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Jim Wallace, who this month celebrates his first year as president and chief executive of GuideOne Insurance, is quietly steering his company back to familiar waters.
In doing so, Wallace - with the blessing of the company's board of directors - has abandoned a previous strategy that promised to quickly increase GuideOne's sales by acquiring new businesses in preparation for a public stock offering. That push cost the company "tens of millions of dollars" and led to losses for the past two years, Wallace said.
That buildup has been largely dismantled. Wallace has overseen the sale of two of the four businesses that GuideOne bought in the two years prior to his arrival from National Travelers Life Co., the West Des Moines-based insurer where he spent five years as president and chief executive.
A third business was sold shortly before he came to the company. California Millennium, the fourth and final unit, which is based in California and provides insurance to higherrisk individuals, "will be gone soon," he said.
He also has clamped down on spending, increased scrutiny before signing new clients and heightened the company's vigilance on claims. GuideOne's insurance premium prices have been raised an average of 18 percent, a step that most of the nation's insurers have taken following years of price cuts, a lackluster stock market and the losses following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.