Bestow to Focus on Tech, Sell Life Insurance Unit

News May 13, 2024 at 01:39 PM
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Bestow has decided to sell its Bestow Life Insurance Co. subsidiary.

The Dallas-based insurance technology firm said last week that it will focus on providing services for other life and annuity enterprises, rather than on writing its own insurance.

Sammons Financial, the parent of North American Company for Life and Health, a life insurer that has written some of the products sold by Bestow for years, has agreed to acquire Bestow Life.

Iowa insurance regulators have scheduled a May 28 hearing on the acquisition. Sammons hopes to get the regulatory approvals it needs to complete the purchase by June.

What it means: Life insurers may have a hard time exciting clients, but the moats keeping other players out of their market continue to be wide.

The strategy: Melbourne O'Banion, Bestow's chief executive officer and co-founder, said the company bought Bestow Life to show life and annuity companies what its systems can do.

"We accomplished that," O'Banion said.

Bestow: Bestow was founded in 2016 and has raised about $137 million in capital from Sammons and other investors.

It started off selling term life insurance written by Sammons.

In 2020, it paid Wells Fargo $2.3 million for Centurion Life, a company founded in 1956 as Consumers Life Insurance. The official domicile, or home, of Bestow Life is in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Bestow Life reported a $2.9 million net loss for 2023 on $7.2 million in revenue and $91 million in assets, according to an annual statement filed with state insurance regulators.

The company generated $1.2 million in direct first-year individual life premiums.

Sammons and Bestow have not disclosed how much Sammons is paying for Bestow Life, but Bestow indicated that it's happy with the financial outcome.

Sammons' view: In addition to North American Company for Life and Health, Sammons also owns Midland National Life.

Sammons said in a comment about the deal that it might use Bestow Life to expand into new markets.

Credit: Olivier Le Moal/Adobe Stock

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