FIRST Insurance Funding

FIRST Insurance Funding is a premium finance company based in Northbrook, Illinois, that finances commercial property and casualty insurance premiums, working with insurance brokers, agents and their clients. Premium finance lets a business pay for its insurance in installments rather than as one up-front sum: the lender pays the insurer, and the insured repays the loan over the policy term. The company's annual commercial property and casualty loan volume has grown from $400 million in 1997 to over $16 billion.

Besides property and casualty financing, FIRST offers billing and payment solutions, personalized rates and terms for agencies, financing for life insurance premiums and solutions for Canadian agencies and insureds. It also provides tools such as FIRST Insite that are designed to make things easier for agencies and their insureds. A broader product range lets an agency route more of its premium financing through a single provider, reducing the number of lender relationships it has to manage.

The company works through intermediaries, serving many large regional and national brokers as well as middle market insurance agencies nationwide, supported by a team of 35 Relationship Managers. Selling through brokers is common in premium finance, because financing is usually arranged when a policy is placed. It also has exclusive partnerships with several insurance industry associations.

FIRST was incorporated in 1990 and has kept the same ownership and management structure since then. It employs over 200 service professionals. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wintrust Financial Corporation, a publicly traded, diversified financial services company (NASDAQ: WTFC) with assets of more than $65 billion. For a lending business, ownership by a large financial group can provide access to a substantial balance sheet to fund its loans.