February 4, 2010 (FinancialWire) — Unitrin, Inc. (NYSE: UTR) said that its board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.22 per share, an increase of $0.02 per share over the prior quarter. The dividend is payable on March 1, 2010 to its shareholders of record as of February 12, 2010.

The company also named Julie M. Howard, president and chief operating officer of Navigant Consulting, Inc., a Chicago-based specialty consulting firm, to its board of directors.

Howard has also been appointed a member of the Audit, Compensation and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees of Unitrin’s board of directors. She is currently responsible for the overall management of Navigant’s operations, including its business consulting, corporate operations, international development and strategic planning. Howard joined Navigant in 1988 and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance.

Chicago-based Unitrin is an insurance holding company, with subsidiaries that provide life, health, auto, homeowners and other insurance products for individuals and small businesses.

FinancialWire(tm) is committed to serving the financial community through true journalism and providing relevant resources to investors. Standards-based, independent equity research on numerous public companies is available through the Investrend Research Syndicate (http://www.investrend.com/reports) written by FIRST Research Consortium (http://www.investrend.com/FIRST) member-providers. Free annual reports and company filings for companies mentioned in the news are available through the Investrend Information Syndicate (at http://investrend.ar.wilink.com/?level=279). FinancialWire(tm), in cooperation with the Investrend Broadcast Syndicate, also provides complete, daily conference call and webcast schedules as a service to shareholders and investors via the FirstAlert(tm) Network’s “FirstAlert(tm) Daily” (http://www.financialwire.net/news-alerts/).

FinancialWire(tm) is a fully independent, proprietary news wire service. FinancialWire(tm) is not a press release service, and receives no compensation for its news, opinions or distributions. Further disclosure is at the FinancialWire(tm) website (http://www.financialwire.net/disclosures.php). Contact FinancialWire(tm) directly via inquiries@financialwire.net.