Two Local Insurers Combined Corkery & Jones Merges With Moloney & O’Neill

Two Spokane insurance companies with almost a century of experience between them have merged.

Moloney & O’Neill Inc. and Corkery & Jones Insurance Inc. became Moloney, O’Neill, Corkery & Jones Inc. effective Monday, said Frank O’Neill, president of the combined organizations.

But the company remains physically divided, with workers in the spaces occupied by its predecessors while officials hunt for a new building, he said.

Some potential sites, including the Corkery & Jones location at W111 Cataldo, require the removal or shuffling of other tenants, he said.

“We don’t know where we’re going to end up,” O’Neill said.

He said the new company retained all 50 employees of its two predecessors.

Moloney & O’Neill, N501 Riverpointe, was founded in 1947 and specialized in professional liability, notably medical and legal malpractice, O’Neill said.

Corkery & Jones, established in 1950, was more a full-line company, with the exception of professional liability.

By combining, the companies not only filled out their product lines, they also increased their size in areas where they overlapped, he said.

The bigger the agency, O’Neill said, the greater the leverage in dealing with insurance companies, which will make lower rates available to clients of the combined firms.

“It was kind of a marriage made in heaven,” he said, adding that the new company will do about $50 million a year in sales.

Besides O’Neill, the major shareholders in the new company are Hal Seim, the former president of Corkery & Jones; and John Moloney and Mike Schnurr. Seim will be secretary-treasurer of Moloney, O’Neill, Corkery and Jones Inc.

, DataTimes