World Insurance Associates Acquires Commercial Insurance Agency
Top 100 Insurance Brokerage, World Insurance Associates, expands its presence in the Greater Boston area with the announcement of its acquisition of the Commercial Insurance Agency (“CIA”).
“I’m happy to welcome CIA to the World family,” says Rich Eknoian, CEO and Co-Founder of WIA. “We look forward to increasing our client base in the Boston area, as well as expanding the offering of our products and services to the food service industry.”
Based in Belmont for over four decades
CIA was founded back in 1975 by George W. Ruggiero, Jr. Mr. Ruggiero, who has continued to run the agency since its inception, currently oversees its operations alongside Betsy Pridham. Together they have focused on building strong relationships with their clients, offering outstanding customer service and cutting-edge products unique to each industry. Included in their portfolio of clients you will find a focus on the food and hospitality business with emphasis on food processing, distributing, manufacturing and restaurants.
“No matter what the conditions, our focus is the customer and what they need. We work tirelessly to protect our insureds from an insurance and financial prospective. We treat their business and money like it is our own,” says Betsy Pridham, President, CIA.
According to the terms of the transaction, the Belmont agency officially joined WIA on May 1, 2022. No further terms of the transaction were disclosed.
Agency was the defendant in SJC case involving business interruption claims due to COVID-19
In an interesting caveat, it is worth noting that CIA was a defendant in the Supreme Judicial Court decision deciding that insurers had no coverage for business interruption claims under commercial property policies caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency had been sued by its insured because on one of the three policies the agency placed had a virus exclusion, while the other two policies had no such exclusion.
Ultimately the Court’s decision finding none of the policies provided coverage made the claim against Commercial moot. The Supreme Judicial Court decision issued on April 21, 2022, and the sale to World closed on May 1, 2022.
For those interested in revisiting this case, please see Agency Checklists’ article of April 26, 2022, “First State High-Court Covid-19 Decision On Business Interruption Claims.
