IMA Financial Group, a a North American insurance brokerage based in Denver, has added Valent Group, one of Alabama’s largest privately held insurance brokers, to its team of affiliated firms.
Valent, a subsidiary of EBSCO Industries, will retain its name and four offices in Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville and Decatur, the companies said in a news release. Its 86 employees will be associates of IMA Financial.
Valent also provides risk consulting for businesses, along with claims advocacy and loss control analysis, with a focus on condominium associations.
IMA said it is an employee-owned company with 2,700 associates around the country that has expanded through organic growth and partnerships with brokerages.
A federal judge in Georgia last week also ordered Andrew Aga, sometimes known as Andrew Mitchell, to pay some $2.9 million in restitution for the Georgia scam and another $1.1 million for similar fraud in Louisiana and Texas that he admitted to in court. His prison sentence will be concurrent with a 20-year sentence he received in 2023 for the Louisiana and Texas crimes, the judge said.
“Andrew Mitchell will spend nearly two decades in prison for concocting a devious scheme to swindle insurance money from a historic downtown Albany church, a crime he’s committed in other communities after natural disasters,” U.S. Attorney William “Will” Keyes said in a statement.
Aga fell under the scrutiny of Georgia Office of Insurance Commissioner investigators after Hurricane Michael hit Florida and part of Georgia in 2018. Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Albany was left with extensive wind and water damage, court documents show. Brotherhood Mutual, based in Indiana, paid the church $183,208 on the claim in late 2018.