World Insurance Associates has acquired the business of Cubriel Insurance Agency of Laredo, Texas, effective June 1, 2026.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Cubriel is a property and casualty agency with a mix of commercial and personal lines business.
Noe Cubriel, the agency's president, said joining World would let the firm expand what it offers existing clients. "It's great to join World. We look forward to growing the business by offering our clients additional products and services," Cubriel said.
Rich Eknoian, World's executive chairman and founder, tied the deal to the brokerage's broader Texas ambitions. "With the addition of Cubriel we further increase our presence in the state of Texas. I look forward to their continued growth and success," Eknoian said.
Cubriel is far from World's first Texas deal. Insurance Business previously reported that World acquired five Louisiana and Texas agencies in a single transaction in 2024, including Creekside Risk Management in Houston, and separately expanded into the Texas hospitality niche by acquiring Abacus Insurance and Financial Services of Irving, a firm specializing in commercial coverage for hotels, motels and convenience stores. Laredo itself, a border city roughly three hours from World's other Texas locations, extends that footprint into a market the brokerage hadn't previously entered, according to World's own location directory, which lists the Laredo office as originating directly from this acquisition.
That Texas activity sits within a much larger national acquisition pace. According to Tracxn's tracking of the company's deal history, World has completed 111 acquisitions since its 2011 founding, with the brokerage averaging nearly 18 deals a year over the past five years and recent monthly activity including agencies in New Jersey, Arizona and Connecticut.
World is currently ranked among the top brokers on Business Insurance's largest US brokerage lists, and its consistent, undisclosed-terms structure across deals like this one, the same legal counsel, Giordano, Halleran & Ciesla, appears in this transaction as in many of World's other recent acquisitions, reflects a well-established, repeatable acquisition process rather than a one-off opportunistic purchase.
For independent agency owners in Laredo and along the Texas border region, this deal signals that World's acquisition appetite extends beyond its more heavily targeted Houston and North Texas markets into smaller border communities as well.
Owners without a clear succession plan in similarly sized Texas markets now have a concrete, recent example of how World structures these deals, preserving the acquired agency's local leadership and client relationships while adding access to the brokerage's broader product set, a pattern consistent across Cubriel, Creekside and Abacus alike.
