ABA Banking Journal - September 2007 - (Page 51)

Huntington and Sky: a combination play Insurance wasn’t the primary driver of last year’s acquisition of Sky Financial Group by Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bancshares. Yet the bigger Huntington— now at $53 billion assets—will certainly see rewards from having Sky on the insurance side of the house, notes Jerry Batt, CEO of Sky Insurance (to be rebranded as Huntington Insurance starting Jan.1). “Insurance has always been Sky’s strength, Batt explains. “From Huntington’s perspective, this addition to the team is a kind of happy, additional benefit to a deal that makes sense for many reasons.” Last year, according to Michael White Associates, then $17.6-billion assets Sky ranked number 18, with a total of $58,545 in insurance brokerage fees, up an impressive 224% from the year before. In the same period, legacy Huntington saw its insurance sales go from $2,636 to $14,887. Batt credits Sky’s strong performance in part to operating in multiple specialty areas, including directors & officers and maintenance & operations niches, as well as by selling professional liability insurance as part of an overall employee benefits program. Huntington brings to the mix specialty areas that include renter’s insurance. Batt knows the difficulty of culture blending, yet Sky, pre-merger, saw bank referrals go up 28%, which is a good base to fold in yet another new operation. Partly, Sky’s strong performance resulted from a use of scorecards that encouraged both individual performance accountability and lead sharing between bank and insurance divisions. “The scorecards—and incentives aligned around them—have been a basis for creating a global culture,” the CEO explains. “It will allow us to go forward with Huntington and generate new business.” At a time of “soft” markets due in part to insurance industry profitability and its effects on premium pricing, Sky credits efficient roll-ups of legacy operations as a key aspect of success. “We’ve merged 24 distinct platforms onto a single system from AMS running on a mainframe,” the CEO says. Information is more accurate and delivered much more quickly. “Reports that used to take weeks can be obtained in minutes.” Batt says the accounting staff alone used to be three times its current size. BJ Texas First nabs Houston-area construction In the outsized state of Texas, it seems that a small niche just can’t be found. Certainly, the one tied to construction was ample enough to give a boost to $600 million-assets Texas Independent Bancshares, Inc., of Texas City, which hitched its star to the building boom and hasn’t seen it dim yet. Insurance has come along for the ride. In 2001 the BHC acquired the largest insurance agency in Liberty County, Rust Ewing, recalls Charles “Chuck” Doyle, chairman of Texas Independent. In Michael White’s report, the banking company was up 15.8% with $6.7 million in sales. People, process, and system realignments have all done their part to help Texas Independent succeed with insurance by snapping up market share in P&C insurance for real estate developers as well as providing a full range of employee-related policy types, including health insurance policies. In Texas Independent’s case, the system that helped bank and agency share client data and conduct organized selling came from Austin-based CRM provider, CoreTrack. “That’s certainly made cross referrals possible,” Doyle explains. As for getting insurance and bank people working together, Doyle says that process has taken years to forge. www.ababj.com/subscribe.html ABA BANKING JOURNAL/SEPTEMBER 2007 51 http://www.skyfi.com http://www.texasfirstbank.com https://www.huntington.com https://www.huntington.com http://www.strategixperformance.com http://www.strategixperformance.com http://www.ababj.com/subscribe.html

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ABA Banking Journal - September 2007

Contents Editor's Column Briefing: Why Money Sense is a Top Priority Briefing: Sleight of Mind Briefing: Snapshot: What the First Half Tells Us About the Second Half Briefing: ABA Resources ABA Chairman’s Position Briefing: Get Away and Get Ahead: ABA's Banking Leaders Forum Community Banking: Trim the Fat: Winning the "Battle of the Buck" Community Banking: Pass the Aspirin Cover Story: Meeting the Challenge of the "Unbanked" Bank Marketing: Don't Miss the Boom! On the Job: Time to Power Up Your Presentations? Insurance Sales: The Art & Craft of Cross Selling Tech Topics: The Price is Right? Tech Topics: Security: Protect Information First Tech Topics: Hackers for Hire? You Bet'cha Tech Topics: Case in Point: Tellers Scan, Too, at First Federal Compliance Clinic: Adverse Action Clarified The Economy Banker’s Mart To Advertise/Index of Advertisers

ABA Banking Journal - September 2007

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