Zurich acquires crop insurer

Zurich American Insurance Co. said on Friday that it has acquired Rural Community Insurance Agency Inc. and its subsidiary Rural Community Insurance Co. The two are collectively known as Rural Community Insurance Services.

Zurich paid Wells Fargo & Co. approximately $700 million for RCIS, Zurich said in a statement.

RCIS is a crop insurance provider, recording approximately $1.9 billion in gross written premiums in 2015. RCIS will operate as a stand-alone unit within Zurich North America Commercial’s programs & direct markets business unit, according to the statement.

“As we have worked over the last few months to complete this acquisition, farmers in much of the United States have been preparing for the spring planting season,” Mike Foley, CEO North America commercial and regional chairman of North America said in the statement. “During this time, we’ve had an opportunity to meet the people that make up RCIS and are proud to welcome them to the Zurich team. They bring a national distribution footprint with highly specialized agents and a strong service reputation, insuring one in six farmers in the U.S. We greatly respect their expertise and look forward to having them as colleagues.”