Palmer & Cay history

The Palmer & Cay story is about the quality of people that have been associated with our company from its earliest days, back to 1868 when Joseph E. Johnston founded an insurance agency on historic Factors Walk in Savannah, Georgia.

In 1876 Johnston retired to Virginia and left the business to others to run.

John Devine Carswell, fresh out of the University of Georgia, joined the firm in 1888.

By 1905 he was able to buy the company and he renamed it after himself.

Marine insurance became a natural extension and in 1913 Armin B. Palmer, a member of the second generation to lead the family business, launched an agency to provide coverage.

John Eugene “Jack” Cay, Jr. was born in Savannah on October 10, 1914, the son of John Eugene Sr. and Caroline “Caro” Palmer.

Cay was induced to come work for his father-in-law two years later, so that in 1915 the Palmer & Cay partnership was begun.

In 1938, with college behind them, Jack and Barbara were married at Christ Church in Savannah surrounded by family and friends.

Following the war, in 1947, the firm was incorporated as Palmer & Cay, Inc.

In 1951 Palmer & Cay looked to take advantage of the building explosion by launching a mortgage company.

In 1958, Jack wrote and published fifty copies of Ward Allen, Savannah River Market Hunter and presented it to the members of the Madeira Club in March of that year.

Starting in 1961 Palmer & Cay began to grow by external means as well.

The following year, 1962, brought the death of the firm's cofounder, Gene Cay, marking the end of an era.

John Eugene “Jack” Cay died on October 3, 1989, at age 74 on Hilton Head Island where he and Barbara lived in their later years.

Virginia was added to the mix in 1995, when Palmer & Cay opened an office in Richmond.

In 1999 it acquired Lexington, Kentucky-based Powell-Walton-Milward Inc., one of the oldest and largest private insurance brokers in the state.

2002: Management announces the establishment of the firm's co-headquarters in Atlanta.

Palmer & Cay also found that Savannah was no longer an ideal location for a firm with larger aspirations and in 2002 management announced that it was making Atlanta its co-headquarters. Thus in 2003 Palmer & Cay sold its Augusta, Georgia, assets to Augusta's Blanchard and Calhoun Insurance Agency Inc.