Ward North America Acquires Benefit Firm

Ward North America says it has acquired a majority interest in Anchor Pacific Underwriters, a public holding company performing employee benefit administration and plan design services in the West under the name ``The Harden Group.'' The acquisition was effective March 15, 2000.

Ward provides a variety of services to the insurance and alternative risk markets including claims administration and adjusting, specialty risk management services, loss control, managed care, catastrophe support, special investigation and subrogation services. The acquisition of APUX represents the entry of Ward into employee benefits administration.

Jeffrey Ward, chairman and CEO of Ward, said, ``This investment expands our product line capabilities and furthers our objective of providing a broad suite of outsource solutions to our customers and strategic partners. We will brand the company ''Ward Benefit Solutions`` and rapidly enhance its ability to service existing clients as well as the needs of our customer base on a national basis. Our plan is to continue to invest in leading-edge technology and add key personnel where appropriate. This platform also enables us to optimize operating efficiencies and support revenue growth of both companies by integrating various processing functions on a common technology infrastructure.''

In announcing the transaction, James Dunathan, Anchor president and CEO, said, ``Our board made a strategic decision in 1999 to aggressively seek an investor who could provide additional capital to facilitate the completion of the company's systems' consolidation, plus enable Anchor to achieve its objectives for growth of the core TPA business. The purchase of a majority interest in Anchor by Ward is the ideal solution to our business strategy and will provide Ward with a solid base in the employee benefits third party administration business upon which to build for the future.''

Ward North America Holding is a privately held company headquartered in San Diego, CA.