World Insurance Associates has acquired Arctic Risk Specialists (ARS), a Toms River, New Jersey agency focused on contractors and, in particular, snow and ice management firms.
The deal took effect on June 1, 2026, and financial terms were not disclosed.
Thomas Nastasi founded ARS in 2014. The agency writes commercial insurance for contractor-related risks and has carved out a niche with businesses that plow, salt and clear commercial properties through the winter.
Nastasi said the agency had built its business on combining competitive pricing with making sure clients carried the right coverage. He added that joining World would allow ARS to widen the range of products and services it offers.
"ARS has a strong reputation and will strengthen our presence in our home state of New Jersey," said Rich Eknoian, executive chairman and founder of World.
Giordano, Halleran & Ciesla acted as legal counsel to World. On the ARS side, Apex Business Consulting provided legal counsel and Agency Brokerage Consultants advised on the transaction.
The deal extends a run of New Jersey acquisitions for the Iselin-headquartered broker. World has picked up Pellechio Family Agency in Parsippany, Clarke Insurance in Mount Holly and MLR in Hammonton this year. Outside the state, it recently moved into the greater Boston market through a deal that took effect on the same date as ARS.
According to OPTIS Partners, World completed nine acquisitions in the first quarter of 2026 alone, placing it among the most active buyers in insurance distribution. Private equity investment led by Goldman Sachs has valued the firm at approximately $3.4 billion in total enterprise value.
ARS differs from much of World's recent New Jersey buying, which has leaned toward generalist community agencies. Snow and ice management is a narrow class with a heavy liability profile. The Accredited Snow Contractors Association has estimated that more than 30,000 slip-and-fall claims are filed each year in the US and Canada against snow contractors, property owners and property managers combined.
Contracts in the sector often push that exposure onto the contractor. Property owners and facilities managers routinely use indemnification and hold harmless clauses to shift slip-and-fall liability to the firm doing the plowing. That makes completed operations cover, contractual liability wording and adequate limits central to placing these accounts.
For World, ARS offers something harder to replicate than another book of personal lines and main street commercial business. Agencies with established carrier relationships in niche contractor classes are relatively scarce. Buying one gives a consolidator a specialist capability it can then offer across its wider footprint.
For ARS clients, the deal could mean access to a larger panel of markets. That is a meaningful consideration in a class where many standard carriers either exclude snow operations or decline the business altogether. The test will be whether that specialist knowledge survives integration into a firm growing as quickly as World, or gets diluted as the book is absorbed.
