Holding Company Torchmark Picks Up Family Heritage Life

Torchmark, which specializes in life and supplemental health insurance for middle income consumers, buys the supplemental health insurance company for $218.5 million.

McKinney, Texas-based holding company Torchmark Corporation will acquire Family Heritage Life Insurance Company of America (Cleveland, Ohio) for $218.5 million, funded internally with cash from Torchmark's insurance subsidiaries.

Family Heritage is a specialty insurer focused primarily on selling individual supplemental health insurance products with a return-of-premium feature. It has about 223,000 policies in force and reported $488 million in assets at the end of 2011. Direct premiums written in 2011 were $162 million.

"This transaction meets the criteria we established when we began looking at possible acquisitions several years ago," said Torchmark co-CEOs Gary Coleman and Larry Hutchison in a statement. "The company has a track record of solid premium growth and strong underwriting margins with a business plan that incorporates a variable-cost marketing structure."

Nathan Golia is senior editor of Insurance & Technology. He joined the publication in 2010 as associate editor and covers all aspects of the nexus between insurance and information technology, including mobility, distribution, core systems, customer interaction, and risk ... View Full Bio