United Fire expanding into four new states

United Fire Group has typically expanded into new states when it has acquired an insurer that already was writing policies and had a presence in the area.

That changed in 2015 when the Cedar Rapids-based insurer decided to begin doing business in Ohio, one of four states where it plans to begin offering insurance policies.

'We have traditionally not entered states where we have to start from scratch, but these four states are surrounded and there's really no way to grow by acquisition,” said Randy Ramlo, United Fire Group president and CEO, at the company's annual shareholders meeting Wednesday. 'We're going to grow our business there organically.”

In an interview after the meeting, Ramlo said the company began writing insurance policies in Ohio in September and ended the year with $1 million of premiums.

'Our marketing department was able to get our name out there in advance and we did a good job of rate review, knowing what we had to beat to be competitive and not too overly competitive,” Ramlo said. 'We hired some good marketing and underwriting people before we had anything on the books.

'They recommended some of the top agencies in the area and we offered a couple of things that the state didn't have.”

Ramlo said Kentucky will be next, followed by Michigan and Washington state.

United Fire Group finished 2015 with premiums of $927 million, up 10.5 percent from 2014, and annual revenue of $1 billion for the first time in its 70-year history. Ramlo said the company expects to record property and casualty insurance premiums in excess of $1 billion this year.

In 2010, United Fire Group announced plans to enter the small business insurance market. Ramlo said a pilot project with about a dozen agents has been successful and he expects to see more small business policies written in the second half of this year.

Ramlo said work is expected to begin in the third or fourth quarter of this year on remodeling of the 10-story American Building at First Avenue and Second Street SE as well as construction of a new 10-story addition. The company bought the American Building in 2014.

United Fire Group shareholders on Wednesday elected Sarah Fisher Gardial to the company's board of directors. Gardial, dean of the Henry B. Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa, will serve until 2018.