CORE INSURANCE
Westfield | September 09, 2022
Successfully executing on its Specialty Insurance expansion strategy, Westfield today announced its entrance into the international specialty market via the purchase of Lloyd’s of London Syndicate 1200 from Argo Group International Holdings, Ltd. As a leading property and casualty (P&C) insurance company in the United States, this acquisition accelerates Westfield Specialty’sSM rapid growth after a strong first year in the U.S. market.
Subject to regulatory approval, the acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2023 for a purchase price of approximately $125 million.
“This acquisition is our first step in establishing a global franchise for Westfield, The international specialty market fits well with our growth ambitions and the opportunity with Lloyd’s Syndicate 1200 jump-starts our entry into this market.”
-Ed Largent, Westfield President, CEO and Board Chair
Syndicate 1200 has an estimated $650 million book of business, which is focused on various lines of specialty insurance. Lloyd’s holds licenses around the globe to underwrite property and casualty business with an “A+” S&P financial strength rating.
Westfield brings deep expertise and experience to the international specialty market. Westfield Specialty President and industry veteran Jack Kuhn has a proven track record of success leading global, multi-billion-dollar specialty businesses and emphasized Westfield’s commitment to international expansion.
We’ve had our sights set on the international specialty market since launching our specialty business a year ago, so this is Westfield executing on our original strategy, We considered multiple pathways but acquiring Syndicate 1200 emerged as a unique opportunity because it gets us into the international specialty market quickly with an established platform while capitalizing on current market dynamics,said Kuhn.
Kuhn recently announced Graham Evans to the Westfield Specialty executive management team as Executive Vice President, Head of International Insurance. Like Kuhn, Evans has deep international specialty expertise from leadership roles at Chubb, CNA, AXIS and his most recent role leading Endurance/Sompo’s European operations. Evans will develop Westfield Specialty’s international strategy and will lead the integration of Lloyd’s Syndicate 1200.
Jack and Graham have enjoyed a long professional relationship spanning more than 20 years in the international specialty market, Together, they will shape the business and build an even stronger portfolio of international business,continued Largent.
The international operation will reside within Westfield Specialty, which currently writes specialty business in the U.S. Under Kuhn’s leadership, the team is targeted to write $250 million of premium in 2022 during its first full year of operation.
Largent echoes the long-term international commitment adding, This is Westfield acting on a timely, strategic opportunity; investing in our business and deploying capital to create value for our customers. Like Lloyd’s, Westfield has a long history approaching 175 years in business and we couldn’t be more excited about this new chapter and working with the Syndicate 1200 team.
Sidley Austin LLP served as legal counsel and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, A Stifel Company, served as financial advisor to Westfield on this transaction.
Westfield is an $8.8 billion (GAAP assets) property-casualty insurance company underwriting commercial, personal, surety and specialty lines of insurance in the U.S.
About Westfield
Westfield was founded in 1848 by a small group of hard-working farmers who believed in the promise of the future and the power of the individual. Today, as a leading property and casualty (P&C) insurance company in the United States, we remain true to their vision and are dedicated to making a positive difference in our customers’ lives.
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LIFE INSURANCE
Policygenius and CBIZ | October 04, 2022
Policygenius and CBIZ announced today a partnership to bring Policygenius Pro, a term life fulfillment platform, to CBIZ's extensive network of insurance professionals.
Policygenius Pro is a turnkey partnerships platform that helps advisors accelerate and streamline life insurance sales. With this tool, advisors can refer their clients to Policygenius to take them through the process, from finalizing policy selection to placing coverage in-force.
This partnership enables CBIZ to expand its term life insurance offerings by giving their clients access to Policygenius' wide variety of insurers and policy options, including accelerated underwriting offerings exclusively available on the Policygenius platform. CBIZ plans to harness Policygenius' award-winning services for term life cases that are a great match for these services, enabling them to better focus on other goals. This ultimately provides clients with the best service possible, while also helping CBIZ save time and make their term life production more profitable.
"Policygenius Pro gives us a way to both expand and streamline our term life production, We trust Policygenius Pro to provide top-tier service to our clients while also empowering our agents to have more thorough and holistic conversations about life insurance."
-Anne Long, RICP and President of Life Insurance Solutions at CBIZ
The partnership is initially rolled out to CBIZ advisors who have each been equipped with unique landing pages and engagement tools to launch into life insurance conversations with their clients. They can take advantage of Policygenius' expansive carrier shelf to provide clients with a breadth of coverage options and confidently discuss how these may fit in with their larger financial plans.
With Policygenius Pro, CBIZ agents and clients receive support from an expert staff of 200+ dedicated specialists for case management, underwriting, and product support. To date, the platform has helped partners cut placement times by half, on average, and reduced the average time an advisor spends on an application from 2.5 hours to about 15 minutes.
Advisors often shy away from placing term life coverage for their clients because it can be so time- and cost-intensive. CBIZ is different. They've made it their mission to provide both robust and personalized financial guidance for their clients, including the right life insurance coverage, We're thrilled to be able to partner with such a forward-thinking organization that values the customer experience and trusts us to be the life insurance fulfillment partner for their customers,said Jennifer Fitzgerald, CEO and co-founder of Policygenius.
About Policygenius Pro
Policygenius Pro is a turnkey partnerships platform that helps independent agents and financial advisors accelerate and streamline life insurance sales. With this program, Policygenius provides its one-stop-shop insurance solution to financial advisors, independent agents, community banks, credit unions, and more, with the goal of helping partners' clients get the insurance coverage they need. Partners receive access to a wide variety of insurers, coverage types, and policy options, including accelerated underwriting offerings exclusively available on the Policygenius platform.
About Policygenius
Policygenius transforms the insurance journey for today's consumer, providing a one-stop platform where customers can compare options from top insurance carriers, get unbiased expert advice, buy policies, and manage their insurance portfolio, in one seamless, integrated experience. Our proprietary technology platform integrates with the leading life, disability, and home and auto insurance carriers and delivers an exceptional digital experience for both consumers and insurance carriers. Since 2014, our content, digital tools, and experts have served as a resource for millions of people on their insurance journey, and we have sold more than $170 billion in coverage.
About CBIZ
CBIZ, Inc. provides professional business services that help clients better manage their finances and employees. CBIZ provides its clients with financial services, including accounting, tax, financial advisory, government health care consulting, risk advisory, real estate consulting and valuation services. Employee services include employee benefits consulting, property and casualty insurance, retirement plan consulting, payroll, life insurance, HR consulting and executive recruitment. As one of the largest accounting, insurance brokerage and valuation companies in the United States, the Company's services are provided through more than 100 Company offices in 33 states.
About CBIZ Life Insurance Solutions
CBIZ Life Insurance Solutions, Inc. is a full-service brokerage general agency with a 40-year legacy. We offer solutions utilizing life insurance, annuities, long-term care, disability, executive benefits and life settlements.
We take advantage of our unique access to seasoned professionals servicing other products lines within the broader CBIZ organization. In addition, we continue to support and grow our legacy relationships with independent producers. Our industry intelligence is carefully integrated to help ensure the most favorable result is obtained.
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INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY
BriteCore | September 19, 2022
BriteCore, a next-generation provider of cloud-native core administration solutions for property and casualty (P&C) insurers, today announced the launch of the BriteCore Platform, a comprehensive suite for managing policies, billing, and claims complete with advanced analytics, a ratings engine, and agent and policyholder portals.
As the insurance industry trends toward greater levels of customer-centricity, BriteCore is redefining the traditional boundaries and capabilities of policy administration systems (PAS) with the BriteCore Platform by enabling small to mid-size insurers and managing general agents (MGAs) to gain a competitive edge against larger companies. In fact, recent BriteCore research into current technology and industry trends in North America found 94 percent of survey respondents rely on core systems to support business growth initiatives, improve efficiency and productivity, and modernize operations. Further, the BriteCore P&C Core Systems Survey confirmed industry leaders see modern, cloud-native core systems as a solution to the challenges driving a continuous need for enhanced business operations and customer experiences.
“When we decided to move away from the legacy system which had been running our business for years, we chose the BriteCore Platform since it enabled us to establish new business processes that deliver exceptional agent and policyholder experiences, all while providing options to better manage cost and grow our business, In addition, the BriteCore Platform decreased our dependency on on-prem solutions and future-proofed our IT environment by allowing us to easily integrate with existing and emerging technologies going forward.”
-Nancy Newmister, President and CEO for Frederick Mutual Insurance Company
In addition to the BriteCore Platform’s comprehensive digital core functionality, new and enhanced features available immediately include:
E-Signature – Through a new partnership with DocuSign, the BriteCore Platform provides agents and policyholders with the option of signing documents electronically during the quoting and underwriting process. E-signature delivers faster time to revenue, greater ROI and cost savings, and reduced risk through improved compliance.
Advanced Analytics & Reporting – BriteCore extended the core platform to deliver persona-based executive dashboards, advanced analytics and reporting. Now agents, executives, and line-of-business leaders (underwriting, claims, billing) can easily create custom and standard reports, identify new business opportunities for growth or cost savings, and translate their data into actionable insight.
UI Enhancements – BriteCore performed a major update to the platform user interface to ensure the experience for agents, policyholders, and insurance carrier staff benefits from a simple, modern design that is easy to learn and use while delivering a consistent look-and-feel.
Enhanced Comprehensive IT Environment – Backed by AWS for reliability, scalability, and enterprise-grade security, the BriteCore Platform is relied upon to provide a comprehensive IT environment for completion of mission-critical insurance processes. BriteCore added to the range of Amazon Web Services (AWS) services and technologies used to support the BriteCore platform in such areas as delivering fast and responsive query performance through a robust in-memory engine.
The BriteCore Platform redefines and expands the capabilities P&C insurers industry-wide, and our ever-growing number of insurer customers, can expect from a core system, Historically, core systems focused on automating internal processes and workflows. The BriteCore Platform automates internal AND external processes, provide superior underwriting and claims processing experiences for agents and policyholders, and integrates a wide range of external services and data sources to improve the competitiveness of insurers. Today and into the future, the BriteCore Platform can be relied upon to provide a comprehensive IT environment for completion of mission-critical insurance processes,said Ray Villeneuve, CEO for BriteCore.
About BriteCore
BriteCore is a cloud-native platform for P&C insurers that unlocks business growth, enhances the customer experience, and delivers great efficiency gains. BriteCore provides end-to-end support for insurance operations that includes policy administration, an agent and policyholder portal, rapid product configuration, underwriting rules and rating, billing management, claims management, document management, and reporting. As a cloud-native solution, BriteCore is continually updated for maximum security, efficiency, and durability at scale.
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