Specialty Program Group LLC Acquires Worcester Entertainment Broker ESP

Specialty Program Group LLC (SPG) announced that it has acquired Massachusetts’ ESP Insurance Brokerage LLC (ESP). Headquartered in Worcester, ESP is a national insurance broker and program administrator for the sports, events and promotion marketing and entertainment industries. Formed over five years ago, ESP has grown steadily in the sports and entertainment market.

With in-house binding underwriting and binding authority and A+ rated carriers, it offers niche solutions such as athletic insurance for teams/leagues, camps, and tournaments, insurance for entertainment, leisure and sports facilities, event liability and cancellation, prize indemnity, weather insurance, liquor liability and special event liability. In 2021, over 850,000 youth participants were covered by ESP and the firm had over $1.5B in insured limits covering special events of all types.

“ESP is on track to become a leading provider of coverage for the sports and entertainment industry,” said SPG President & CEO, Christopher Treanor. “They’re a nice complement to our portfolio of specialty companies and fit with our model of acquiring companies with niche expertise and a focus on customer service, including offering online services that make it faster and easier to get insurance coverage.”

“Simply stated we are here to build a winner for SPG. The team at ESP is beyond excited to join SPG and continue to scale both our product offerings, our service team and technological capabilities to clients. We weren’t looking to be acquired but in talking with Christopher Treanor and the SPG team they had a vision and a plan for the operation that made it impossible for us not to be part of the family on the go forward.”  said Chris Price, President of ESP Insurance Brokerage and SHEL Risk Purchasing Group.

A nationally licensed holding company run by former Marsh Exec.

For its part, Specialty Program Group, (LLC) is also a relatively new holding company that was formed in 2015. The company, led by President & CEO Christopher M. Treanor, was established “…to acquire and scale best-in-class underwriting facilities throughout North America.” In the last two years the company has made nine acquisitions totalling over $500 million in annual premium and now boasts 17 portfolio companies with more than $1.8 billion in premium