Dive Brief:
- Small and medium-sized employers are getting a new market for benefits and HR software with the announced partnership between giant carrier Unum (in 2015, $5.8 billion in benefits paid to more than 563,000 people) and Flock, an all-in-one cloud-based software platform to manage HR, benefits and compliance.
- The new alliance will connect with health insurance brokers who serve the SMB market with access to Unum's coverage plans on Flock's full suite of human resources information systems (HRIS) and benefits administration platforms.
- Among other features, Flock's HRIS suite will offer onboarding, document management, employee engagement and PTO tracking at no charge to all Unum clients. Flock's benefits administration suite, which includes employee & manager self-service and ACA compliance, will cost Unum customers a nominal charge and include integration with many Unum products, according to a joint statement.
Dive Insight:
The new partners say their combination will help brokers solve employer pain points, good news for those SMB employers. And it brings together a potent, highly credible benefits carrier (disability, life, accident and critical illness) with a popular and relatively new HR tech startup.
Raj Singh, CEO of Flock, says the partnership with Unum will ensure employers have access to a new generation of HR and benefits administration tools, as well as the ability to work with the brokers who serve as "valuable trusted advisors."
Flock, also part of the ADP Marketplace, is the brokers' response to formerly high-flying Zenefits, which had tried to knock the SMB broker out of the equation by dealing directly with employers. It appears the the synergy between the old and the new may work for SMB employers to be competitive with their larger brethren.