TUPELO, Miss.--BancorpSouth Insurance Services, Inc., a subsidiary of BancorpSouth Bank, announced on Jan. 4 that it has acquired the property and casualty lines of Arthur J. Gallagher, Risk Management Services, Inc.'s Springfield, Missouri office. Financial terms of the Dec. 31 transaction were not disclosed.
The agency will operate as the Southwest Missouri Insurance Group, a division of BancorpSouth Insurance Services, Inc. SMI Group will continue to conduct business at its current Springfield location under the management of SMI Group President Chris Stack and associates Jim Morris and Jim Sanders. Existing staff is expected to remain.
Established in 1958 as the Jim Morris Sales Company, the agency has operated on both a local independent agency level and more recently on a national/international brokerage level as an office of Arthur J. Gallagher, Risk Management Services, Inc.
BancorpSouth Chairman and CEO Aubrey Patterson said, "This acquisition provides our company with the opportunity to continue expanding our successful insurance brokerage business. We already have a strong presence in the Springfield and St. Louis market areas through our existing commercial banking operations. This latest addition to our insurance line of business provides the opportunity to offer our clients in these market areas an even greater depth of financial services."
BancorpSouth Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of BancorpSouth, Inc. a financial holding company headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi. BancorpSouth Bank operates approximately 290 commercial banking, mortgage, insurance, trust and broker/dealer locations throughout the southern states, including its Arkansas insurance division, Ramsey, Krug, Farrell, its Louisiana insurance division, Wright & Percy and Lensing, its Mississippi insurance division, Stewart Sneed Hewes, in addition to divisions in Alabama, Florida, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas.
