The Arkansas Insurance Department on Thursday granted an agency license to Newman Insurance Agency in Hot Springs, and owner Bart Newman said Employers Mutual Casualty Insurance Cos. had agreed to contract with the new agency.
They are the first steps toward clearing up a mess left in the wake of an emergency action on Tuesday that suspended the licenses of Newman’s former employer, Alliance Insurance Group, and its owner, Berry Bishop. The AID’s order alleged that Bishop falsified more than $1 million worth of premium finance loans and failed to remit an additional $1.7 million in premium received from customers.
Alliance’s main office was in Arkadelphia, but it also operated an office in Hot Springs, where Newman had owned Douglass-Newman Insurance Agency before selling it to Bishop and becoming one of his employees.
For the time being, Newman said, he will be the sole owner of the new agency in Hot Springs, and he will employ two other agents who worked in the Hot Springs office, Ryan Browning and Ronnie Ralph.
Newman said he discovered financial irregularities at Alliance almost two months ago. He, Browning and Ralph had planned to buy Alliance’s Hot Springs business, while Bishop’s son-in-law, Nathan Price, planned to buy the Arkadelphia business and a satellite office in Prescott. The sale price, estimated at $1.8 million-$2 million, would have been used to make the insurance carriers whole.
But after Alliance license was suspended — a surprise to Newman, who had reported Bishop to the AID — the sale disintegrated. On Thursday, Newman was working to establish agency contracts with the various carriers that had contracts with Alliance, starting with EMC.
Price declined to talk to Arkansas Business on Tuesday, and on Thursday there was no answer at the number that has been Alliance’s main number in Arkadelphia. A banner with a new name, Price & Co., was hung outside the office on Wednesday, but no new license had been issued as of Thursday afternoon.