Higginbotham has entered Indiana through a new partnership with Synergy Insurance of Mishawaka, marking the Texas-based firm’s first presence in the state.
The deal is intended to strengthen service for Synergy’s commercial, employee benefits and personal lines accounts and support expansion along a Great Lakes corridor that includes Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio.
The transaction fits into Higginbotham’s dual growth strategy under chairman and CEO Rusty Reid (pictured above), which blends organic expansion with deals involving independent agencies.
“Synergy is exactly the kind of agency we look for when we go into a new state,” Reid said. He added that the agency has “spent nearly 20 years growing the right way in northern Indiana” and that the combination is aimed at bringing more resources to Synergy’s team and customers while building out the regional corridor.
Read more: Higginbotham partners with Roehr Insurance
Synergy’s origins go back to the Michael Reddy Agency, founded by president and CEO Mike Reddy Jr. and his father. Producer Billy Bridwell joined in 1995 and helped drive expansion that ultimately led to the creation of Synergy Insurance Group through a 2006 merger.
Over time, the ownership group widened to include Reddy, Bridwell, Nathan Spite, David Atkinson and Rick Nystrand. The firm has more than doubled in size since 2020, with most of that lift coming from new business rather than acquisitions.
As growth accelerated, Reddy said the partners began looking for a larger organization that could provide additional capabilities while allowing Synergy to keep its local identity. “We built a carefully targeted list,” he said, noting that they evaluated publicly traded brokers, private equity-backed firms and a startup before returning to Higginbotham as “something different.”
The Synergy partnership extends a pattern of Midwest expansion that includes Higginbotham’s 2025 tie-up with Roehr Insurance, a property and casualty agency in Cincinnati.
That earlier move broadened the firm’s footprint in Ohio and, together with the Indiana deal, suggests a strategy to build a connected regional network across key Midwestern markets.
Higginbotham has used similar partnerships to scale specialist programs beyond their original regions, such as its agreement with Cattle Raisers Insurance that extended ranch, property and liability coverage to a broader national client base.
In that arrangement, Higginbotham contributed services like its Employee Response Center, illustrating how the firm layers centralized resources onto locally rooted distribution.
The Indiana move also comes against a backdrop of heightened M&A activity in the state, including World Insurance Associates’ recent acquisitions of Dunaway Insurance Agency and Hoosier Insurance Agency.
Those deals expanded World’s commercial, agricultural and personal lines presence, indicating that multiple national brokers are competing for independent agencies in Indiana’s local markets.
