Organic 100

It’s that time of year again, when the nation’s leading privately held independent insurance agencies are put in the spotlight. Welcome to Insurance Journal‘s exclusive Top 100 Independent Property/Casualty Agencies list.

These leading agencies have weathered the bad economy and the prolonged soft insurance market. Most have made considerable gains despite challenging conditions.

And they have managed to grow in the soft market — the hard way!

The vast majority (71 percent) of privately held independent agencies that compose the 2011 Top 100 managed to grow their total P/C premium written in 2010 compared to 2009.

In fact, eight agencies on the 2011 Top 100 list even managed to grow premium volume by 20 percent or more in 2010 over 2009.

Top gainers in terms of growth in total P/C premium written in 2010 over 2009 include: Bollinger Inc.; Confie Seguros; Barney & Barney LLC; Higginbotham & Associates; United Valley Insurance Services Inc.; Propel Insurance; AssureAlliance Inc.; and TIS Insurance Services Inc.

Some agencies that reported significant increases in premium volume in 2010 managed to do so by acquiring other agencies. That’s not unusual.

But surprisingly nearly one-fifth of all agencies in the Top 100, or 19 percent of this year’s Top 100, reported significant gains based mostly on organic growth. These 19 agencies reported that 76 percent to 100 percent of their agency P/C premium volume growth in 2010 was due to organic growth, and not growth through acquisitions.

That’s not an easy task in even the best of markets but it’s especially difficult given the continuing soft pricing in most lines of P/C insurance.

The 19 agencies that managed to increase P/C premium volume mostly through organic growth in 2010 included: Lockton Cos.; Leavitt Group Enterprises; The IMA Financial Group; GreatFlorida Insurance; Smart Choice; Houchens Insurance Group; EPIC Insurance Brokers; McQueary Henry Bowles Troy; Sterling & Sterling Inc.; United Agencies Inc.; Gowrie Group; Brightway Insurance; North Florida Agents Network; Insgroup Inc.; Oklahoma Agents Alliance; Schiff, Kreidler-Shell Inc.; SAN of Florida / Comegys Insurance Agency; TIS Insurance Services Inc.; and Cook, Hall & Hyde Inc.

For too many agencies, the growth strategy of the past few years has been to either grow through acquisition or just sit and wait until the next hard market comes along — if that can even be called a growth strategy.

These Top 100 growers remind us that there is another way to grow, a way that depends on working hard and smart to make things better, while others are just waiting for things to get better.