Springfield News-Sun, published Sunday, Dec. 3, 2006

Assurant offices experience 'phenomenal' growth rate

The Atlanta-based company is Clark County's second largest employer and largest mail generator.

By Tim Bucey
Staff Writer

Miachel Lawson tells those who ask that he expects employment at Assurant Specialty Property to level off at around 1,600 employees.

He doesn't make that prediction with much confidence, however.

"I will tell you my crystal ball has a big crack inside," said Lawson, the vice president of the Springfield mortgage portfolio handling company.

It has grown so fast that Assurant ranks as Clark County's second largest employer behind Community Mercy Health Partners.

Assurant has 1,550 employees, making it the largest among public companies in Clark County, surpassing International Truck and Engine.

Community Mercy Health Partners has 2,435 full- and part-time employees. Third is International with 1,500, which includes 200 at Truck Sales Center and a number of employees who are headquartered here but serve International plants elsewhere. Clark County government employs 1,425.

Lawson predicts future employment levels with caution because the company's been wrong before in its forecasting. Like in 1999 when it purchased the Kissell building, assuming it was adequate to meet their needs for the foreseeable future.

A year later, Assurant announced plans to construct a three-building connected campus on Leffel Lane because it had outgrown the site at 30 Warder St. Plans called for enough office space to accommodate 1,250 employees at their new facility.

Oops.

"We are busting at the seams again," Lawson said.

To accommodate their phenomenal growth, on this day they hired another 29 people, they have expanded a second shift, which allows employees to share work stations. Assurant runs staggered shifts beginning at 6:30 a.m. and the last person turns out the lights at 12:30 a.m.

The Atlanta-based company generates $7 billion in annual revenue, ranking 306th among the Fortune 500 companies. Assurant Specialty Property is one of four divisions of Assurant, the others being Assurant Employee Benefits, Assurant Health and Assurant Solutions.

Springfield is one of 10 Assurant Specialty Property sites and the second largest behind Miami's 1,800-person office. Springfield is Assurant's third largest office behind only Milwaukee and Miami, Fla.

A walk through Assurant offices shows signage of various banks and lenders suspended from the ceiling and above rows of cubicles, signifying what groups service which lender.

Lenders find it more cost effective to outsource their portfolios instead of each one doing the labor-intensive paperwork in-house.

"Because of the volume, we are able to make the process go better, faster and more efficiently than what most of our lenders could actually do," Lawson said.

Lawson has been part of the growth since the beginning. He came to Springfield in 1984 to work for the Kissell Company, which was sold to Norwest Mortgage.

His last official job with Norwest was to determine the feasibility of outsourcing its hazardous insurance portfolios. He recommended the company outsource the work and chose American Security Group, now Assurant Specialty Property. By doing so, Larson outsourced his job to Assurant.

The local operation began with five employees handling 200,000 loans, renting space from Norwest. When Norwest closed its doors here in 1999, Assurant bought the building and hired its 132 employees, which brought the company's employment to 275.

Today, the company has 1,550 employees and handles 15,957,566 loans.

They generate 2.2 million pieces of mail monthly to the Springfield Post Office, average 243,000 customer service calls per month, have a $150,000 monthly phone bill, pay out $850 million in monthly insurance premiums and produce an annual payroll of $38.9 million.

Local postmaster Sue VanZant showed an eight-shelf, three-row cart which holds 500 letters in each of the 24 slots. Typically, three of those will be dedicated to mail for Assurant each day.

Letters are sorted into 31 accounts through Dayton's automation system, but Springfield personnel have to hand-sort magazines and large envelopes destined for Assurant. VanZant said Springfield postal workers spend about three hours per day on mail for Assurant.

No other local mail recipient comes close to matching Assurant's mail volume. In fact, it would take several of the next highest volume producers of mail to match Assurant's deliveries.

Copyright ©2006 Cox Ohio Publishing, Dayton, Ohio, USA. All rights reserved. Used with permission.