Charting Courses

Engagement Labs, a technology and data company, has ranked the top ‘Total Social’ insurance companies in the U.S. based on online and offline conversations. Here are the top five Total Social insurance companies in the U.S. as well as the top five Total Social insurance companies based on only offline and online performance.

When analyzing the data, the Company found that the insurance industry is effectively driving online conversations, indicating a sharper focus on social media strategy. However, the brands are suffering from lower sentiment when compared to other financial industries, bringing to bear the industry’s need to focus on developing marketing campaigns to spread positive word of mouth.

Paul Cohen, Property Casualty Bureau Supervising Insurance Examiner, has retired from the DFS after a career  spanning more than 51 years! Paul came to the then Insurance Department on June 10, 1965 (two weeks before
me and I retired 17 years ago). Thought you might want to include a blurb on that because that’s either the all-time record or second best in terms of length of service (some believe a Dottie Wilson who started at the Department
during WWI may have served a year longer).

The number of insurance agency mergers and acquisitions in the first half of 2016 ranked as second-most-active six-month period according to OPTIS Partners, which began tracking M&A transactions in 2008. There were 232 announced deals over the period, one fewer than the 232 done in the first half of 2015, according to OPTIS Partners’
M&A database. The database covers U.S. and Canadian agencies selling primarily property-and-casualty insurance,
agencies selling both P&C and employee benefits, and those selling only employee benefits. Agency M&A activity has climbed steadily over the past four years, other than the spike at the end of 2012 and related drop in early 2013 related to the tax-law change, OPTIS notes.