Around the P&C insurance industry: September 18, 2019

Jacobson, Goldfarb & Scott, Inc. (JGS Insurance) announced the acquisition of the John Manougian Insurance Agency (JMI) located in Silver Spring, MD. Founder John Manougian will remain as a consultant, while Chris Manougian and Robin Manougian will serve as Vice Presidents along with the rest of the staff whom will continue to operate from the agency’s Silver Spring office. JMI currently serves the needs of more than 600 community associations throughout the metro-Washington, DC area. The acquisition underscores JGS Insurance’s growth strategy in community associations as well as throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

DXC Technology, an independent IT services company working with over 85% of insurers in Fortune’s Global 500, announced its second annual competition for insurtech startups. The competition is focused on identifying the startups that are addressing key insurance business challenges through digital innovation. Competition winners will have the opportunity to present before hundreds of insurance professionals at the DXC Insurance Conference 2019 (Nov. 11-14 in Miami).

Grinnell Mutual was named fourth-best large Iowa employer in the 2019 Des Moines Register/Workplace Dynamics Top Workplaces survey. It is the ninth straight year the company has earned a spot on the list and its second top-five finish. It is one of only six companies in the state that has made the list every year since the honor’s creation. The Register and WorkplaceDynamics evaluated survey responses from participating employers with at least 35 employees. Top Workplaces are categorized by the number of employees in Iowa and chosen based on employee feedback.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions announced that General Motors (GM) has selected the LexisNexis Telematics Exchange, a device-agnostic telematics ecosystem, as its preferred portal for sharing consumer-approved connected car data with insurers. The mission of the Telematics Exchange is to help save consumers time and money, and enhance safety with programs such as proactive, personalized insurance discount offers and safe driving initiatives. In a statement, Adam Hudson, General Manager and Senior Director, Connected Car, LexisNexis Risk Solutions said, “As a leading automaker and a pioneer in automotive connectivity, safety and security through OnStar, we’re excited to enable GM to more seamlessly work with insurers to provide the best solutions for their drivers.”

Kespry, a drone-based aerial intelligence solution provider, announced it has partnered with XAP 360, a nationwide network of certified roofing contractors, to deliver a new country-wide drone-based residential roofing inspection program. The new program is designed to create a transparent and accurate roof inspection experience possible for homeowners, and help ensure claims payouts occur rapidly. In addition, the two partners’ mission includes cutting time and costs for inspection by 50-75%. Kespry and XAP 360 say with their product and services, manual inspections that used to take up to 90 minutes will take as little as 10 minutes to complete the same work with their autonomous drone-based solution.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. announced the acquisition of Humble, Texas-based Serna Insurance Agency. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 2001 by Pete and Martha Serna, Serna Insurance Agency offers private client, personal lines and commercial insurance products and services to clients throughout the state of Texas and surrounding states. Pete, Martha and their associates will continue to operate from their current location under the direction of Jeff Saunders, head of Gallagher’s U.S. personal lines operations.

Service American Indemnity Company (SAIC), a national provider of program services, announced the addition of Risk Transfer Insurance Agency as the newest partner to support its continued national growth in Workers Compensation. “We are pleased to have Risk Transfer Insurance Agency join our growing ranks of diversified program business as we continue to expand. We look forward to a long-term relationship working alongside this proven leader in program operations,” said Steve Collier, SAIC Chief Operating Officer.

Valen Analytics, an Insurity company, and provider of proprietary data, analytics and predictive modeling for P&C insurers, announced InsureRight Manage 2.0, a new version of the portfolio management component of the company’s InsureRight Platform. Manage 2.0 features a proprietary data model that enables a forward-looking view of portfolio performance. By combining historical, real-time and predictive data, the new version generates granular insights needed to understand both where the business is and where it is headed. Manage 2.0 is currently available to all Valen clients hosting a predictive model on the InsureRight Platform.

AXA XL and Neptune Flood, an all-digital flood insurance program administrator, have entered a strategic underwriting partnership intent on expanding Neptune Flood Insurance’s capacity to homeowners throughout the U.S. Neptune Flood offers coverage to residences in all flood zones, including non-mandatory “X” zones that have been hit so hard in recent years. In a statement, Chris Bressette, Senior Vice President and Head of AXA XL’s North America Program business said, “Private Residential Flood Insurance in the U.S. has emerged as a rare growth opportunity in an otherwise crowded P&C market. We are thrilled to be working with such a capable Delegated Program Administrator partner. Neptune has very strong technical analytic capabilities, a deep understanding of related legislative issues, and a unique and responsive client service platform.”

AkinovA, an electronic marketplace for the transfer and trading of reinsurance risk, and ACORD, a non-profit global standards-setting body for the insurance and related financial services industries, announced that AkinovA donated key insurance-linked security assets to ACORD, which will be available to ACORD members as part of the ACORD Data Standards and Architecture.

The donated assets include data definitions and collection mechanisms related to cyber and catastrophe risk transfer for the reinsurance marketplace, as well as regulator-approved sample contracts and policies which will be used to guide the development of ACORD’s Global Reinsurance and Large Commercial Standards. These instruments include an innovative modularised contract structure and easily accessible summary of all key price-relevant variables. AkinovA says they developed these assets as part of its overall mission to grow the overall size of the reinsurance market by enabling new participants to enter, helping existing participants to transact more business, and creating an effective secondary market for the re-trading of reinsurance risks, bringing together third-party news, data and analytics from its users and partners.

CRC Group announced that the company will rebrand its brokerage and binding operations under the CRC brand name and will cease using the SCU name effective immediately. As of Sept. 10, brokerage and binding operations will trade under the CRC name and logo. All employees, phone numbers, and office locations will remain the same.

Related: Around the P&C insurance industry: September 11, 2019