The Dayton office is expected to open in August. Jobs will start at $13 an hour and will include positions in customer service and document management.
“While we looked very seriously at properties in Springfield, which continues to be a great home for us after 20 years, ultimately, this location in northeast Dayton best suited our needs, with the required infrastructure, including backup power supply, already in place,” said Ray Rafferty, vice president for Assurant Specialty Property’s Springfield Service Center.
Initially, about 50 employees are expected to transfer from Springfield to Dayton when the office opens. New positions will be added in Dayton and in Springfield, maintaining employment at the main campus around 1,900. For details on job opportunities, interested candidates should visit the Careers section at www.assurantspecialtyproperty.com.
The city of Dayton’s Office of Economic Development assisted Assurant in finding and finalizing arrangements for its new offices, in cooperation with Montgomery County, the Dayton Development Coalition and JobsOhio.
“We are thrilled to welcome Assurant Special Property to the city of Dayton,” Shelley Dickstein, assistant city manager for strategic development said. “Having had several options for their expansion, we greatly appreciate Assurant’s confidence in selecting Dayton and we look forward to working with them on a successful expansion.”
JobsOhio approved a $100,000 Workforce Development grant for Assurant that will reimburse the company for certain costs, after the jobs are created, Laura Jones, communications director for JobsOhio said.
The Ohio Tax Credit Authority, also on Monday, supported Assurant’s expansion by extending a 2006 Job Creation Tax Credit deal. The original agreement gave the company a 60 percent payroll tax break for 10 years. The new agreement gives Assurant a 40 percent payroll tax break for 12 years, Jones said.
Assurant has applied to participate in Dayton’s Economic Attraction Program (DEAP), but has yet to pay the $250 entry fee. Under this new business incentive program, Assurant would be eligible for a grant reimbursing the company for 50 percent of all new payroll taxes paid to the city for three years, said Timothy Downs, Dayton’s deputy director for economic development.
Montgomery County has offered the company workforce development assistance. Erik Collins, Montgomery County’s director of economic development, said the service would involve screening potential job applicants at the Job Center, just as the county did for Collective Brands in Brookville and Caterpillar in Clayton.
Assurant Special Property is a division of Assurant, a Fortune 500 company and member of the S&P 500. Assurant has approximately $29 billion in assets and $8 billion in annual revenue.
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