Port Huron, Michigan-based Woman’s Life Insurance Society plans to become part of Milwaukee-based Trusted Fraternal Life, the two companies announced Wednesday.
The deal is the first since Milwaukee-based Catholic Financial Life announced the establishment of Trusted Fraternal Life, a new company that will aim to consolidate the fraternal benefit society industry while allowing organizations to retain their own brands and missions.
Trusted Fraternal and Woman’s Life are working toward completing the merger by July 1, pending regulatory approval.
“The pending merger of Woman’s Life with Trusted Fraternal Life marks an exciting moment as we continue to redefine the future of fraternal life insurers,” said John Borgen, president and CEO of Trusted Fraternal Life. “This action demonstrates our commitment to foster innovation and growth within the fraternal life insurance sector, serve more middle-market ‘Main Street’ families, and make an even greater community impact across the country.”
Woman’s Life has around $200 million in assets and 23,000 members, primarily in the Great Lakes region.
“Woman’s Life is merging with one of the strongest fraternals in the United States,” said Chris Martin, president of Woman’s Life. “We’ll have access to more products and services, advanced technology, and expanded distribution throughout the country. This is good for our existing members and future members who will join Trusted Fraternal Life under the Woman’s Life brand.”
Borgen first pitched Martin on the potential deal last summer over dinner.
“I thought, I don’t know if there’s going to be any interest or not, but it was one of the fraternals that as I conceived of the strategy thought would be really interesting to have as part of the family of brands,” Borgen said.
When Borgen first asked to meet, Martin assumed it was to discuss potential ways of sharing services, but said the larger vision was “extremely intriguing.”
“I thought this is shared services but in a much larger way and yet us continuing to build our brand and work our mission,” Martin said. “The ability to, as a small fraternal, to join with a large, financially strong organization with plenty of resources that could help invest in our brand and yet keep our name and our legacy and our history going.”
Woman’s Life had already been looking at strategic alternatives when Borgen made his pitch. Martin noted that as a small organization it is difficult to live up to the corporate mission of helping all women become financially secure.
“We’ve been strategizing as to how we can be more impactful in our vision and our mission,” Martin said. “We knew that in order to do that we needed to grow, we needed resources, we needed capital.”
Combining with Trusted Fraternal would allow the organization to realize in months what would otherwise take decades, Martin said.
Borgen said the decision to establish Trusted Fraternal has been well received in the industry since the action was announced in March. While the merger would have technically been possible without the structure, the ability for Woman’s Life to retain its brand and mission helped bring the deal together.
“I think it’s fair to say that I don’t know that Woman’s Life would’ve been as interested in becoming part of Catholic Financial Life,” Borgen said. “They’ve expressed the fact that it is Trusted Fraternal Life and they are a brand like Catholic Financial Life, that structure and strategy was very appealing.”
He noted that both fraternals being able to harness economies of scale will allow for additional investments in products and services, additional distribution and greater community impact.
“That is ultimately in all members’ best interests,” Borgen said.
