Business Moves – South Central

Mission Select Insurance Services

A new managing general agency — Mission Select Insurance Services LLC — has been formed in Texas with a focus on residential property.

Mission Select, based in Argyle, was formed with the backing of San Diego, Calif.-based K2 Insurance Services LLC, which invests in MGAs across the country.

Mission Select will underwrite business on behalf of highly rated insurers, marketing insurance coverage through Texas independent agents, according to the announcement.

Residential properties covered may range from tenant-occupied properties to half-million-dollar owner-occupied homes.

Mission Select will not impose credit scoring in evaluating properties and is focusing on residential properties in non-coastal areas. Expansion to additional areas and to other personal lines of insurance is expected in the future.

The company’s co-founders include Dave Lacefield, president of the new firm, and Chief Financial Officer Ashley Hunter.

A veteran of the insurance industry, Lacefield began his career as a homeowners’ insurance pricing analyst at USAA in 1977. Most recently he was executive vice president of National Lloyd’s Insurance Co. in Waco, Texas. He has also held executive positions with insurers GeoVera Insurance Holdings and Texas Select Lloyds Insurance Co., as well as earlier positions with CIGNA Corp. and Kidder, Peabody & Co. A member of the Casualty Actuarial Society and the American Academy of Actuaries, he recently served as vice chairman of the board of the Southwestern Insurance Information Service.

Hunter, a Certified Public Accountant, founded Hunter Alliance Group, which provides accounting and administrative consulting services to insurance firms. He has also held positions with insurance broker Aon Corp. and with accounting firms Ernst & Young and James Howard & Associates.

The Woodlands Financial Group

Texas-based The Woodlands Financial Group (TWFG) has expanded its network, adding new branches in multiple states. Many of the new branch managers are former “captive agents,” who are joining TWFG as a result of new programs that offer splits ranging as high as 80/20 for full service branch owners. The company is also offering a “managing general agent” and “referral program” as options, along with “sales only” branches with a 60/40 split.

Adding more than 200 agents this summer, TWFG’s insurance services consortium of privately-owned and affiliated branches now has 285 retail branches in 20 states and 2,200 independent agents in 38 states.

TWFG writes policies in 49 states from its headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas.

New branches now operating under the TWFG banner include:

• California: Helayne Warschaw, Ventura; Peyling Yap, San Mateo; Mimi Ooi, Sunnyvale; Veronica Gutierrez, Soledad; Loretta Bentley, Lomita; Thomas Snipp, Fontana; Joe Wijono, Fullerton
• Delaware: Elaine Halsted, Wilmington
• Illinois: Debi and Don Moore, Quincy
• Louisiana: Pat Morris, Baton Rouge; Charles Loescher, Chalmette
• Oklahoma: Katie Cannon, Shawnee
• Pennsylvania: Matthew Clay, Jenkintown
• Tennessee: Valerie Edwards, Bartlett
• Texas: Mark Brown, Sherman; John Janese, Keller; Marshall Jackson, Longview; Patrick Nganga, Dallas; Francisco Marroquin, Porter; Iris Pinkerton, Houston
• Virginia: Ethan Krash, Glen Allen

Lockton Dunning Benefits, Excelsior Solutions

Lockton Dunning Benefits, a Dallas-based employee benefits consulting company, has acquired Excelsior Solutions, a pharmaceutical and healthcare consulting company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn. The Excelsior Solutions acquisition strengthens Lockton’s existing pharmacy benefits consulting expertise.

Former Excelsior Solutions President Kenneth Dowell joins Lockton Dunning Benefits as senior vice president and chairman of the Lockton Pharmacy Analytics Advisory Board.

Founded by a group of industry veterans, Excelsior Solutions has successfully provided prescription benefit management consulting, claims evaluation and management, specialty drug management and Medicaid/Medicare consulting for health plans, managed care companies, pharmacies and PBMs representing more than 16 million lives.

The transaction was completed Oct. 1. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Excelsior Solutions will retain its name in the immediate future. The combined operation employs 192 associates.