AUI’s roots go back to 1976 and a small family-owned retail agency in East Tennessee. In 1996, the slogan Business Made Easy was adopted and Appalachian Underwriters, Inc. was formed. This was done in reaction to a market opportunity to offer Workers’ Compensation programs to small, under-served rural agencies on an MGA/wholesaler basis. The focus was on small, tougher class accounts using easy and accurate automation so agents could self-serve their quotes online.

Although the past few years have been hard for many, AUI has navigated these challenging times by being nimble and providing a broad product set to their national agency base. “We started as a small mom and pop organization, offering coverage in our local community. We are committed to finding the right markets for new products and increasing capacity for our existing products.” said Bob Arowood, AUI president. “Our diversity has provided our organization with a nationwide platform into various markets that we otherwise wouldn’t have had access to.”

Arowood went on to say, “We have been blessed these twenty-five years to expand to a nationwide insurance wholesaler, providing tools and resources to over 34,000 agencies, both local and national. As we enter a new digital age, we are preparing to launch AUI Digital; a new and improved way for our agents to provide the best coverage possible in the simplest and quickest way imaginable.”

Appalachian Underwriters, Inc. has been awarded Insurance Business America’s Five-Star MGA award for the past five years (2016-2020) as well as being ranked fifth Largest MGA by Business Insurance (2016-2018).