Sun Shines

Steve Herrig is well versed in the world of insurance.

After working at an insurance agency, he started insurance brokerage Elite Agency Services (a managed general agent) and then Progressive Employee Services, a professional employer organization that handled things such as payroll and health insurance for clients' employees. He exited Progressive in 2010. In 2011 he began working as a consultant for Sunz Insurance, which provides workers' compensation insurance for PEOs, staffing agencies and large companies.

Herrig bought Sunz in 2013. The company had been struggling, but he's overseen a turnaround, with revenues at the Bradenton-based firm rising from $51.7 million in 2013 to $137 million in 2016, an increase of 165%. Things are going so well, Sunz recently purchased a 60,000-square-foot office building in Bradenton (now being renovated) and launched Next Level Administrators, a third-party workers' compensation claims administrator that's an affiliate of the company.