OSWEGO — Oswego Valley Insurance Agencies, LLC (OVIA) started 2016 with a new employee and hundreds of new accounts. OVIA acquired the Banach Insurance Agency of Pulaski in a transaction that took effect Jan. 1. The agency didn’t release any financial terms of the acquisition. OVIA handled a “little bit of brokering” with the Banach […]
OSWEGO — Oswego Valley Insurance Agencies, LLC (OVIA) started 2016 with a new employee and hundreds of new accounts.
OVIA acquired the Banach Insurance Agency of Pulaski in a transaction that took effect Jan. 1.
The agency didn’t release any financial terms of the acquisition.
OVIA handled a “little bit of brokering” with the Banach agency over the years, says Jim Poindexter, VP of OVIA Insurance Agencies, who works in its Brewerton office.
“We just had a gentleman’s agreement in place that we would get first right of refusal the day that she decided to pack it up and seek retirement,” he adds, referring to Cindy Banach, owner of the Banach Insurance Agency.
The final discussions accelerated last June, he adds. Poindexter spoke with CNYBJ on Dec. 29.
Cindy Banach is retiring, she said in an email response to a CNYBJ follow-up inquiry.
Banach founded Banach Insurance Agency in 1999 in Pulaski, according to the OVIA release. She has worked in the insurance industry for more than 40 years.
“It has been a fulfilling career and I have enjoyed owning my agency, making friends and taking care of our customers,” Banach said in a letter to her clients. “Being blessed with a long and happy career, I have decided to trust my good friends at Oswego Valley Insurance Agencies, LLC, with taking care of our clients and providing their knowledge and products.”
The letter went on to say that OVIA is purchasing the Banach accounts and moving them to its office in the town of Mexico.
OVIA is gaining about 1,200 accounts in the acquisition, says Poindexter.
Kathie Hoffman, who has worked for the Banach agency for more than 10 years, is joining the staff in the OVIA Mexico office, the letter said.
Hoffman is Banach’s lone employee, Banach said.
The addition of Hoffman brings the agency’s employee count to 23, including one part-time worker, according to Poindexter.
OVIA is no stranger to mergers and acquisitions. In December 2014, it announced the acquisition of the Bartlett Insurance Agency of Oswego.
And it appears OVIA will continue its acquisition activity in 2016.
“We are very close to picking up another smaller book of business from an agent up in Watertown, and that should be effective on April 1,” says Poindexter.
OVIA resulted from the 1997 merger of two “longstanding,” local insurance agencies that operated since the late 1800s. Dowd & Harrington, Inc. and Streeter & VanSanford, Inc. merged to form OVIA.
The firm currently operates six offices in Oswego, Onondaga, and Jefferson counties, with locations in Oswego, Fulton, Phoenix, Brewerton, Mexico, and Clayton. The offices serve more than 10,000 clients.