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January 07, 2022 at 03:27 PM
What You Need to Know
- The CEO of BSMG is the immediate past chair of NAILBA.
- LTC Global has acquired Westland Financial.
- Senior Market Sales, NFP, U.S. Retirement & Benefits Partners and Hilb have acquired firms in the employer market.
Specialty Program Group has acquired the assets of Brokers’ Service Marketing Group II, or BSMG.
SPG is a Summit, New Jersey-based company that buys and runs specialty insurance brokerage firms and underwriting services.
BSMG is a Providence, Rhode Island-based life and annuity brokerage general agency that was founded in 1972. The BGA helps agents, brokers and financial institutions sell life insurance, annuities, long-term care insurance, and related products and services.
Jason Lea, BSMG’s CEO, is the immediate past chair of the National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies.
SPG CEO Christopher Treanor said in a comment about the deal, included in the acquisition announcement, that SPG is interested in expanding into the life insurance and annuity market.
Many other insurance distribution companies have also been making deals.
Life, Annuity and Long-Term Care
LTC Global and Westland Financial
LTC Global — a Fort Myers, Florida-based insurance distributor and agency financing provider — has acquired Westland Financial Services, a San Diego-based life and health insurance agency.
Gene Pastula, founder and president of the firm, and other top company executives will stay with the business, LTC Global says.
Medicare
Independence Holding Co, and Independence Pet IHC and Horace Mann IHC and Reliance Standard
Independence Holding Co. has taken two more steps toward changing itself from an issuer of medical stop-loss insurance and specialty health insurance products into a health insurance plan seller.
IHC says it has completed the previously announced sale of part of its pet insurance business to a subsidiary of Independence Pet Holdings, which was formerly known as Iguana Capital. The transaction was connected with a pet insurance business transaction completed with the Independence Pet subsidiary over the summer. The two transactions have a total value of about $394 million: $276 million in cash and about $118 million in Independence Pet stock.
The Stamford, Connecticut-based company has also completed the previously announced sale of Madison National Life Insurance Co. subsidiaries to Horace Mann Educators Corp. of Springfield, Illinois. The subsidiary writes specialty health insurance, group disability insurance and life insurance. Horace Mann paid IHC a total of $172.5 million in cash up front and could pay an additional $12.5 million if Madison National meets performance goals.
In addition, IHC has completed the previously announced sale of Standard Security Life Insurance Co. of New York, a company that writes short-term disability insurance and paid leave plans in New York state, to Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., a Philadelphia-based arm of Tokio Marine Group, for $180 million in cash.
IHC says it now “distributes Medicare, life, under age 65 health (including Affordable Care Act plans), and other insurance products direct to consumers, via agents and through affinity partnerships.”
Employer Health Benefits
Senior Market Sales and Transitions Benefit Group
Senior Market Sales — an Omaha, Nebraska-based subsidiary of Alliant Insurance Services — has acquired Transitions Benefit Group, an Atlanta-based company that helps employers work with group health plan enrollees who are turning 65 and becoming eligible for Medicare, from the founder, Cambria Smith.
Smith founded the company in 2008, after she learned her grandparents were losing their health insurance.
