Hub Financial expanding

Halifax businessman Doug Curren’s Banco Management is selling off its main assets in its insurance industry to a Canadian subsidiary of U.S.-based Hub International for an undisclosed amount.

The deal means Hub Financial, which has three employees at its office in the Burnside Industrial Park in Dartmouth and a team of advisers throughout the Maritimes, is adding another roughly 20 people.

“This is a good way for us to grow our footprint in that market,” said Terri Botosan, president of Hub Financial, in an interview Tuesday.

“We intend to keep everyone.”

In Canada, there are four big players in the managing general agent segment of the insurance industry — Financial Horizons Group, IDC Worldsource Insurance Network, PPI, and Hub International — which have been gobbling up smaller companies in a round of mergers and acquisitions.

This latest deal, which closed Sept. 1, was driven by Banco Management, feeling the pressure of keeping up with the latest innovations in the insurance industry.

“It’s a changing environment in the insurance industry with technology,” said Curren. “Staying competitive is a huge investment.”

According to him, Hub Financial will help Banco Management’s local insurance advisers by providing them with such things as the latest and most effective customer relationship management systems and needs assessment software.

In the managing general agent segment of the insurance industry, advisers ink deals with clients to get them coverage from insurance companies.

These are essentially sales contracts, receivables that comprised the bulk of Banco Management’s assets.

It’s those contracts which Hub Financial bought.

Banco Management’s owners still retain their other assets, which also were not disclosed during Tuesday’s announcement, but there are so far no firm plans as to how the company will proceed going forward.