Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Bijan Moazami – Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Bijan Moazami – Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Could you give us an update on the Unitrin business insurance, when you’re going to be closing on that transaction? What is the amount of premium that you expect to be generating out of that business? And also, what are you at in terms of the integration of that business?
Barry D. Zyskind
We are planning to close that as I mentioned in my remarks, we hope to get the final regulatory approval in this month, in May and we hope to close it at the end of the month, the beginning of June. It’s somewhere in the next few weeks. In terms of integration we were expecting to close April 1 so we were ready from April 1 to close this transaction from a technology standpoint and an integration standpoint, back office so we’ve done a lot of work. We feel we’re in very good shape and having the additional time has just allowed us to test our systems and make sure we’re in good shape. In terms of premium we feel conservatively from when we close the book will be somewhere between $150 to $165 and $170 million in gross written premium.
Operator
Your next question comes from Dan Schlemmer – Fox-Pitt Kelton.
Dan Schlemmer – Fox-Pitt Kelton
On the Unitrin can you clarify what the delay is or what progress has been made since the last time you discussed it. Also, as that gets pushed off my understanding is that it’s pure regulatory hurdle, does that impact the agents and therefore your ability to convert that premium? Can that become a problem?
Barry D. Zyskind
In terms of it’s only up to the regulatory process, there’s three states that we have to get regulatory approval. We have regulatory approval from two out of the three we’re just waiting for the one state to give us regulatory approval and we feel that we’ll get it this month. It’s been a little bit delayed.
In terms of agents and the book of business, we have been monitoring that very carefully and as I mentioned previously our team has been going out on road shows consistently meeting with the Unitrin agents and the Unitrin people running the division have done a very good job. And again, their business with similar characteristics of our business has very high renewal rates and we’ve been monitoring that and it seems to be doing very well and we’re keeping a close eye on it. We feel very good that we’re not going to lose really anything that’s material because of a month or two delay.
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