CAIC Holding Company Inc. Sells Surety Division to The Main Street America Group

CAIC Holding Company Inc. (CAIC) announced it has sold its surety division to super regional property-casualty insurance carrier The Main Street America Group.

The agreement is effective Jan. 4, 2010. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Luis Bordes, CAIC president, said, "We have decided to withdraw from the surety business to devote our managerial attention and resources into expansion of our personal lines division at a time when market conditions present us with the opportunity to achieve our long-term return on equity goal and other business objectives."

Brian Beggs, Main Street America's vice president of bonds, said, "This transaction is a win-win for Main Street America and CAIC. Main Street America continues to expand into new states like Texas that provide solid growth opportunities for our surety business. We look forward to providing the Lone Star State's surety market with the same high level of service and professionalism that our independent agent-customers have enjoyed in other states where we write surety."

Beggs added that two members of CAIC's surety team have joined Main Street America to head up its surety operations in Texas. Sterling Emens will be Main Street America's director of bond specialty underwriting and Veronica Rivera will be an agency development specialist. Both will be based in Houston.

Main Street America has been writing surety bonds since 1960. It is a full-service bond carrier, offering competitively priced contract/construction, fidelity and commercial bonds to a wide range of businesses and individuals. Main Street America has a bond capacity limit of up to $54 million per bond.

Main Street America will offer its new Texas independent surety agents ease of doing business via its Main Street Station state-of-the-art bonds processing system. Main Street Station will enable agents to order and process most surety bonds in minutes, right from their desktops.

Main Street America entered the Texas property-casualty market in 2008 when it began providing assumed reinsurance for homeowners business through managing general agents. About The Main Street America Group With roots dating back to 1923, The Main Street America Group is a super regional insurance company that operates six property-casualty insurance carriers: NGM Insurance Company, Old Dominion Insurance Company, Main Street America Assurance Company, MSA Insurance Company, Great Lakes Casualty Insurance Company and Grain Dealers Mutual Insurance Company. Based in Jacksonville, Fla., Main Street America offers a wide range of commercial and personal insurance products, as well as fidelity and surety bond products, to "Main Street" individuals, families and businesses throughout the United States.

With more than $800 million in premium written exclusively by 1,500-plus independent insurance agents, the 87-year-old company insures more than 600,000 policyholders in 24 states. A.M. Best Company rates The Main Street America Group as an "A" (Excellent). Main Street America is the founding company partner of Trusted Choice®, the global branding program of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America. For more information about Main Street America, please visit www.msagroup.com. About Commercial Alliance Insurance Company Commercial Alliance Insurance Company (CAIC), an insurance company headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a division of CAIC Holding Company Inc. CAIC is licensed in eight states, specializes in writing non-resident (Mexico), private passenger, commercial automobile, surety and Texas non-subscriber insurance since 1998. During 2009, CAIC expanded its product offerings to include personal lines insurance products, specifically non-standard auto and homeowners.

CAIC has assets of $25 million and is rated an A- (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company and is approved by the U.S. Department of Treasury (T-Listed) to act as surety on federal projects.

For further information about CAIC, please visit www.caicholding.com.