Close Close
Sign In
Newsletters
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
Podcast Center Video Center Webcasts Resource Center Events
About ThinkAdvisor Contact Us Advertise With Us Asset & Logo Licensing Sitemap Terms of Service Privacy Policy Copyright © 2024 ALM Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
ThinkAdvisor
Matt Berman. Credit: Foresters

Life Health > Life Insurance

Let's Offer Consumers Stability: Foresters' New CEO

By Allison Bell

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

Matt Berman, the new chief executive officer at Foresters, has taken over an insurer where life insurance is still the main course, not the appetizer.

The 150-year-old, Toronto-based fraternal insurer sold its annuity business in 2020.

Berman noted in an interview last week that Foresters could return to the annuity market. But, for now, he said, “We’re long on longevity risk. That’s our bread and butter.”

He believes that the simplicity of life insurance makes it a great fit for the times.

“I don’t think our world has gotten any less complex,” Berman said. “Consumers are looking for stability.”

What it means: Foresters could help put life back in life insurance.

Foresters: Foresters is a member-based company with 2.7 million certificates and contracts in force in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. It generated $1.2 billion in revenue in 2022 on $16 billion in assets, according to the latest available annual report.

In the United States, the company sells term life, whole life, universal life and accidental death insurance through independent distributors.

Member benefits include $2,000 volunteer work support grants and extra benefits for children who become orphans when members die.

Matt Berman: Berman worked for AIG, AXA and Zurich before joining Foresters in 2017 as a strategy executive.

He was Foresters’ chief distribution officer in early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

He then spent a year as president of Foresters Financial US & Canada before taking over in January as CEO. He succeeded Louis Gagnon, who left the CEO post in August.

He steered Foresters’ distribution team through the early pandemic-period shelter-in-place rules.

Now, looking back, Berman is happy about how Foresters and competitors handled the pandemic.

“The insurance community was there when the market needed us,” Berman said. “It was a storm that was well-managed.”

One reason, he said, was fiscal prudence.

“The industry is by and large well-capitalized,” and reinsurers made good on their promises to the direct writers, Berman said.

Sales, meanwhile, soared when mortality spiked, then returned to normal as fear about the pandemic eased.

But Berman sees concerns about market volatility, geopolitical threats and jobs increasing consumers’ overall level of anxiety.

“Real wage growth has stagnated,” he said.

Life insurance can help families save for their future and stabilize their finances, but “there’s still such a big knowledge gap about what this industry does,” Berman said. “I think we can do a better job of communicating.”

Matt Berman. Credit: Foresters

Allison Bell

Think_Allison

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.