AmWINS Acquires N.C. Quaker Special Risk

Charlotte, N.C.-based American Wholesale Insurance Group (AmWINS), a large independent wholesaler, has acquired the southeast office of Quaker Special Risk. AmWINS provides retail agents with insurance services, from property and casualty to group life and health. It sold policies with a premium value of about $1.4 billion in 2003. Quaker, which handled about $80 million in premium volume last year, has been renamed AmWINS Brokerage of the Carolinas.

AmWINS started talking to Quaker Special Risk, headquartered in New Jersey, about its Charlotte office last year and closed the purchase yesterday. Quaker’s 23 workers in Charlotte will work for AmWINS.

“As we saw AmWINS coming together, we thought it was an excellent opportunity,” said Doug Sanders, formerly the regional vice president of Quaker Special Risk said. Sanders is now president of AmWINS Brokerage of the Carolinas. “This is going to give us more of a national platform and it will improve our ability to grow and place business.”

“Quaker was a logical fit for us,” Steven DeCarlo, president and chief executive of AmWINS said. “We wanted to expand in the Southeast so for me, it (Quaker) made sense from an acquisition perspective.”
The transaction was mainly cash with some AmWINS stock. DeCarlo declined to disclose the price.

“This acquisition will enable us to expand our brokerage footprint in the southeast,” DeCarlo said. “The addition of the Charlotte operation builds on our commitment to provide retail agents and brokers access to product and market expertise through highly skilled wholesale brokers.”

DeCarlo describes the wholesale insurance sector as a “quiet part of the insurance industry and boring, too,” which gives insurance retailers access to markets they otherwise can’t reach. Companies such as AmWINS act as middlemen between insurance agents and insurance carriers, giving agents access to specialty insurance products, such as policies on the hurricane-prone Carolinas coast.

AmWINS, is 60 percent owned by its management and 40 percent by a private equity firm, Pegasus Capital Investors, in Cos Cob, Conn. It has grown from four offices in 2001 to 26 today. It has more than 500 employees, including 20 in Charlotte. It has offices in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Virginia.