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Talk of the bay

Merger helps insurer shed its bad name

By JEFF HARRINGTON
Published January 17, 2005

The name of QualSure Insurance Corp. took a beating in the Tampa Bay area the past couple of years, long before a four-hurricane season added to its stresses.

First, the Sarasota insurer alienated some when it took over thousands of windstorm policies in hurricane-prone parts of the Tampa Bay area and South Florida in 2002. At the time, the company made the audacious move of telling many of its policyholders they would lose windstorm coverage (forcing them into the more expensive state-run windstorm association) unless they agreed to move their property insurance to QualSure as well.

Then, in 2003, apparently realizing it had bit off too much, QualSure stopped renewing some customers' policies and refused to write new business in some hurricane-prone areas.

Any lingering damage to the company's brand name won't be a problem anymore.

Last week, QualSure's parent company, Fenlon Ventures of New York, said QualSure is being merged into another one of its subsidiaries, Sunshine State Insurance Co. of Ponte Vedra Beach.

QualSure has about 34,000 homeowners policies and Sunshine State has 26,000.

John Rogan, vice president of marketing with Sunshine State, said the merger, which has been approved by Florida regulators, has several advantages. The combined company company will be more efficient, better capitalized and offer better customer service, he said.

"It's expense-driven," he said. "You have two companies doing primarily the same thing."

As for the Sunshine State name winning out over QualSure: Rogan said Sunshine State might be "a more stable brand" but it was probably because most of the surviving management team comes from the Ponte Vedra Beach company.

[Last modified January 15, 2005, 00:09:04]