Hub International Limited (Hub) entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Carrión, Laffitte & Casellas, Inc. (CLC), a full service insurance brokerage firm headquartered in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The acquisition represents the next phase of Hub's expansion in Latin America with the formation of Hub International Caribbean Holdings. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in October 2012. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
CLC will become a new regional hub doing business as Hub International CLC (Hub CLC). Jose Carrión, one of the founders and the president of CLC, his management team and other CLC employees will join Hub and continue operating out of their existing San Juan office and Hub's Miami area office.
Carrión will report directly to Neil Morrison, chairman, Hub International Latin America, CEO & president of Hub International Ontario and the former chairman of the Worldwide Broker Network.
With roots dating back to 2001, CLC is the largest independent brokerage firm in Puerto Rico. CLC serves the Puerto Rican market and clients located throughout the Caribbean, Latin America and the continental United States. Its diversified client base covers many industries, with a large concentration in the financial and construction sectors.
In other industry new:
The Aetna Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Aetna, bestowed a $130,000 grant on the New York-based Hispanic Federation. The funds will be used to launch the organization's pilot program that will engage Brooklyn teenagers in the drive to improve Latino health outcomes and reduce health disparities in the North Brooklyn community of South Williamsburg.
The initiative, called Youth Health Explorers, will train 36 Latino teenagers, aged 14 to 19, in the science of community mapping, on-the-street interviews and data analysis, to determine the environmental factors in their predominately Hispanic neighborhoods that can influence their communities' high rates of obesity, especially among young people.
The initiative's goal is to develop a significant pool of useful data to guide neighborhood health policies in South Williamsburg and coach young people to work with community leaders to address environmental factors that contribute to obesity. The teenagers will be trained in leadership, public speaking, and community mobilization skills. Upon completion of their analysis, they will present their findings to local public officials, community groups and civic organizations. When the pilot program is concluded, the Hispanic Federation hopes to expand the project to other communities across the country.
The Hispanic Federation expects the trained high school students to hit the streets during the first months of 2013 to begin their inventory of South Williamsburg's health assets and risks, such as recreational facilities, parks, community health clinics, hospitals, shops selling fresh fruit and vegetables, tobacco vendors, and fast-food restaurants, among others. Using GPS devices and Google Maps, the young researchers will be able to create high-tech, cartographic representations of their neighborhood's resources and impediments to good health, including of the number and accessibility of each.
The Hispanic Federation anticipates that the Youth Health Explorers' final report on the impact of South Williamsburg's built environment on residents' obesity rates and health to be completed in May 2013.
Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz Life) named Tom Spangler as senior director, Business Unit Controls Office, in the Operations division. In this role, Spangler will oversee the completion of operational changes required by federal and state regulations, internal and external examinations, as well as proactive risk management initiatives. In addition, he will be accountable for sustaining and maturing Operations controls. Spangler reports to Denise Settimi, vice president of Enterprise Operations Control.
Spangler joined Allianz Life in 2010 as a principal controls consultant in the Operations Controls department. Prior to that, he worked for The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. for two years as an assistant director in Operations Compliance, where he led a department of business unit compliance professionals. While there, he also held a role as a compliance consultant for four years.
