Workers Compensation, Health Insurance
PRnewswire | July 14, 2023
Hourly.io, a fast-growing startup that is committed to fixing workers' comp for businesses with hourly and mobile workers, has teamed up with insurance and financial services provider Nationwide to expand its workers' comp and payroll service.
In this alliance, Hourly will serve as a Managing General Underwriter (MGU) underwriting skilled trade businesses with mobile and hourly workers using technology and millions of real-time data points from the Hourly platform. While most insurers underwrite workers' comp based on data that is 12-18 months old, Hourly's revolutionary use of big data gives business owners an alternative high-quality insurance partner, fairer and more accurate pricing, with personalized customer service. Businesses that will most benefit from using Hourly include construction, contracted services, transportation and trucking, foodservice, and retail stores among others.
Established in 2018, Hourly offers workers' comp insurance and an integrated platform that connects workers' comp, time tracking, and payroll in real-time—an innovation that ensures premiums are calculated with unprecedented precision. Hourly is first of its kind in the industry to bridge this gap seamlessly with a mobile-first platform.
Through Nationwide, Hourly's platform and advanced underwriting model will help Hourly's network of more than 3,000 appointed independent insurance producers expand their client base, retain more of those clients, generate more revenue, and stand out from competitors.
"We're thrilled to announce our partnership with Nationwide as the next step in Hourly's growth strategy," said Hourly Co-founder and CEO Tom Sagi. "With Nationwide on our side, our growing network of independent insurance agents will finally be able to offer small and medium-sized businesses a service-oriented alternative, ensuring they don't overpay for their coverage. And these same small businesses will better understand their labor costs—including workers' comp premiums—information they can use to bid more accurately on projects and manage their expenses to the penny."
"It's no secret that commercial insurance has been slow to catch up to personal lines in terms of tech," said Jerico Foutch-Vinsonhaler, Chief Underwriting Officer at Hourly. "Insurance companies typically don't have enough data to quote accurate premiums for hourly workers which means that these small businesses are hit with a big audit bill or are overpaying for their coverage. By harnessing more data points than our peers, Hourly is offering a long overdue solution for small business owners."
"We're excited to join forces with Hourly and help hardworking businesses across the country protect their employees," said Nationwide's Vice President Dale Hoppe who leads the company's Excess & Surplus and Specialty WC programs division. "Workers' comp has been hard to appraise in the past because the technology to price risk simply wasn't there. Our collaboration with Hourly's payroll platform sets new industry standards by prioritizing fair pricing, better overall service, and a commitment to continuous innovation. Nationwide and Hourly's much-needed upgrades to the workers' comp space will become the new benchmark for the industry for the mobile workforce, filling a gap that has plagued workers' comp for far too long."
Hourly is appointing select insurance agents across the nation. Please visit hourly.io to learn more and see if your agency qualifies.
About Hourly.io
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Hourly.io is a data driven insurance startup offering workers' comp insurance and full-service payroll for small and medium businesses with hourly workers. Powered by real-time data, Hourly's platform ensures running payroll is as quick as pressing a button and that you get accurate workers' comp premiums down to the penny. For more information, visit www.hourly.io.
About Nationwide
Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the United States. Nationwide is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor's. An industry leader in driving customer-focused innovation, Nationwide provides a full range of insurance and financial services products including auto, business, homeowners, farm and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities, mutual funds and ETFs; excess & surplus, specialty and surety; pet, motorcycle and boat insurance. For more information, visit www.nationwide.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
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Core Insurance, Risk Management
Newswire | July 25, 2023
ALKEME, a Top 50 Insurance Brokerage, announced the acquisition of the Paul Kinan Insurance Group and Wiggins Farha Insurance Group, both full-service insurance agencies operating out of Placentia, California, and Wichita, Kansas, respectively.
Tracing its roots back to 1986, Paul Kinan Insurance Group has a long track record of success in Southern California built on its strong customer service philosophies. The company provides a wide variety of property and casualty insurance solutions to individuals, families and businesses.
Wiggans Farha Insurance Group is an independent insurance agency serving the state of Kansas and the Midwest region as a subsidiary of Paul Kinan Insurance Group.
"Paul Kinan Insurance Group and Wiggans Farha add more industry-leading insurance brands to our growing platform" said Curtis Barton, CEO of ALKEME. "They have an amazing, highly experienced team and an approach to customer service that fit in perfect with the ALKEME culture."
"We are excited to join forces with a national-scale partner to expand the resources and capabilities of our group," said Paul Kinan and Greg Locy of Paul Kinan Insurance Group and Wiggans Farha, respectively. "As the insurance industry is changing every day, it made perfect sense to take advantages of the many benefits we can pass along to our clients by working with ALKEME."
About ALKEME
ALKEME helps insurance brokerages realize sustainable growth and success through the creative use of innovation, shared services, consultation, and marketing. Our proven methodology, unmatched expertise, and externally validated results have quickly propelled us into the top-50 privately held insurance agencies in the U.S. Partners across the country rely on ALKEME's proven platform coupled with experience, resources, and long-term perspective to help them realize sustainable growth and success in a rapidly modernizing insurance world. Based in Ladera Ranch, California, and backed by GCP Capital Partners, ALKEME serves thousands of clients with a wide range of offerings including P&C, Benefits, Surety, Risk and Wealth Management.
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Risk Management, Life Insurance
PR Newswire | August 11, 2023
Vitech Systems Group announced that it has been named a Leader of U.S. life and retirement (L&R) policy administration systems (PAS) in the ISG Provider Lens™ Insurance Platform Solutions report for the third year in a row. This report is conducted by Information Services Group (ISG) and offers an L&R PAS provider quadrant analysis and a comprehensive comparison of strengths, challenges, and competitive differentiators.
Vitech's V3locity cloud-native platform was commended in the study for its end-to-end functionality, flexible and agile operationalization, and robust support of group insurance benefits. Its capabilities enable quick time to value, straight-through processing, and an excellent user experience for employees, employers, and brokers.
Ashish Jhajharia, the author of the report, noted, "Vitech's V3locity cloud-native platform, which caters to the market with a system created exclusively for the group benefits area, offers a high degree of configurability, capabilities across the value chain and enhanced functionalities for carriers operating in this category."
According to ISG, L&R PAS quadrant Leaders possess a comprehensive product and service offering, a strong market presence, and an established competitive position. They also represent innovative strength and competitive stability.
"We are thrilled that Vitech has once again achieved the prestigious recognition of Life & Retirement Insurance Platform Solutions Leader by ISG," said David Burns, Vitech's CEO. "Receiving this recognition for the third consecutive time is market validation that our focus on innovation and unwavering commitment to providing market-leading capabilities and services continues to bring exceptional value to our customers and their beneficiaries."
V3locity is Vitech's cloud-native administration, engagement, and analytics platform. It is a transformative suite of complementary applications that offers full life cycle business functionality and robust enterprise capabilities. It marries core administration with a revolutionary digital experience. Its modular design enables flexible, agile deployment strategies. V3locity employs a cloud-native architecture that leverages the unique capabilities of AWS to deliver a solution with unparalleled security, scalability, and resiliency.
About Vitech®
Vitech is a global provider of cloud-native benefit and investment administration software. The organization helps their insurance, retirement, and investment clients expand their offerings and capabilities, streamline their operations, gain analytical insights, and transform their engagement models. Vitech employs more than 1,400 professionals, serving the world's most successful insurance, retirement, and investment organizations. An innovator and visionary, Vitech's market leadership has been recognized by industry experts, such as Gartner, Celent, Aite-Novarica, and ISG. For more information, please visit vitechinc.com.
About ISG
ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including more than 70 of the top 100 enterprises in the world, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry's most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit isg-one.com.
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