Spokane insurance industry veteran Jim Dinneen has launched an independent insurance brokerage here, named Inland Insurance Inc., after having bought the local assets of New York City-based Willis Group Holdings Ltd.


The new agency, which for now employs nine people, has taken over a 5,600-square-foot, eighth-floor space in the Washington Mutual Financial Center, at 601 W. Main, that Willis had occupied until ceasing operations here July 1.


Inland Insurances main focus is commercial insurance, through which it caters to the construction, manufacturing, and retail industries, among others, but it also offers personal lines of insurance, Dinneen says.


Were just trying to bring back the local service, says Dinneen. We were with a large corporation for years, so weve had all of those experiences, and we just want to bring those dollars back to town.


Willis, the worlds third largest insurance broker, had entered the Spokane market only about six months earlier with hopes of stealing market share away from Marsh, a unit of the worlds largest broker and risk manager, Marsh & McLennan Cos., also based in New York. Willis hoped to fill a perceived market void here created by regulatory woes, corporate restructuring, and staffing reductions that Marsh was going through at the time, and by the then-pending sale of Marshs operation here to Chicago-based Acordia Inc.


Curtis Taylor, Marshs top executive here, jumped ship to go to work for Willis, as did Dinneen and several other Marsh employees. Willis had said it would commit millions of dollars to establish a presence here, but then decided suddenly to get out of the Spokane market, reportedly as part of a broad strategic shift away from smaller population centers. That shift reportedly has resulted in closure or sharp cutbacks of Willis operations in Boise, Seattle, Portland, and Eugene, in addition to the closure of the office here.


A New York-based spokesman for Willis couldnt be reached for comment regarding the companys reasons for leaving the Spokane market so abruptly, or regarding its regional market strategy. However, a brokerage executive here who was close to the goings-on and who asks not to be identified says he thinks the attempted raid on Marshs personnel and client base here probably wasnt as successful from the outset as Willis had hoped it would be.


Willis was led to believe that if you cut the head off the dragon, the whole dragon will be slayed, which didnt prove to be the case, the executive asserts. I think Willis looked at the capital they had put into that, the potential for growth and came to the conclusion this was a giant sucking sound, and it wasnt going to get filled any time quickly.


Taylor recently was named chief marketing officer for First Choice Health Network Inc., the Seattle-based hospital- and physician-owned company that provides health-care services to nearly 1 million health-plan members across the region.


Im really enjoying it. Its a great company, Taylor says, noting, though, that he and his family still live in Spokane, where he remains active in business and civic groups.


Taylor had been with Marsh here since November 2002, before which he was the Spokane-based general manager and senior vice president for Premera Blue Cross, one of Eastern Washingtons largest health-plan providers.


After agreeing to head up Willis new operation here, he had said he expected that operation to grow to 25 to 35 employees within a year and to reach $50 million in annual premium billings within five years.


Reflecting now on how he never got an opportunity to achieve those goals, Taylor admits he was shocked when Willis decided to pull out, but says, Our careers are a journey. You just have to roll with it.


He adds, It started out real well, with good intentions, from Willis as well. Their business strategy changed just real suddenly.


They decided that the nonmetropolitan markets were not where they wanted to do business any longer. We were one of those unfortunate victims of business circumstances.


Taylor says his main concern was for the former Marsh employees who joined him to establish the Willis office, but he notes that Willis treated the employees well as it prepared to close the office, and says, Everybody who worked at that office has landed on their feet.


Dinneen says he was able to keep his own accounts when he left Willis, in addition to acquiring other assets from that company, and sees a lot of opportunity for Inland Insurance to grow. Compared with the high-volume focus of some major brokerages, We can serve those smaller needs of businesses and make money on them, he says.


Ive been in the business for 20 years, so I had a pretty substantial book of business, he says.


His new agency might be described more accurately as a reincarnation of an older one, because his father, Pat, had founded an insurance agency here, also initially called Inland Insurance Inc., in 1955. That agency did a lot of construction-related insurance business and became well known here, he says. Dinneen says he decided to bring back the Inland Insurance name as a tribute to his father, who died in 1983.


He says he started working for the business three years after his father died, after graduating from college. The agency was sold in 1989 to Fred S. James & Co., he says, and later became part of Sedgwick James of Washington. Marsh later bought Sedgwick, and then Acordia, a Wells Fargo subsidiary, bought the Spokane branch assets of Marsh.


The latest ownership change, which occurred five months ago, didnt affect a closely affiliated Mercer Health & Benefits LLC operation here that until last fall had been part of Marsh.


The Acordia office here offers property-and-casualty insurance. Acordia claims to be the worlds fifth largest insurance broker and the largest bank-owned insurance brokerage in the U.S., with more than 150 offices.


The Acordia and Mercer offices both are located on upper floors of the Washington Mutual Financial Center.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at kimc@spokanejournal.com.