Last year's $570 million acquisition of Roseland, N.J.-based Crump Group Inc., which effectively doubled BB&T Insurance Services Inc.'s wholesale revenues, helped this Southern bank-owned insurance broker leap two notches in Business Insurance's annual rankings of the world's largest insurance brokers.

BB&T's Winston-Salem, N.C.-based bank parent said at the time that it expected the transaction to add about $300 million in revenue. But the combined brokerage revenues surged 34.1% in 2012 to $1.48 billion from $1.10 billion in 2011. At the same time, wholesale revenues grew 108% to $637.8 million in 2012 from $307.3 million in 2011.

BB&T's gross revenue also grew by 33.6% in 2012 to $1.56 billion from $1.17 billion in 2011.

As a result of this growth spurt, Raleigh, N.C.-based BB&T holds the No. 6 spot in the 2013 ranking, surpassing both London-based Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group P.L.C. and Daytona Beach, Fla.-based Brown & Brown Inc.

Marty Mosby, Hernando, Miss.-based managing director at Guggenheim Securities L.L.C., who has been following BB&T for years, said “the beauty of that acquisition is that it expands their distribution channel and adds a new product to the mix.”

BB&T “focuses a lot on the regional agents, making sure they have a network, selling mostly (property/casualty) with other products mixed in. With Crump they picked up the wholesale business, a network of over 100 agencies that they can distribute product through, and they get life insurance, a product they can offer to their customers across the spectrum,” Mr. Mosby said.

“This was an interesting, strategic acquisition that fit into the puzzle to help the insurance business expand while also adding to revenues. They're not just adding a revenue stream, but adding a product and a distribution channel,” he said.

Because it took nearly a year to finalize the blockbuster Crump purchase, BB&T didn't make any other broker acquisitions during 2012, an anomaly for a firm that historically had grown by gobbling up other insurance producers.

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“We wanted to fully concentrate on the Crump integration and maximize the efficiencies we could get out of the acquisition,” said BB&T Chairman and CEO H. Wade Reece.

Though BB&T closed one office post-acquisition, the firm now has 6,402 employees in 117 offices across the United States, a 40% increase in head count from 2011.

John Howard, president and CEO of the Crump Group, became the head of BB&T's wholesale division, CRC Insurance Services Inc.

Crump Life, AmRisc L.P. and American Coastal Insurance Co. all report to Mr. Howard, CEO of wholesale/specialty.

Meanwhile, all of BB&T's retail operations report to David Pruett, that group's new CEO and vice chairman of BB&T. Mr. Pruett formerly was chief administrative officer and vice chairman. Karyn Hohmann, formerly senior vice president and senior administrative manager, was promoted to chief administrative officer.

Industry observers expect BB&T's sabbatical from growth by acquisition will be short-lived.

“Their ability to grow within all their business segments is a little bit finite. Maybe there is something within the Crump wholesale world that has some nice potential for them, maybe double-digit vs. single-digit growth,” said Timothy J. Cunningham, managing director at Chicago-based Optis Partners L.L.C., a financial and management consulting firm serving the insurance distribution industry. “I would not be surprised to see them back in the acquisition game given a more certain future with some stabilization in the economy and a better property/casualty insurance climate.”

Mr. Reece said his firm is now poised for organic growth in all lines, but especially in wholesale life insurance. Crump Life was the largest wholesale life insurance brokerage in the country, he said.

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“The life product is just so different from our heavy concentration in commercial property/casualty,” Mr. Reece said. “Different dynamics drive these products. Crump is uniquely positioned in that they do a lot of work with individual life producers, but they also have a huge institutional channel. They outsource their life insurance programs to Crump, which manages those for them. Our life insurance as a percent of total revenue is now 13% versus 1% pre-Crump.”

Last year, 4.7% of BB&T brokerage revenues came from organic growth versus 0.8% in 2011.

As a result of the 2012 acquisition of Crump as well as the 2011 acquisition of Irvine, Calif.-based Precept Group Inc., which provides health risk management and third-party administration services to self-funded midsize and large employers, BB&T now has “a very diverse yet complementary group of insurance distributors,” said Mr. Reece. “We are concentrating on each and every segment and want to grow each one based on their own business plan and what makes sense for that particular segment.”

Indeed, employee benefits revenue also grew nearly 24% last year to $156.7 million.

In addition to growing its self-insured employee benefits business in the midsize and large employer markets, Mr. Reece said BB&T also is reaching downmarket, developing a private insurance exchange that will sell insured products to smaller employer groups with as few as 50 employees and serve as an alternative to the government exchanges being set up under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.