Two decades after its subsidiaries were deemed insolvent and 155 years after it was founded, one of the oldest insurance companies in the South has officially gone out of business.
Seibels Bruce & Company’s 128,000-square-foot office building in Columbia, South Carolina, designated as a historic city landmark, is now for sale, listed at $19 million, The State newspaper and reported.
The company was founded shortly after the U.S. Civil War by Edwin Seibels and J.B. Ezell, and was once one of the largest property-casualty insurers in South Carolina, employing some 1,200 people. It was considered one of the early innovators of online insurance data processing, offering services to insurance companies around the country and in Canada, according to the University of South Carolina’s state encyclopedia page.
But by the early 2000s, the company had run into financial and regulatory trouble. In 2005, its subsidiaries South Carolina Å˽ðÁ«´«Ã½Ó³» Co. and Consolidated American Å˽ðÁ«´«Ã½Ó³» Co. entered by state regulators, posted a $2.4 million deficit in its surplus, and was later declared insolvent.
The company also was embroiled in litigation after it was charged with writing workers’ compensation coverage for a company without authorization from the state Department of Å˽ðÁ«´«Ã½Ó³», the DOI and The State .
In 2002, an audit by the Federal Emergency Management Agency raised red flags and the agency banned Seibels from writing flood insurance. The company later evolved into more of an insurance services firm, providing business process outsourcing.
Another affiliated carrier, Gulfstream Property and Casualty Å˽ðÁ«´«Ã½Ó³», was domiciled in Florida. It was found to be insolvent and was liquidated in 2021.
On Dec. 30, 2024, shareholders of the privately held company voted to dissolve Seibels Bruce & Co., the Seibels Bruce Group Inc., Seibels Bruce Service Corp. and Seibels Bruce Specialty Inc., according to news reports. Nan Brunson was CEO of the company.
Photo: The Seibels building in Columbia, South Carolina. (South Carolina Department of Archives and History)
Topics Carriers South Carolina
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