Canadian insurance brokerage and risk management firm, Navacord Corp. has today announced the addition of Ontario-based SmartChoice Benefits Inc. into its booming ranks.
It’s the latest in a series of deals that expands Navacord’s presence in the employee benefits and pension space, which the brokerage giant sees as an organic evolution of its business strategy to offer a more robust suite of services to clients.
Founded in 1988, SmartChoice provides comprehensive benefit plan options tailored to niche business segments that have been historically underserved by the group insurance market across Canada, such as contracted employees, small businesses and franchises.
“We’ve invested considerably in designing and building benefits packages that make it easy and affordable for our clients to offer the comprehensive coverage they need to be competitive in the market,” said Zeke Oudeh, founder & CEO of SmartChoice. “Joining Navacord provides us with additional infrastructure and the strength of a national company that will help take our business to the next level.”
The deal provides Navacord with an opportunity to enter the third-party administration space and creates a strong overlap to commercial group and transportation segments for significant cross-selling between the businesses.
Navacord president and CEO, Shawn DeSantis, commented: “The addition of SmartChoice adds to our breadth of sector expertise and exclusive products, to ensure we continue providing our clients with the best advice and solutions tailored for their business needs. It also shows our commitment to building the required scale, carrier relationships, industry leading products and technology solutions to place us among the leaders in the Canadian market for employee benefit and pensions.”
