TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 8, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Health Insurance Innovations (HII) (Nasdaq:HIIQ), a leading developer and cloud-based administrator of affordable health insurance plans, ancillary products, and research-driven consumer health insurance plan shopping tools, today announced the acquisition of the privately-held, Fort-Worth based American Service Insurance Agency, LLC. (ASIA), a distributor of individual insurance programs including primary short-term medical (STM), ACA, hospital indemnity, Medicare, life insurance and dental policies. In conjunction with the acquisition, Mr. Jordan has been hired by HII as its new Director of Call Center Operations.
"The incorporation of ASIA demonstrates our commitment to growth and to providing consumers with the best technology and services to access affordable healthcare," said Mike Kosloske, CEO of HII. "This acquisition is in line with our strategy to expand captive distribution channels for sustainable growth. The transaction will produce immediate accretion and HII will realize the net financial benefits in the near term."
The aggregate purchase price is $4.0 million, of which approximately $1.8 million represents an initial cash payment, with the remainder tied to the financial performance of ASIA's business over the next two years.
A significant benefit of this transaction is the vertical integration of this large distributor, and of anticipated profits derived from policy distribution to Company results. ASIA has been an important distributor of HII insurance products and has an extensive and profitable downline subsidiary call center network.
Mr. Jordan is a second-generation executive with over 20 years' experience in this space and has an extensive and profitable call center network, which will contribute to overall distribution efficiency.
About Health Insurance Innovations, Inc.
Health Insurance Innovations, Inc. (HII) develops affordable, high-quality health insurance products through partnerships with best-in-class insurance carriers, distributed through licensed insurance agents as plan configurations customized for the individual consumer. These transactions take place via the industry's first virtual administrator, an entirely cloud-based proprietary process —Quote-Buy-Print— providing proof-of-coverage to insured in minutes rather than weeks. HII is a data-driven digital business informed by its consumer division. HII's consumer division includes HealthPocket.com's Research & Data business, the largest repository (of any kind) of health insurance information and HealthPocket.com, the only online resource that offers consumers one-click access to unbiased rankings of all available health-insurance plans. Additional information about HII can be found at www.hiiquote.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements other than historical fact, and may include statements relating to goals, plans and projections regarding new markets, products, services, growth strategies, anticipated trends in our business and anticipated changes and developments in the United States health insurance system and laws. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current assumptions, expectations and belief are generally identifiable by use of words "may," "might," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential" or "continue," or similar expressions and involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, developments and business decisions to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, our ability to maintain relationships and develop new relationships with health insurance carriers and distributors, our ability to retain our members, the demand for our products, the amount of commissions paid to us or changes in health insurance plan pricing practices, our ability to integrate our acquisitions (including our July 2014 acquisition of HealthPocket, Inc.), competition, changes and developments in the United States health insurance system and laws, and HII's ability to adapt to them, the ability to maintain and enhance our name recognition, difficulties arising from acquisitions or other strategic transactions, and our ability to build the necessary infrastructure and processes to maintain effective controls over financial reporting. These and other risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements are discussed in HII's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013 and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, all as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as other documents that may be filed by HII from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this press release is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. You should not rely on any forward-looking statement as representing our views in the future. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.