Titan eyeing new CNY sector after being acquired

Titan Insurance & Employee Benefits Agency, LLC could be reaching into a new sector in and around Syracuse after being acquired by U.S. Retirement Partners.

“The expansion to the Central New York market will be driven by two factors now,” says Eric Gilbert, Titan’s executive vice president. “We have what I call the corporate market. But we’ll now have the K-12 space.”

Rochester–based Titan was already working its way into the Syracuse area’s corporate market. In early 2012, it opened a branch office in Salina focused on finding clients in the region with 50 or more employees. But when Iselin, N.J.–based U.S. Retirement Partners acquired the firm in early December, it pushed Titan toward serving public employers as well.

The New Jersey company made Titan part of its U.S. Employee Benefits Services Group. A majority of that group’s clients are public entities like school districts.

Adding the K-12 sector has already led Titan to take on employees. It hired a regional business manager in Long Island and opened an office there. That brought its total number of employees to 16.

“When we were approached and acquired, there was a lot of desire on U.S. Retirement Partners’ part to expand their coverage of the K-12 market of employee benefits on the island,” Gilbert says.

Titan’s staffing growth isn’t over. The firm is looking for a regional business manager who would work from Central New York, or possibly Rochester. And, it needs to hire a person to replace a departed employee in Salina. Titan temporarily shuttered its Salina office at the end of September after its sole Central New York employee left the company.

The firm’s office in the Syracuse area will reopen, although it may not be in Salina, according to Gilbert.

“We’re going to open it back up,” he says. “We’re likely going to have two people there. We talked about going more downtown, so we’re looking around at some space.”

Titan hopes to conclude the search for a replacement for its previous Salina employee soon, Gilbert adds. Then it will likely hire the regional business manager at the end of the first quarter, he continues.

Neither Titan nor U.S. Retirement Partners disclosed the financial terms of the acquisition. Michael Gurowski, Titan’s founder, will remain with the company as its president.

Titan will also operate under its own name in all of its current markets, except Long Island. Its Long Island operations will be branded under the U.S. Employee Benefits Services Group banner, according to Gilbert.

“In the local markets, in what I would call the Thruway markets, Buffalo through Utica, we’ll continue to use Titan because of our brand presence,” he says. “In the K-12 market in Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, where we’ll be expanding quickly, it will be U.S. Employee Benefits Services Group.”

Gilbert declines to share revenue totals for Titan or its new owner. U.S. Retirement Partners has 24 regional partner firms and serves over 1 million clients.

Titan, founded in 2006, has more than 600 employer clients. In addition to its Rochester headquarters and Long Island office, it has an office in Canandaigua. The Canandaigua office is a satellite that Rochester–based employees typically use to meet clients, Gilbert says. Titan remains committed to expansion in Syracuse, he adds.

“Syracuse was looked at as a place to grow and build there and call a second home,” Gilbert says. “Our goal is to have a staff there and have a presence there.”

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com