headquarters, with some additional opportunities in its Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina offices.

Best Doctors

Who says government can’t create private sector jobs? Last year, Florida lawmakers changed a provision in state law that limited the operations of foreign insurance companies. Before that change, Boston-based Best Doctors had a small presence in Florida.

“We were helped a lot by the support and good sense of the Florida Legislature and governor who agreed to change state law to make a company like Best Doctors serving foreign nationals do business and grow,” said Evan Falchuk, president.

Since the law change, Best Doctors has moved beyond a back office operation and added 60 people and is planning for further expansion. “They are good, highly-skilled jobs,” said Falchuk.

Best Doctors provides access to medical services for people coming to the U.S. from Latin America and other foreign locations. It also provides medical and claims services that insurers sell to supplement what they offer large corporations in their employers’ group plans and workers’ compensation programs. Best Doctors also sells health insurance in Latin America that covers people anywhere in the world.

Best Doctors provides its services globally to 30 million people in 40 countries.

Best Doctors recently combined several smaller offices into a single office in the Blue Lagoon section of Miami. The company is headquartered in Boston and has another office in Toronto.

Falchuk said his company has viewed Latin America as a great opportunity for years and thinks more trade and interaction will mean additional growth. He believes Florida is the place to be to capture this growth. “If you are trying to grow the Latin American market, Miami is the capital,” Falchuk told Insurance Journal.

As its business grows, Best Doctors will need more employees in its Florida office to serve customers in Latin America.

Falchuk has found the Florida talent pool to be filled with good candidates. “In this economy, one of the challenges is that there are people who are really skilled but who don’t have work. But that’s an opportunity for growing companies to tap into this resource,” he said.

It is also helpful that many are bilingual. “That’s one of the things we like about Florida is the highly-skilled bilingual workforce. That has helped drive our growth,” Falchuk said.

Brown & Brown

Brown & Brown Inc., one of the world’s largest insurance brokerages, is headquartered in Daytona Beach and Tampa. The company operates more than 170 offices in 38 states. In 2011 alone it acquired a half-dozen agencies across the country, including Tennessee Banks’ First Horizon Insurance. Brown & Brown has more than 30 locations in Florida, six in Georgia, five in Kentucky, three each in North and South Carolina and Tennessee, two in Alabama and one in West Virginia.

The company has the region in its hiring plans for this year. “We plan to continue hiring many high-quality individuals in 2012. We will hire producers, account managers, marketing managers and accounting leaders. We will be hiring in the Southeast, as well as the rest of the country,” Cory Walker, chief financial officer, told Insurance Journal.

Confie Seguros

Confie Seguros is a network of insurance agencies catering to the Hispanic market that is growing every year through additional acquisitions. It is currently in nine states and generating revenues close to $180 million. The company has more than 275 offices in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Washington, Oregon, New York, New Jersey, and Nevada. It expects to continue its expansion in those and in other states, including Illinois, Georgia and the Carolinas.

Confie Seguros entered Florida in 2011 through its acquisition of Trustway, a Miami agency with 26 stores that now employ about 60 people selling personal lines insurance.

Norm Hudson, chief operating officer, said the firm is on the lookout for people to manage and staff its stores.

“We’re hiring and to the extent there are people out there with an interest in furthering their career, we are a fast growing company. The one thing that holds us back from growing even faster is talent,” Hudson told Insurance Journal.

Hudson said hiring in the industry is hurt because there is a misconception about entering the insurance field. “I think people shy away from approaching the insurance industry because they are not sure how to get in and they might be intimidated a little by the licensing requirements and exactly what it takes to enter the industry,” he said.

Confie Seguros will provide training and licensing assistance.

FCCI Insurance Group

FCCI Insurance Group, a popular Florida-based commercial lines insurer, has offices in Orlando and Sarasota, as well as in Mississippi, Georgia and Indiana. FCCI is expanding into additional products including surety as well as into other states including Texas, Maryland and Virginia, according to Lisa Krouse, senior vice president for human resources.

The company has more than 665 employees, with about 400 of them in Florida. To staff FCCI’s expansion, FCCI will be adding to those numbers.

Krouse is recruiting for a variety of positions including senior level staff, underwriting and claims professionals in trainees in underwriting. Positions are available in all of its offices and, given its focus on being close to the customer, Krouse will also consider employees who can telecommute and work from remote locations.

Skills and attitude are important. “We really do interview both for technical skills as well as behaviors,” she said, “Customer skills are as critical to FCCI as technical skills, if not more important.”

Lockton

Lockton may be the largest privately-held insurance brokerage in the world but there’s nothing private about its growth and ambition. The Kansas City-based broker, with 58 offices around the world, sees the Southeast as a major area for expansion and has shown its commitment by expanding two offices over the past year -one in Memphis, Tenn. and the other in Charlotte, N.C. Those complement existing Southeast offices in Miramar, Florida and in Atlanta.

“I just think the insurance industry will be a good growth industry over the next five years in general in the Southeast. I think that Lockton has positioned itself to be at the top of those performers,” Peter Clune, chief operating officer of Lockton, told Insurance Journal.

Clune said the fact that Lockton opened offices in Memphis and Charlotte shows its commitment. “We don’t do that unless we feel like we can really grow in those areas,” he said.

He said the company also sees “huge upsides” in Florida and Atlanta, whether in property/casualty, employee benefits or financial services.

Regarding Charlotte, he thinks Lockton can double in size in the next couple of years. “There just so much business there.”

Lockton is actively recruiting insurance, risk management, employee benefit and financial services professionals to expand its sales and service teams.

Clune thinks the pool of available talent in the region is a plus. “I’m pleasantly surprised with the people that we’re talking with. The numbers, the education, and the experience — it all bodes very well for us,” he said.

Main Street America

In 2011, The Main Street America Group hired 24 new employees in the Southeast, mostly in Florida. This includes positions in the company’s home office operations as well as in its Southeast region office operations (the region covers five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia).

Twenty-one of the 24 new Main Street America employees are housed at the Jacksonville corporate office, according to Mark Friedlander, spokesman.

In addition to Jacksonville, MSA hired a business development executive (field sales representative) in both Georgia and Virginia, and a casualty claim specialist in Richmond, Va., satellite office.

In 2012, Friedlander said the company expects hiring in the Southeast to be at “a similar level” to last year. Through mid-March already this year, the company had hired three new employees in Jacksonville. Main Street America currently has 10 current openings in Jacksonville, including regional sales director; application systems developer/programmers; reinsurance financial analyst and surety development executive and specialist.

Patriot National

Patriot National Insurance Group is a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based provider of workers’ compensation programs and services that is in growth mode. Right now it has more than 40 additional openings from entry level to management, including jobs in accounting, loss control, investigations and human resources.

In January, Steven M. Mariano, chairman and CEO, said that the Patriot group of companies added 85 new jobs to downtown Fort Lauderdale in 2011. Mariano said he expects that this robust hiring will continue.

Patriot National has grown from three to more than 225 employees in Fort Lauderdale during the last five years. Patriot said it has also has seen growth in its regional offices in Orlando, Charlotte, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.

The company takes a cautious approach to hiring. “We are looking to add good people across our organization,” said Christopher Pizza, chief of staff. “But we don’t add positions lightly. We grow as necessary.”

For management positions, Pizza said Patriot looks for workers’ compensation or alternative markets expertise in particular and and in general, the more experience someone has, the better, Pizza said. For entry level workers it offers training to “introduce people to the Patriot way.”

Progressive

Auto insurer Progressive is helping boost the Tampa area economy by filling 390 positions in sales, service and claims at its Riverview call center. The new hires, partially tied to replacing lost workers, will bring Progressive to nearly 3,400 employees throughout Florida, with 2,300 in Riverview alone. Most of the new hourly wage jobs will be in sales, service and processing claims.

Willis

Global insurance broker Willis Group Holdings in January announced the expansion and relocation of its south Florida headquarters from Coral Gables to new digs in Miami. The move is part of Willis’ strategy to elevate its presence in the state and in Latin America.

The new facility will serve as the south Florida headquarters of Willis’ retail insurance brokerage operations, which serves more than 3,000 local clients. In addition, it will be home to Willis Re Latin America and Willis SCR (Special Contingency Risks).

Willis also operates satellite offices in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. It also has offices in Tampa as well as in Atlanta and the Carolinas.

Hiram Marrero, managing partner, Willis of South Florida, said he is looking for business development people and account executives.

His office now has about 100 employees, a number he projects will grow by 10 to 15 positions over the year. There are opportunities in Willis’ other Southeast offices as well.

Marrero is interested in seasoned insurance executives, or those with experience in certain industry niches such as healthcare, life sciences or real estate. “Florida has a great talent pool,” he said.

Being bilingual “helps but is not critical,” said Marrero.

Topics Florida Carriers Agencies Workers' Compensation Talent Underwriting Georgia Virginia North Carolina Training Development South Carolina Tennessee Human Resources