Insurance Agencies

Insurance Agency Transactions

Insurance agency deal activity is thriving and our team’s experience is deep.

For more than a decade, baby boomers who spent a career building their insurance agency have taken greater advantage of the opportunity to monetize their investment by selling their agency. The market is brisk, the multiples are high, and selling an agency can provide a good opportunity to build wealth while continuing to work in a meaningful and lucrative way. While there are a number of similarities between selling an insurance agency and selling other kinds of businesses, there are sufficient unique features of selling an agency such that sellers should engage counsel that is specifically experienced in this arena.

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Effective Non-Piracy Agreements Protect Your Business

Effective Non-Piracy Agreements Protect Your Business PDF Screenshot

By Gary Miller and Matt Veech, BoyarMiller

Experience

BoyarMiller has decades of experience helping agents and owners of insurance agencies build and maintain the value of their businesses, especially in times of transition or sale.

Our senior deal team members have a long history in representing and selling agencies. We work alongside members of the merger and acquisition practice to build additional proficiency specific to the sale of insurance agencies. Recently, BoyarMiller’s insurance agency M&A team has handled transactions as small as a single owner as the primary producer to agencies with multiple offices, ten or more shareholders and numerous producers.

Our team assists agencies negotiating the sale documents and addressing the distinctive considerations of selling an agency such as:

  • Unique and significant earnouts and related post-closing payment opportunities
  • Equity of the acquirer as a portion of the purchase price
  • Non-piracy and non-competition elements, including insurance agent non-compete agreements
  • M&A referral bonuses

Relationships

We maintain excellent relationships with several top national investment bankers specializing in insurance agency acquisitions, and we work closely with the investment bankers and our clients to successfully complete the transaction.

We recognize the need for speed (minimizing the period the agency is in a period of transition) and for patiently explaining all aspects of the transaction to the sellers. We recognize that our clients have typically never been through this process before and it is among the most significant transactions of their careers. For over 30 years, representing insurance agencies in connection with their perpetuation, owner agreements, insurance agency mergers, and insurance agency sales has been an important part of our practice.

BoyarMiller is well positioned to handle the sale of an insurance agency in any of the fifty states. By partnering with the selling agency’s existing corporate counsel as it relates to any local issues, BoyarMiller can effectively provide insurance agency-specific knowledge across the United States.

Insurance Agency Representative Matters

Transactions Closed in 2021

Represented Heritage – RM (Lubbock and Amarillo) in connection with its sale to Alera Group

Represented Catto & Catto (San Antonio) in connection with its sale to HUB

Represented Toubin Insurance Agency (San Antonio) in connection with its sale to Acrisure

Represented Trusted Senior Specialists (Houston) in connection with its sale to Integrity

Previous Transactions

Represented TCA in connection with its sale to HUB

Represented Insurance Associates of the Southwest in connection with its sale to Higginbotham

Represented Upstream Brokers in connection with its sale to Acrisure

Represented Barmore Insurance in connection with its sale to Gallagher

Represented Integrity Transportation Insurance in connection with its sale to Gallagher

Represented Vecellio insurance Agency in connection with its sale to Gallagher

Represented Vela Insurance Agency in connection with its sale to TWFG Insurance Services

Represented John A. Bumstead & Associates in connection with its sale to Town & Country Insurance Agency (Cadence Bank)

On behalf of a major Texas-based insurance agency, drafted a successful brief in support of a temporary injunction. The court granted the injunction and prohibited the former employee from using confidential information the employee had removed from the agency’s computer system to operate a competing business.

Pursuing claims on behalf of a Texas-geoscience company against a crime insurance policy carrier. A former employee defrauded the company by stealing more than $2 million worth of iPhones and Blackberries. The carrier denied coverage under a commercial crime policy.

Won a unanimous jury verdict for one of Houston’s oldest title insurance agencies in a dispute with its landlord for breaching an exclusive use clause in the client’s lease. After a week in trial, the jury awarded the client a judgment for its damages, including attorney’s fees.

Represented Insurance Alliance and its shareholders in connection with the sale of the company to Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC. At the time of the acquisition, which closed in November, 2009, Insurance Alliance was one of the largest independent insurance agencies in Texas.

Represented GEM Insurance Agencies, a 60 year old Houston-based insurance agency, in connection with the sale of the business to BancorpSouth Insurance Services, Inc., based out of Tupelo, Mississippi.

Gary and his team worked tirelessly to make sure we succeeded in closing on time. Their knowledge and experience in insurance agency M&A proved to be invaluable. I can’t imagine ever going through the process without their help.

Jeff Neely IIIPartner - Co-CEO, NCW Risk ManagementCPCU, CIC

Gary Miller, Taylor Gaver, Jet McGuire and the entire BoyarMiller team provided us a lot of expertise and comfort during a very big deal for us, given that we have been in business since 1933. We took comfort in the entire team’s expertise, but we really valued Gary’s deep understanding of insurance brokerages. Gary knew a lot of nuisances and brought a lot of value and comfort to us as well as good advice. The team exhibited speed in helping us and a foundational understanding of what we needed during a stressful time. Everybody’s responsiveness was incredible to meet important deadlines and answering questions.

Jaimie HayneArea PresidentCatto & Catto, a division of HUB International Texas, Inc.

Following a recommendation, I retained the legal services of BoyarMiller to assist with the sale of my insurance agency. Particularly, Gary Miller possessed the necessary expertise and understood my requirements for any agreement to sale of my agency.

Gary was helpful and patient as we conducted various discussions and negotiations with prospective buyers. His experience was evident as he provided constructive advice which ultimately led to finding an appropriate buyer.

The valuable expertise and assistance of Gary, and firm associate Taylor Gaver, were instrumental in working out the agreement which led to the sale of my agency. Throughout these negotiations, Gary and Taylor were available daily and responded directly and professionally to my questions and concerns. They’re help proved invaluable to the successful sale of my agency.

I highly recommend BoyarMiller.

Jimmy Toubin

Insurance Agency Contacts

Gary Miller

Gary Miller

Lyndsay Fincher

Lyndsay Fincher

Taylor Gaver

Taylor Gaver

Jet McGuire

Jet McGuire