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AmTrust Financial Services Inc.'s already rapid expansion in the small end of the California workers' compensation market is about to get another big boost.
The New York-based company on Jan. 22 unveiled its second acquisition to date in 2013, one that will lift it into the ranks of the top 20 California workers' comp insurers on a pro forma basis, according to SNL.
AmTrust announced Jan. 2 that it would purchase for an undisclosed amount the parent of First Nonprofit Insurance Co., a writer primarily of workers' comp and commercial multiperil coverage for the nonprofit market. Just 20 days later, the company said it would buy Sequoia Insurance Co. and its Personal Express Insurance Co. and Sequoia Indemnity Co. subsidiaries for approximately $60 million.
Based in Monterey, Calif., Sequoia Insurance writes a variety of commercial lines of business primarily consisting of workers' comp, commercial multiperil and business owners' coverage for small and midsized businesses through the combination of independent agents and an affiliated agency. The three companies combined to generate direct premiums written of $140.4 million during the trailing-12-month period ended Sept. 30, 2012, according to disclosures made on Schedule T of their quarterly statutory statements. California alone accounted for $123.3 million of that total, with Nevada's $7.6 million in premiums ranking a very distant second. The group also produced more than $1 million in direct premiums written in Arizona, Colorado and Utah during the 12-month period.
While line-of-business data is unavailable on a quarterly basis for carriers that...