Daytona Beach-based Brown & Brown, Hub Announce Four Acquisitions

May 9, 2011

The following article was published in Property Casualty360º on May 9, 2011:

Brown & Brown, Hub Announce Four Acquisitions

Insurance brokers Brown & Brown and Hub International Ltd. recently announced four acquisitions on the East and West coasts.

Daytona Beach, Fla.-based insurance broker Brown & Brown says it acquired Fitzharris Agency Inc. and Global Intermediaries of Eugene.

Chicago-based broker Hub has acquired Lawson-Hawks Insurance Agency Inc. and Mark Tauber Insurance Brokerage Inc.

Financial terms of the transactions were not released.

Brown & Brown’s New York subsidiary acquired Fitzharris Agency Inc., Fitzharris & Co. Inc. and Fitzharris Administrators Inc., collectively doing business as Fitzharris Insurance.

Fitzharris Insurance, with aggregate annualized revenues of approximately $6.2 million, provides property and casualty, employee benefits and third-party administrative services to school districts, other public entities, and commercial and individual clients on Long Island and throughout New York State.

Fitzharris Insurance’s Farmingdale, N.Y., office will become a new standalone profit center of Brown & Brown of New York Inc., under the leadership of Dennis Fitzharris Jr., president of Fitzharris.

Brown & Brown’s subsidiary, Apex Insurance Agency Inc., acquired Eugene, Ore.-based Global Intermediaries of Eugene, L.L.C.

With annualized revenues of approximately $1.3 million, Global Intermediaries is a wholesale operation that provides excess liability, workers’ compensation, medical malpractice, police professional and other specialty insurance lines to self-insured public entities.

Judd Feldman, president of Global Intermediaries, and his team of insurance professionals will continue to serve their clients and customers from their existing Eugene location under the Apex Insurance Services name.

Hub acquired Mountain View, Calif.-based insurance broker Lawson-Hawks Insurance Agency Inc.

Founded in 1937, LHI is a full-service agency offering a broad spectrum of P&C, employee benefits and personal-lines insurance programs to businesses and individuals throughout California and the Western United States. The firm serves clients with specific niche expertise in medical malpractice, lawyers’ professional liability, environmental insurance, coverage for home builders, and affinity and program business of several national associations.

John Miller, CEO of LHI, and his team will become part of the California operations of Hub. They will remain in their existing offices in Mountain View, Carmel, Folsom, Monterey and Truckee, Calif.

Hub said it also acquired Mark Tauber Insurance Brokerage Inc., a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based commercial insurance brokerage firm.

Founded in 1989, Tauber Brokerage handles the P&C programs for many small to midsize businesses throughout New York City and the greater New York metropolitan area. The firm serves clients in the real estate, general construction, and volunteer fire and ambulance service industries.

Mark Tauber, president of Tauber Brokerage, and his employees will become part of the Hub International Northeast Ltd. in Brooklyn.

Find this article here:  http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2011/05/09/brown-brown-hub-announce-four-acquisitions