Brown & Brown Purchases HBA Insurance Group

Thomas Riley, regional president of Brown & Brown Inc., William Beckham, president, and Ernesto Freyre, Jr., chairman of HBA Insurance Group Inc. of Miami, Florida, announced the asset acquisition of HBA Insurance Group Inc. by a subsidiary of Brown & Brown Inc.

HBA Insurance Group, with annualized revenues of approximately $18.6 million, is an insurance agency with operations in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Vero Beach, Florida. HBA Insurance Group is the product of a 1999 merger of two well-established south Florida agencies -- Head Beckham Insurance Agency, which was founded in 1932, and Amerinsurance which began in Miami in 1961 but has family business origins dating back to 1910 in Cuba.

Bill Beckham, Tito Freyre and their team will continue to operate from their existing locations as new, freestanding Brown & Brown profit centers under the name "HBA Insurance Group."