Integrity Marketing and SMS Make Health Distributor Deals

What You Need to Know

Integrity Marketing acquired Easy Street, a Medicare plan distributor.
SMS bought O'Neill Marketing, a company that distributes Affordable Care Act plans.
SMS will use O'Neill to offer ACA plan support to 71,000 agents.

Two big insurance distributors have shown that they can still make deals, in spite of the turmoil in some other parts of the economy.

Integrity Marketing Group announced the acquisition of Easy Street Insurance, an Indianapolis-backed Medicare plan distributor.

Senior Market Sales bought O’Neill Marketing, a St. Petersburg, Florida-based company that helps insurance agents offer individual and family major medical policies offered through the Affordable Care Act exchange program.

What It Means

Buyers are still out there making insurance distribution deals.

The fact that both Integrity Marketing and SMS announced health insurance-related acquisitions might be a sign that, for now, deals involving health insurance might be easier to close than those involving life insurance and annuities.

Integrity Marketing-Easy Street

Integrity Marketing is a Dallas-based firm, with backing from several private equity firms, that has relationships with about 500,000 agents, brokers and advisors, $22 billion in 2022 sales and $40 billion in assets under management.

Easy Street started up in 2001.

Sandra Carrasquillo, the president of Easy Street Insurance, and Jess Carrasquillo, the vice president, will become managing partners with Integrity Marketing.

Senior Market Sales-O’Neill Market Deal

SMS is an Omaha, Nebraska-based distributor owned by Alliant Insurance Services. It has relationships with about 71,000 agents.

Alliant has private equity firm backing but is majority-owned by its employees.

O’Neill Marketing, the SMS acquisition target, was founded in 2016 and serves as a health insurance general agency supporting about 1,500 agents with products from about 100 insurers, quoting and sales systems, marketing programs and administrative support services.

Chuck O’Neill is the firm’s founder, and Kerry Van Iseghem is the CEO.

Jim Summers, president of SMS, said one reason SMS found the deal appealing is a new federal law that will keep ACA public exchange plan premium subsidies in place through 2025.

“Coming off a record ACA open enrollment period and with recent legislation extending subsidies for another three years, the timing could not be better for us to enter the under-65 health market,” Summers said.