Marsh expands Texas operations with Wortham Insurance acquisition

Marsh has agreed to acquire Houston-based independent broker Wortham Insurance, with transaction expected to close in the third quarter of 2018.

Wortham has over 530 colleagues based in its Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio offices.

The broker is a provider of property/casualty insurance, surety, personal lines, and employee benefits advice and solutions across the US, with particular expertise in energy, power, construction, and retail sectors in addition to managing several specialty programmes.

Among the services Wortham's account service teams provide include single-parent and group construction captive insurance programmes. Wortham also assists clients on where a healthcare captive can meet their requirements through feasibility analysis.

This deal expands Marh's footprint in Texas to include the Austin and Fort Worth markets and will merge its existing operations in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, New Orleans and Tulsa with Wortham.

The combined business will operate as Marsh Wortham, with Richard Blades - the current chairman of Wortham - as its CEO.

Blades will report to Martin South, president of Marsh's US and Canada division. He will also serve as chairman of Marsh's energy and power practice in the US.

“Wortham Insurance is an outstanding firm with a reputation for creating lasting client relationships and deep risk expertise,” said John Doyle, president and CEO of Marsh. “Together with Wortham’s well-respected management team and colleagues, we will deliver market-leading risk and insurance solutions to businesses and individuals.”

South added: “Marsh and Wortham are very similar in terms of our approach to business, ability to form deep client relationships, and our values. The combination of our firms in this vital US region will deliver greater value to clients, colleagues and prospects through an enhanced value proposition, strong risk expertise particularly in the energy sector, and unparalleled client focus and service.”

Blades commented: “Joining Marsh, a firm that shares our strong client-focused values, is great news for both clients and colleagues. Wortham’s clients will continue to work with their existing service team including having the flexibility to utilise their existing international brokers while gaining the benefit of access to the wide range of global capabilities and product offerings of Marsh.

“Clients and colleagues will benefit from Marsh’s commitment to helping clients anticipate and meet the challenges of changing times and technologies. I look forward to leading Marsh Wortham with an entrepreneurial spirit in providing outstanding local service, while bringing our collective world-class expertise to businesses and individuals across the region.”