(West Des Moines, Iowa – March 19, 2019) – Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Iowa (FMH), in collaboration with FindBob, today announced the launch of FMH Bridge, a new web-based agency support tool designed to help identify growth opportunities for FMH agents.
“Providing value-added support to our agency partners is a key strategy at FMH. Looking for opportunities to grow or develop a transition plan for a book of business can be challenging for agents, and this tool is meant to ease that process as well as facilitate easier business transitions for customers,” said FMH President and CEO Ron Rutledge.
FMH Bridge is powered by FindBob, a tech startup company centered around providing solutions that allow for greater ease in agency growth and perpetuation.
“It was apparent very early on when we met Farmers Mutual Hail via the Global Insurance Accelerator that they cared deeply about the growth and perpetuation needs of their agencies,” said Roland Chan, Founder and CEO of FindBob. “Our platform was purposefully designed to help home offices create efficiencies in a largely frozen M&A marketplace through a personalized experience that engages and helps the agency principal achieve their transition or growth goals. We’re extremely proud of this relationship and the opportunity to help Farmers Mutual Hail and their distribution.”
Structured as a networking platform, FMH Bridge asks each participating agency to create an anonymous profile identifying where and how they would like to grow their business, or if they are considering selling their business. Agencies can search for other profiles and connect with each other to buy, sell, or partner on books of business. FMH Bridge was launched to a select group of agencies as a pilot program with plans to expand it to all FMH agents in the future.
Farmers Mutual Hail connected with FindBob through the Global Insurance Accelerator (GIA), a mentor-driven business accelerator designed to foster innovation in the insurance industry by supporting insurtech startups targeting the global insurance industry. FMH is a founding investor in the GIA.
“Gaining the opportunity to access new insurance technologies like this platform from FindBob is just one of the reasons we invest in the GIA,” said Rutledge. “Not only do we invest in the future of the industry, we can stay at the forefront of the latest technology trends so we can offer new solutions to our employees, agency partners, and policyholders even sooner.”
Learn more about FindBob: www.findbob.io
Learn more about GIA: www.globalinsuranceaccelerator.com