This is going to be complicated, but I'm looking for some help on how to move forward. I currently have an independent agency and I'm trying to buyout another one. In an ideal situation I would like to acquire it and do away with the name and merge it into my existing agency. We are in a relatively small town, so no need to keep two offices. Here are the problems
1: The guy I'm buying the agency from has an agency in the same town as mine and also a very small one in a town about 15 miles away. He is elderly and his daughter runs the small one. Each agency has separate names, however he's been running everything through the larger agency that I'm trying to purchase (for contengency reasons). So since he wants to continue the other agency we have to get all companies to agree to additional appointments, which besides Travelers we have been able to do that. Since Travelers won't do any appointments were going to have to roll all that business elsewhere. So my first option was to go ahead and do a buy sell agreement effective 1/1/15 and manage the agency 100% in the meantime with the main goal to move all the Travelers business by that date. Or go ahead and bite the bullet and make the sell final at the end of the year and try to move it all under the new name. Then there is the issue of the smaller agency, the seller is afraid he may not be able to meet the in force premium with the companies and may lose some down the road. He currently has an agreement with a third party that has given him direct access to companies which has helped him build up the larger agency. They don't really want to stay on with just the smaller agency and I'm not interested.
My only thought was to possibly buy both agencies, the smaller one would just be considered a branch office and I would need it to function all on its own. I don't want to be involved in it at all. It needs to have its own name and own address. No one really even needs to know that I own it besides the companies. Is this possible, does anyone have any dealings with something like this?
1: The guy I'm buying the agency from has an agency in the same town as mine and also a very small one in a town about 15 miles away. He is elderly and his daughter runs the small one. Each agency has separate names, however he's been running everything through the larger agency that I'm trying to purchase (for contengency reasons). So since he wants to continue the other agency we have to get all companies to agree to additional appointments, which besides Travelers we have been able to do that. Since Travelers won't do any appointments were going to have to roll all that business elsewhere. So my first option was to go ahead and do a buy sell agreement effective 1/1/15 and manage the agency 100% in the meantime with the main goal to move all the Travelers business by that date. Or go ahead and bite the bullet and make the sell final at the end of the year and try to move it all under the new name. Then there is the issue of the smaller agency, the seller is afraid he may not be able to meet the in force premium with the companies and may lose some down the road. He currently has an agreement with a third party that has given him direct access to companies which has helped him build up the larger agency. They don't really want to stay on with just the smaller agency and I'm not interested.
My only thought was to possibly buy both agencies, the smaller one would just be considered a branch office and I would need it to function all on its own. I don't want to be involved in it at all. It needs to have its own name and own address. No one really even needs to know that I own it besides the companies. Is this possible, does anyone have any dealings with something like this?
