Life Insurance
PR Newswire | January 10, 2024
illumifin, a leading third-party insurance administration and technology provider, today announced it has acquired Administrative Partners of America (APA), the Third-Party Administrator (TPA) of AmeriLife, a national leader in developing, marketing, and distributing life and health insurance, annuities, and retirement planning solutions.
As one of the largest independent marketing organizations (IMO) in the U.S., AmeriLife and APA administer approximately 230,000 policies that generate $3.1 billion of premiums in life insurance, annuities and Medicare Supplement products annually. APA employs nearly 200 associates in Clearwater, Florida, and Salt Lake City, Utah, all of whom will transition to illumifin as part of the sale.
Peter Goldstein, President and Chief Executive Officer of illumifin, commented, "This is our second life and annuities acquisition that complements our existing TPA business and further transforms illumifin. We are constantly identifying new opportunities that will enhance our value proposition and make us a key strategic partner to our clients. AmeriLife has a solid platform with key client overlap that strengthens our relationships and opens the door for significant expansion opportunities. We are very excited to build a partnership with AmeriLife to help support their future growth efforts."
Scott R. Perry, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AmeriLife, added, "illumifin is a great home for our TPA operations, and APA's customers will benefit greatly from access to a broad set of capabilities and scalable services across all lines of business. We're equally as excited to begin a new era of partnership with illumifin, and – together with our carrier partners – introduce new products to market, fuel our collective growth, and continue transforming our industry for years to come."
illumifin was formed by Abry Partners, a leading Boston-based private equity firm, and Hoplon Capital, an asset manager focused on digital transformation and disruption.
About illumifin
illumifin provides third party administration and technology services to individual and group insurers. The company, launched in 2021, blends insurance industry knowledge, technology leadership and operational execution to prepare insurers for the digital future. illumifin is a diverse, passionate and empowered team of insurance specialists committed to the growth and success of its customers. With illumifin, there's a brighter future.
About AmeriLife
AmeriLfe's strength is its mission: to provide insurance and retirement solutions to help people live longer, healthier lives. In doing so, AmeriLife has become recognized as a leader in developing, marketing, and distributing life and health insurance, annuities, and retirement planning solutions to enhance the lives of pre-retirees and retirees across the United States. For more than 50 years, AmeriLife has partnered with top insurance carriers to provide value and quality to customers served through a distribution network of over 300,000 insurance agents and advisors and 120 marketing organizations and insurance agency locations nationwide.
About Abry Partners
Abry is one of the most experienced and successful sector-focused private equity investment firms in North America. Since its founding in 1989, the firm has completed over $90 billion of leveraged transactions and other private equity or preferred equity placements. Currently, the firm manages over $5 billion of capital across its active funds.
About Hoplon Capital
Hoplon pursues proprietary investments focused on the digital economy that are disruptive in their respective end markets including insurance, financial services, IT and consulting services, healthcare, digital infrastructure and media industries.
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Life Insurance
PR Newswire | January 10, 2024
Employee Navigator, one of the nation's leading benefits and HR solutions for brokers, and MGIS, a national insurance manager offering specialized insurance programs for doctors, have announced a new partnership to bring leading-edge HR and benefits technology integrations to doctor group practices. The new partnership builds on MGIS's relationship with Reliance Matrix, a leading benefits and absence provider, and its unique Employee Navigator integration.
"We believe the partnership with Employee Navigator will transform the employer and employee benefits experience," said Jeff Brunken, President of MGIS. "Through our relationship with Employee Navigator, our mutual clients will benefit from the technology-enabled efficiencies and ease of business that are so important in today's insurance marketplace. These integrations will help to drive participant engagement and client retention for our benefit brokers."
Through the Employee Navigator relationship, MGIS clients will benefit from a dedicated support team that will help brokers build out a full-service enrollment experience and provide additional case management support, at no additional cost. As always, MGIS account managers also provide white-glove, specialized account management and billing support, all critical features for brokers and administrators.
"MGIS has a long history of offering the highest quality insurance program for doctors. We're confident that our customers will receive an enhanced benefits experience through MGIS and Employee Navigator," said George Reese, CEO of Employee Navigator. "This partnership provides seamless, integrated benefits administration and will lead to a positive enrollment experience for brokers, employers and participants."
In 2023 MGIS announced its exclusive partnership with Reliance Matrix, a national leader in benefits solutions and absence management. Together, MGIS and Reliance Matrix serve doctors in all practice settings and medical specialties. An Employee Navigator carrier partner since 2022, Reliance Matrix more than doubled the number of benefit plans and employer clients enrolled and managed on the Employee Navigator platform in 2023, through more than 150 unique broker partners.
"Employee Navigator has played a big part in our overall success in the small and midsize employer market, thanks in part to our unique streamlined billing solution available on the platform," said Paula Hanson, AVP Benefit Technology Solutions for Reliance Matrix. "Our proprietary process raised the bar on service and convenience and continues to win fans among brokers and clients."
Marketed through independent brokers and agents, benefit solutions include Disability Guard for Doctors, a unique long-term disability product blending the highly valued policy provisions of an individual product with the guaranteed issue and simplified administration of a group long-term disability plan, as well as short-term disability, group life and Accidental Death & Dismemberment plans.
MGIS also supports a High Limits Disability Insurance program, offering an increased level of protection for high earners, providing more robust and holistic protection for doctors above and beyond any group long-term disability and individual disability coverage. For those groups offering the high limits program, this specialized product will also be available on Employee Navigator as part of an integrated, holistic enrollment experience.
About MGIS
MGIS is a leading national insurance program manager experienced in building and managing specialized insurance programs for doctors. MGIS partners with highly rated insurers and focuses on disability and life insurance for practices of all sizes, types, and medical specialties. Insurance policies managed by MGIS are backed by the underwriting companies of Reliance Matrix and Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, and are marketed exclusively through select brokers and insurance advisers. MGIS services are provided by MGIS affiliated companies: The MGIS Companies, Inc., Medical Group Insurance Services, Inc., and MGIS Underwriting Managers, Inc. (DBA as MGIS Professional Insurance Solutions in CA and MGIS Underwriting Agency in NY).
About Employee Navigator
Employee Navigator is a rapidly growing benefits and HR software company integrated with over 400+ of the nation's leading insurance carriers, payroll companies, and TPA's. Its platform delivers brokers and employers a truly connected digital experience, streamlining the management of everything from online enrollment and onboarding to ACA reporting, time off tracking, and more. The company currently works with more than 5,000 brokers, providing benefits administration and HR products to over 175,000 companies and 14+ million employees and dependents.
About Reliance Matrix
Reliance Matrix delivers employee benefit, absence management and workforce productivity solutions through the financial stability of a top-rated (A++ by AM Best) insurance carrier, the proven innovation of an absence TPA, and the daily commitment of thousands of team members across America.* Born in 1907, Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company (Home Office Schaumburg, IL) is a leading provider of employee benefits, absence management and retirement savings solutions. Matrix Absence Management, Inc. (Home Office Phoenix, AZ) traces its roots to Silicon Valley at the dawn of the tech boom.
Reliance Matrix is a member of the Tokio Marine Group. Tokio Marine Holdings, Inc., the ultimate holding company of the Tokio Marine Group, is incorporated in Japan and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Tokio Marine Group operates in the property and casualty insurance, reinsurance and life insurance sectors globally. The Group's main operating subsidiary, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire (TMNF), was founded in 1879 and is the oldest and leading property and casualty insurer in Japan.
About Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's is the world's leading insurance and reinsurance marketplace. Through the collective intelligence and risk-sharing expertise of the market's underwriters and brokers, Lloyd's helps to create a braver world. The Lloyd's market provides the leadership and insight to anticipate and understand risk, and the knowledge to develop relevant, new and innovative forms of insurance for customers globally. It offers the efficiencies of shared resources and services in a marketplace that covers and shares risks from more than 200 territories, in any industry, at any scale. And it promises a trusted, enduring partnership built on the confidence that Lloyd's protects what matters most: helping people, businesses and communities to recover in times of need. Lloyd's began with a few courageous entrepreneurs in a coffee shop. Three centuries later, the Lloyd's market continues that proud tradition, sharing risk in order to protect, build resilience and inspire courage everywhere.
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Insurance Technology
PR Newswire | January 10, 2024
Keeper Security, the leading provider of zero-trust and zero-knowledge cybersecurity software protecting passwords, passkeys, privileged access, secrets and remote connections, announces Granular Sharing Enforcements will soon be available for all products in the Keeper® platform. Granular Sharing enables administrators to enforce detailed creating and sharing permissions at the user level. By implementing these permissions, organizations can ensure employees only have access to the resources necessary for their roles, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access, data breaches and lateral movement within a network.
"It's critical for organizations to have security solutions that help them adhere to increasing regulations and compliance requirements," said Craig Lurey, CTO and Co-founder of Keeper Security. "Granular permission control helps organizations enhance their security posture by restricting access to sensitive information and systems. With Granular Sharing Enforcements, it's easier than ever for IT administrators to better control the principle of least privilege and streamline operations within their organizations."
Keeper's added Granular Sharing Enforcement policies provide more detailed restrictions that administrators can apply to users for both creating and sharing records. Most employees do not need access to all of the data or functionalities within an organization, and many industries and geographical regions have specific regulations and compliance requirements regarding data protection and privacy, including HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS and SOX. Granular permission controls enable organizations to align with local and industry regulations by allowing them to define and enforce access policies. This helps in ensuring the organization is compliant with industry standards and legal requirements.
Key features of Keeper's Granular Sharing Enforcements include:
Auditing: Keeper provides clear alerting and reporting on over 100 different event types.
Version control: Only a small subset of users have permissions to update or share records, helping teams ensure information is consistent and accurate.
Seamless access on any device: Keeper provides the same user experience across platforms, ensuring cross functionality and ease of use, whether on web, desktop or mobile.
Encryption: Keeper provides secure sharing with elliptic curve encryption, ensuring cybercriminals cannot intercept passwords or other shared records in transit.
Keeper Administrators can easily customize permissions to best suit the compliance needs of their organization. Administrators modify permissions in the Enforcement Policies section of the Admin Console for the chosen role by selecting Creating and Sharing. Most permissions are activated by default for maximum security. Enforcements have been designed to be simple and powerful, allowing admins to choose the appropriate settings for their unique needs.
Granular Sharing Enforcements will be available for all sharing needs within Keeper's Enterprise Password Manager, Keeper Secrets Manager and KeeperPAM. With Keeper's zero-knowledge password management and security platform, IT administrators have complete visibility into employee password practices, enabling them to monitor password use and enforce password security policies, including strong, unique passwords, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), and other security policies. Keeper Secrets Manager is a fully managed cloud-based, zero-knowledge platform for securing infrastructure secrets such as API keys, database passwords, access keys, certificates and any type of confidential data.
Its latest offering, KeeperPAM, provides next-generation Privileged Access Management (PAM) that is disrupting the traditional PAM market. KeeperPAM delivers enterprise-grade password, secrets and privileged connection management within a unified SaaS platform that is cost-effective, easy to use and simple to deploy. KeeperPAM enables least-privilege access with zero-trust and zero-knowledge security. Enterprises select Keeper because of its strong security architecture, ability to support federated and passwordless authentication with any identity provider, seamless integration into on-premises, cloud or hybrid environments and ease of use across desktop and mobile devices.
About Keeper Security
Keeper Security is transforming cybersecurity for people and organizations around the world. Keeper's affordable and easy-to-use solutions are built on a foundation of zero-trust and zero-knowledge security to protect every user on every device. Our next-generation privileged access management solution deploys in minutes and seamlessly integrates with any tech stack to prevent breaches, reduce help desk costs and ensure compliance. Trusted by millions of individuals and thousands of organizations, Keeper is the leader for best-in-class password and passkey management, secrets management, privileged access, secure remote access and encrypted messaging.
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Core Insurance
Business Wire | January 29, 2024
Inszone Insurance Services, a rapidly growing national provider of commercial, personal, and benefits insurance, is pleased to announce its recent acquisition of High Desert Insurance, out of Pueblo, Colorado.
High Desert Insurance, born in 2011, has been a trusted insurance go-to for over ten years. Starting with three employees, they've grown into a team of seven, always coming through with top-notch insurance solutions for individuals and businesses. The values of High Desert Insurance mesh perfectly with what Inszone Insurance is all about, making this acquisition a great fit as Inszone looks to grow its services in Colorado.
"We are delighted to welcome High Desert Insurance to the Inszone family," expressed Chris Walters, CEO of Inszone Insurance Services. "With a decade-long track record of delivering outstanding outcomes for its clients, High Desert Insurance has built a commendable legacy. Our commitment extends to preserving and enhancing this legacy by offering comprehensive back-office support and access to additional markets to the High Desert team."
The newly acquired High Desert Insurance will operate under the Inszone Insurance brand and maintain its existing Pueblo, Colorado, location, ensuring a seamless transition and consistency in service for its valued clients. Inszone Insurance is dedicated to retaining the experienced team from High Desert Insurance to ensure the continuation of the high-quality service that clients have come to expect.
As Inszone Insurance continues its strategic growth, the acquisition of High Desert Insurance represents not only a significant expansion but also a blending of values, reinforcing the commitment to excellence in service within the dynamic landscape of Colorado.
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Sacramento, California, Inszone is a full-service insurance brokerage firm that provides a broad array of property & casualty insurance and employee benefits solutions. With a strong, experienced management team, Inszone continues to grow organically and through acquisitions. With 54 locations across California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington, the company is looking to expand further throughout the United States.
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