After acquisition, insurance firm plans $10 million investment for agents

CLEARWATER — AmeriLife Group LLC has acquired Senior Market Advisors (SMA), a merger that is expected to combine industry experience with a technology-based innovative approach to selling and marketing life and health insurance and financial products for retirement.

Company officials say the acquisition will combine Clearwarter-based AmeriLife’s scale with SMA’s growth: Over the past four years, the 14-year-old company has expanded to 43 states and grown the number of agents and agencies it works with by 60%. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. 

“SMA’s commitment to community perfectly aligns with our own company mission — to offer insurance and retirement solutions to provide peace of mind and help people live longer, healthier lives,” says Scott Perry, AmeriLife’s chairman and CEO, in a statement. “With our national network and SMA’s powerful tools that help agents and agencies put their clients’ well-being first, we’re positioned to make a meaningful difference to the communities we serve.”

AmeriLife distribution network now includes more than 200,000 agents nationwide, more than 60 agency offices and 35 affiliate locations. With the merger of the two companies, SMA has pledged to reinvest $10 million into its agency partners to assist them in growing their businesses.

“We are committed to developing pioneering technologies that empower our insurance agent partners to exceed their clients’ needs,” says Jeff Pitta, SMA’s CEO, in the statement.

“This partnership with AmeriLife enables us to reach more agents and agencies and accomplish more than we ever could on our own.”

With the pairing, AmeriLife will now have access to SMA’s Salesforce-enabled technology that will allow them to better serve clients “through industry integrations that allow for real-time data access.”