California-headquartered Inszone Insurance Services has continued its hot streak of acquisitions with the purchase of Coastal Insurance Services in Florida and affiliated Optimal Insurance Solutions.
The acquisition marks Inszone’s first step into the Florida market, the company said in a news release. Coastal Insurance was founded in 2008 by Rolando Gonzalez. He later established Optimal Insurance in Illinois, and the two agencies were combined in 2024.
The agencies’ teams are likely to remain in place under the Inszone ownership, the companies said.
Inszone, founded in 2002, led the country with 17 merger and acquisition deals in the first quarter of this year, according to OPTIS Partners. Read more here. Last week, Inszone announced it also had acquired Smith & Co. Insurance in Arkansas, and James Vozar agency in Michigan.
Inszone offers commercial and personal insurance coverage, as well as benefits.
Also in Florida, Shepherd Insurance announced it is moving its office from Sarasota to Pendery Place in the Bradenton/Lakewood Ranch area.
The Sarasota office saw the coming together of five agencies over the past 13 years through acquisitions, making the Bradenton move a natural next step in the firm’s long-term growth plan for the Florida market, Shepherd leadership said.
Shepherd, one of the larger U.S. agency groups, has its headquarters in Indiana and now has seven Florida agency offices.
Less than a month after former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle and his family died in a plane crash last year, investigators say two of their “friends” conspired to break into the empty home and took cash, guns and financial information in an attempt to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars.
More than 40 search warrants have been issued, authorities in North Carolina say, focusing on a married couple who allegedly knew Biffle and his wife Cristina. The suspects did “a lot of planning in an attempt to make a financial gain” off their deaths, Iredell County Sheriff Darren Campbell said. The Associated Press is not naming the pair because no arrests have been made.
Biffle, his wife and his two children, along with three others, died in the Dec. 18 crash, which remains under investigation by the NTSB. Some survivors of those killed are suing the estates of Biffle and the pilot for millions of dollars.
According to a search warrant affidavit, the husband being investigated met Biffle when the former driver used his private helicopter to deliver aid after Hurricane Helene. The woman attended a Christmas party at the Biffles’ home in Mooresville, North Carolina, weeks before the crash.
Authorities reported a break-in at the home on Jan. 8, saying $30,000 in cash, two Glock handguns and NASCAR memorabilia were stolen. Search warrants were later executed at two sites, one near the Biffles’ residence and another in a nearby county.
A person seen on surveillance video, identified as a woman, appeared to be familiar with the large home’s layout, including the locations of cameras, closets and a safe room, a detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit. The intruder spent nearly six hours inside the house the night of Jan. 7 into the following morning.
