Federal Life Hires Knut Olson as CEO, Adds Tom Marra to Board

Federal Life Group — a company that recently began selling a life insurance policy that provides long-term care benefits at the worksite — has hired a leader who has years of experience with stand-alone long-term care insurance.

The Riverwoods, Illinois-based company announced earlier this week that it has named Knut Olson to be its CEO and a member of its board.

Olson previously was the CEO of National Guardian Life, a life insurer that has been working to fight the long-term care insurance drought and introduce a new LTCI policy.

Federal Life has also added three new independent board members, including Tom Marra, who recently retired from a seat on the board of Symetra Life. Earlier, Marra was the CEO of Symetra, and, before that, he was the chief operating officer at Hartford Life.

What It Means

Federal Life could be preparing to ramp up efforts to help clients plan for retirement income and long-term care needs.

Federal Life

Federal Life is a company founded in 1899. In 2019, it used financing from Insurance Capital Group, a firm with two former state insurance commissioners on its board, to revamp its operations.

Since then, in addition to the life-LTC hybrid, it has introduced products such as a high-deductible Medicare supplement insurance policy.

In the past, it teamed up with National Guardian to offer dental insurance in New York state.

Federal Life Leadership

Bill Austin took over from Joe Austin as the CEO of Federal Life in 2018. Austin is the company’s executive chairman.

Knut Olson

Olson, the new CEO, has a bachelor’s degree from Pacific Lutheran University and a doctorate in business from the University of Liverpool.

He holds the Chartered Life Underwriter designation.

Before he worked for National Guardian, he spent 26 years at Thrivent Financial, which is known for its long-term care insurance products.

The New Directors

In addition to Marra, the other new Federal Life directors are David Foy, the former chief financial officer of Hartford Life; and David Herzog, the former CFO of American International Group.

“These new directors will help support the growth of the company’s successful accident and health insurance franchise and expand the business into a premier global retirement solutions provider for individuals and institutions,” Olson said.

Marra noted in a comment about his new Federal Life board seat that life insurance industry venture growth is benefiting from the rapid entry of new sources of capital.

What Olson and Marra are saying could hint that Federal Life has more product and strategy announcements in the pipeline.