Every company has a story and ours begins in the 1940s with the vision of Scott McIntyre Sr., a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, businessman. McIntyre had the ambition to form a stock insurance company in Iowa—an ambition he achieved on January 2, 1946, with the opening of United Casualty Company, as we were originally known.

From our first office in a two-story house on First Avenue in Cedar Rapids, our story becomes one of small insurance companies merging and working together; of expanding into different territories and acquiring new business; and of outgrowing old spaces and moving to new ones. In other words, it’s a story of never letting opportunities pass us by.

This year, UFG Insurance celebrates our 73rd year in business, 48th year as a publicly traded company and our 33rd year of being listed on the Nasdaq. We are a growing company, with more than 1,175 employees working at our Cedar Rapids headquarters and offices in Arizona, California, Colorado, Louisiana, New Jersey and Texas.

Through our partnership with approximately 1,100 independent insurance agencies, we deliver insurance protection and services to policyholders throughout the U.S. Our products include commercial insurance, personal insurance and surety bonds, with commercial insurance representing 91 percent of our business today.

While much has changed in our more than 70-year history, the values our company was founded on remain the same, including our commitment to doing business the right way and treating people the right way. After all, if you look beyond the complexities of insurance, you find that our business is simply about people.

At UFG, we have the important job of fulfilling the promise we make to our customers—the promise of protection. And, truly, we couldn’t have chosen a better group of people for the job.

As our story continues to evolve, we are proud to have recently added a new chapter: the completion of our 10-story headquarters building in downtown Cedar Rapids. This building, with its stately blend of old and new, is symbolic of both our past and future in Cedar Rapids.

It’s interesting to note that our new headquarters building places UFG back on First Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Cedar Rapids—and only a few blocks from where we started.