Texas Nonstandard Auto Insurer Placed into Receivership

A Travis County, Texas, judge has approved an order placing a Houston-based nonstandard auto insurer into receivership.

On Oct. 21, Travis County District Judge Tim Sulak signed the application by the Texas Department of Insurance to appoint a rehabilitator and place ACCC Insurance Company into rehabilitation.

While the order (Cause No. D-1-GN-20-006278) places ACCC and related entities into rehabilitation, it stipulates that it is not an order of liquidation and that the company has not been found to be insolvent. The order states, however, that the defendant, ACCC, “is in a condition such that further transaction of its business would be hazardous financially to its policyholders, creditors, or the public.”

Privately held ACCC is headquartered in Houston and in addition to Texas, the company offers its insurance products in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico and South Carolina.

ACCC has agreed to the rehabilitation order. The Texas insurance commissioner was named rehabilitator and Prime Tempus Inc. and Craig A. Koenig of Dripping Springs, Texas, have been appointed special deputy receiver.

The order restricts the company’s “current and former officers, directors, underwriters, managers and employees (including Jack Henry Ikenaga Jr., Philip James Bither, Ross Edward Bennett, Jr., Frank M. Paris, Mike Cameron Weaver, Robert Mark Sumners, Michael Sear, and Jose Daniel Saenz); owners and affiliates (including ACCC Holding Corporation, ACCC Claims Service, Inc., Best Texas General Agency Inc., Swift Premium Finance Company, Jack Henry Ikenaga, Jr., the Lutz Corporation, and Isthmus, Inc.); local recording agents, managing general agents (including ACCC General Agency Inc. and Freedom National Insurance Services Inc.), agents, third party administrators, representatives, associates, servants, adjusters, attorneys and accountants (including those acting in concert with them)” from conducting any type of business on behalf of the company.

ACCC Insurance is still in business. The company posted a notice on its website announcing the rehabilitation order, along with a link to a page containing frequently asked rehabilitation questions: https://tdi.texas.gov/lorc/documents/564acccicfaq.pdf.)

In an Oct. 16 emailed message to its producers, ACCC acknowledged that it has been in a “difficult financial situation” and notified its agents that the receivership/rehabilitation order was in the works. The message stated that the company would “work with TDI more closely” to facilitate a “long-term solution as quickly as possible.”

Legal documents related to the ACCC Insurance rehabilitation process may be found at this link: https://www.sdrtx.com/companies.asp.

In April 2019, TDI hit ACCC Insurance and ACCC General Agency with a $110,000 penalty for certain practices associated with its named driver policies that the insurance department found not to be in compliance “with all laws applicable to named driver policies.” (Order No. 2019 – 5916)

TDI’s 2019 Annual Legislative Report on Market Conditions showed that for 2019, ACCC Insurance ranked 18th in terms of market share for personal auto insurance in the state, though it only held a 0.96% share of the market. The company had $221,473,617 in direct written premiums for 2019 and an underwriting loss of $17,025,329, according to TDI’s market share report.

ACCC Insurance was approved in April 2020 for a loan of between $5 million and $10 million from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, according to the nonprofit news site ProPublica. The Texas Tribune reported in early July that 6,300 Texas companies had received loans of more than $1 million from the program aimed at boosting the economy after the coronavirus pandemic forced many companies to shut down, at least temporarily. Around 400 companies in Texas had received loans of between $5 million and $10 million at that time, according to the Texas Tribune.