Merchants Insurance Group, a regional property and casualty insurance

Insurance

In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

 company headquartered in Buffalo, New York

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

, has been offering financial protection to individuals and businessowners since 1918. The company provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance

Casualty insurance

Casualty insurance, often equated to liability insurance, is used to describe an area of insurance not directly concerned with life insurance, health insurance, or property insurance. It is mainly used to describe the liability coverage of an individual or organization's for negligent acts or...

 throughout the Northeast and North Central United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The company has regional offices in Hauppauge, New York

Hauppauge, New York

Hauppauge is a hamlet and CDP in the Town of Islip and the Town of Smithtown in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population of the CDP was 20,100 at the time of the 2000 census....

; Manchester, New Hampshire

Manchester, New Hampshire

Manchester is the largest city in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, the tenth largest city in New England, and the largest city in northern New England, an area comprising the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. It is in Hillsborough County along the banks of the Merrimack River, which...

; Moorestown, New Jersey and Dublin, Ohio

Dublin, Ohio

Dublin is a city in Franklin, Delaware, and Union counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. The population was 41,751 at the 2010 census. Dublin is a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. Approximately 57,000 people live within the Dublin school district....

.

Merchants Insurance Group comprises three companies: Merchants Mutual Insurance Company, Merchants Preferred Insurance Company, and Merchants National Insurance Company. Merchants Preferred commenced business in 2007 to rebuild and expand its preferred-risk business after the sale of a like subsidiary, and Merchants National commenced business in 2009. Each of the Merchants companies are rated “A-” (Excellent) by the A.M. Best Company.

Merchants employs 323 insurance professionals throughout its operating territories, and works with more than 675 independent insurance agents. The company offers insurance in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, New Hampshire

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

 and Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

.

History

Merchants Insurance Group was founded on March 5, 1918, the day Merchants Mutual Liability Company opened for business with Urban F. Jehle as President. Mr. Jehle, owner and operator of a grocery store in Buffalo, returned from a grocers’ convention with the idea of bringing merchants together for the mutual protection of their delivery vehicles. J.R. Young, a local insurance man, Owen B. Augspurger, a Buffalo lawyer, and C.W. Brown, a civil engineer, joined with him.

In February 1957, Merchants began to offer both casualty insurance

Casualty insurance

Casualty insurance, often equated to liability insurance, is used to describe an area of insurance not directly concerned with life insurance, health insurance, or property insurance. It is mainly used to describe the liability coverage of an individual or organization's for negligent acts or...

 and property insurance

Property insurance

Property insurance provides protection against most risks to property, such as fire, theft and some weather damage. This includes specialized forms of insurance such as fire insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, home insurance or boiler insurance. Property is insured in two main...

 and changed its name to Merchants Mutual Insurance Company to reflect this development. In the 1960s the company moved into its current headquarters, a five-story office building located on Main Street in Buffalo.

Philanthropy

Merchants Insurance Group supports a variety of charitable causes for organizations in the communities in which it does business, most notably The United Way, American Cancer Society

American Cancer Society

The American Cancer Society is the "nationwide community-based voluntary health organization" dedicated, in their own words, "to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and...

, National MS Society, and Hospice

Hospice

Hospice is a type of care and a philosophy of care which focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's symptoms.In the United States and Canada:*Gentiva Health Services, national provider of hospice and home health services...

. The company’s employees are constantly active with community initiatives and give many hundreds of hours of volunteer time every year.

In addition to Merchants' direct financial support to many charitable organizations, Merchants also sponsors an employee-based committee known as Colleagues in Action (CIA). Colleagues in Action allows Merchants employees to participate in a variety of activities, raffles, auctions, and casual days, the proceeds from which are donated to charitable groups. In 2008, both Merchants and the CIA donated more than $100,000 to different charities in the communities in which the company operates.

Products

Merchants offers a broad line of products for commercial and personal insurance. The commercial lines products accommodate large and small retail operations as well as artisan contractors.

Merchants' insurance products are split into two broad segments:

• Personal Lines — Homeowners Insurance, Personal Auto Insurance, Personal Umbrella Insurance

• Commercial Lines — Business Owners Insurance, Auto Repair/Collision Repair Insurance, Contractors and Handyman Insurance, Commercial Package Insurance, Golf Course Insurance, Restaurant Insurance, Commercial Auto Insurance, Commercial Umbrella Insurance, and Workers Compensation Insurance.

Customer Service

In an industry where true product innovation is difficult and uncommon, Merchants has differentiated itself from its competitors primarily on the basis of service and automation. Merchants recently reorientated its service model around independent agents’ perspectives whereby service is tailored and delivered according to the agents’ needs (“customer focused”). This approach to service is referred to as “outside in”, as opposed to more typical “inside out” company orientations to customer service. The concept of "outside-in" was borrowed from the software industry, where "outside-in software development

Outside-in software development

Of all the agile software development methodologies, outside–in software development takes a different approach to optimizing the software development process. Unlike other approaches, outside–in development focuses on satisfying the needs of stakeholders...

" has enjoyed broad and growing popularity.

In support of the “outside in” service model, Merchants also restructured its back office processes and computer systems to provide its agents with accurate and immediate “real time” information about their mutual clients (policyholders and claimants). The "outside-in" approach to agent service has been an important factor in Merchants' revenue and profit growth over the past five years, as it has been for other organizations outside of the insurance industry.