News Room

July 25, 2001

Assurant Group Celebrates Opening of Lawton, Okla. Customer Contact Center

LAWTON, OK: Assurant Group today celebrated the opening of its new customer contact center in Lawton, Okla., with a ribbon-cutting, speeches by State Insurance Commissioner Carroll Fisher and other dignitaries, and an open-house reception for the people who helped build the multimillion-dollar facility over the past year.

"This was a fast-track project from its conception in late 1999, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the support that we have received from the City of Lawton, the State of Oklahoma, the Lawton/Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce and the Great Plains Technology Center," said Douglas Haase, vice president, contact center management. "This facility began taking calls the last week of March and has quickly become a quality contributor to our business."

Assurant is an affinity marketing company that partners with financial institutions, retailers and others to sell specialty insurance, extended service contracts and membership programs to their customers. Headquartered in Atlanta and Miami, it is part of Fortis, an international provider of financial services.

Also participating in today’s grand opening ceremonies were Lawton Mayor Cecil Powell, Chairman Johnny Wauqua of the Comanche Tribe and a large contingent of Assurant executives who traveled to Lawton to participate in the event. Entertainment included a performance by young dancers from the Comanche Tribe.

Assurant’s Lawton contact center is located in a new one-story, 36,000 square foot building at 6500 West Gore Blvd. that was specially designed to accommodate a state-of-the-art call center operation. When fully staffed, the center will employ over 300 people with an annual payroll of about $7 million. Employment currently totals 150.

Jacqueline LaCalli relocated to Lawton from Houston, Texas, to manage the Lawton facility. She has ten years experience working as a consultant in the call center industry. LaCalli and one other supervisor are the only employees who have joined the center from outside the State of Oklahoma. All others were hired locally.

The center currently handles inbound sales and service calls for three major credit companies who offer Assurant insurance products to their customers. When fully operational, it will handle up to five million calls annually.

LaCalli said Assurant has moved quickly to become part of the Lawton/Fort Sill community. The company recently sponsored a food drive to benefit the Lawton Food Bank and in June contributed $11,500 to the Great Plains Foundation, which provides scholarships at the Great Plains Technology Center. This fall, Assurant will match on a one-for-one basis all employee contributions to the Lawton/Fort Sill United Way campaign.

Assurant also operates customer contact centers in Miami, Atlanta, Toronto and Grand Rapids, Mich. Assurant’s member companies have more than 4,800 employees and operations in 11 states, Argentina, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Panama, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom.

Assurant Group is part of Fortis, a financial services provider active in the fields of insurance, banking and investment. At year-end 2000, Fortis had total assets in excess of $410 billion. Fortis ranks 31st based on assets and 73rd based on revenues on the Fortune ‘Global 500’ and 42nd based on revenues on the Forbes ‘International 500’ list (July 23, 2001).

Assurant Group is a service mark of Fortis, Inc.
Financial information is as of December 31, 2000.

Media contact

James A. Sykes
Director, Corporate Communications
Assurant Solutions
260 Interstate N. Circle, SE
Atlanta, Ga. 30339-2111
Telephone: 770.763.1015
FAX: 770.859.4325
E-mail: james.sykes@assurant.com