AmWINS Completes Acquisition of 15 Insurance Programs from Willis Towers Watson

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Specialty insurance broker AmWINS Group reported that it has completed the previously-announced acquisition of 15 insurance programs from Willis Towers Watson. Terms were not disclosed.

“The programs, product expertise and underwriting talent that we are acquiring from Willis Programs will expand and diversify our underwriting division and support our long-term growth strategy to provide niche programs for our retail clients,” said M. Steven DeCarlo, CEO of AmWINS, when the deal was announced last month.

The programs will become part of AmWINS Program Underwriters (APU), a managing general agency specializing in affinity and program management that currently underwrites 20 programs with more than $150 million of premium and has locations in Camp Hill, Penn; Charlotte, N.C.: Dallas, Tex.; and Farmington, Conn.

The 15 acquired programs have a team of more than 115 employees with offices in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Burlington, Vermont; Tampa, Florida; Detroit, Michigan; Denver, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Hartford, Connecticut.

Among the people from Willis Programs who will be joining AmWINS are Debbie Stanley, chief operating officer; Jim Kelley, underwriting officer; Dan Curran, underwriting officer; Bo Adams, MountainGuard program manager; and Tim Hendrickson, MountainGuard program manager.

AmWINS said decisions on offices for the combined program business would be made after the acquisition closes.

The complete list of the 15 programs that are part of the transaction is as follows:

MountainGuard: for ski resort operations in the U.S. and Canada.
DealerGuard: for franchised auto, truck, and RV dealers as well as large independent auto dealers.
RecycleGuard: for businesses with primary operations in recycling or document destruction.
ResortGuard: for businesses engaged in the operation of destination resorts, master planned communities and large scale recreational planned communities.
Health Care: for medical facilities, medical equipment providers, and home health/hospice providers.
WorkCompGuard: offers brokers a wide variety of workers’ compensation programs designed around specific classes of business and client size.
FeedLot & Dairy: for farms with cows producing milk for bulk sales and cattle feeding operations.
CAR-PAC: for franchised auto, truck and RV dealers.
PizzaGuard: for pizza delivery restaurants.
Rent-ItGuard: for the equipment rental industry.
MAPP: for metalworking and plastics manufacturers.
Lawyers Regional: provides lawyers professional liability to law firms.
UtilitySure: for the natural gas distribution industry.
WellGuard: for the groundwater industry.
WorkTruckGuard: for the trailer manufacturing and truck aftermarket industry.

The sale will still leave Willis Towers Watson with some program business. “Willis Towers Watson continues to manage a handful of select insurance programs and we will be transitioning these businesses to a new underwriting platform,” the company told Insurance Journal.

AmWINS has more than 4,300 employees in 12 countries and handles more than $14 billion in annual premium placements.