NU Online News Service, Dec. 17, 11:11 a.m. EST

Wells Fargo, BB&T, and BancorpSouth were cited forexceptional performance by Who's Who in Bank Insurance (WWBI), anannual study published by the Bank Insurance Market ResearchGroup.

Also named to WWBI's "honor roll" for top bank insuranceperformance sustained over a five-year period, were Eastern BankCorporation, First Niagara Financial Group, M&T BankCorporation, First Financial Holdings, Johnson Financial Group,Bremer Financial Corp., Tompkins Financial Corporation, S&TBancorp, Inc., and 1st Source Corporation.

These bank programs posted insurance brokerage revenue growthevery year between fiscal 2004 and 2008 with at least 40 percentrevenue growth over the entire five-year period.

Each remained among the top 100 bank insurers in WWBI's annualsurvey during the five-year period. (WWBI has been publishedannually since 2005.)

"Despite a soft insurance market through much of the period, anda severe recession over the past two years, these 12 programs wereable to sustain annual insurance growth," said Andrew Singer, WWBIeditor in a statement. "At a time when other banks headed for theexits, these institutions maintained their insurancecommitment."

Wells Fargo (ranked first in WWBI's 2009 edition), BB&T(ranked third), and BancorpSouth (ranked seventh) " They havemaintained growth through a steady diet of insurance agencyacquisition," said Mr. Singer, "but others on the list, such asJohnson Financial (ranked 25th), Bremer Financial (ranked 31st),and Tompkins Financial (ranked 40th) have done so mostly throughorganic growth."

Inclusion among the top 100 banks in insurance in the presentedition required $3.68 million in annual insurance brokeragerevenues, little changed from the $3.71 million in the previousedition.

In WWBI's 2009 survey of the top 100 banks, the greatest number(29 percent of respondents) named Travelers as their leadinginsurance carrier. Cincinnati Insurance was second. Commercialproperty and casualty was again the leading product line (76percent of respondents), followed by personal lines and employeebenefits.

The study is distributed each year by the Bank Insurance &Securities Association. It is sponsored by Prudential, Symetra andINVEST Financial.

Copies of the report are available at www.singerpubs.com.