Newsfrom Innovator Capital Management, Unum, Lincoln Financial Group,Willis Towers Watson, CBIZ Women's Advantage, Hodges-Mace,Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, and more. (Photo:Shutterstock)

Busy times here in the employee benefits field. Benefits brokersand retirement advisors are seeing more acquisitions andpartnerships.  And people in both professions, as well asHR professionals, are moving up, changing jobs, and beingrecognized for the work they do. Here's the latest:

Springfield Clinic, the second largestmultispecialty clinic in Illinois, chose Prudential Retirement as recordkeeper for itsdefined contribution retirement plans. Prudential will oversee $300million in retirement assets, which will cover 2,500 SpringfieldClinic participants as of March 31, 2019.

OneDigitalHealth and Benefits has acquired Trinity Benefit Advisors, which has beenserving clients in Pennsylvania and Florida, with services spanningbenefits, compliance and wellness.

The Leapfrog Group, a national watchdogorganization, accepted the 2019 Health Value Award for Value TransparencyServices for its “Lives and Dollars Lost to Medical Errors”calculator. The interactive tool lets employers and otherpurchasers estimate the number of avoidable deaths among coveredlives, how much they spend annually due to medical errors, and howmuch of their total health care spend goes to these medicalmistakes.

Elizabeth Sloan has been promoted to assistantvice president of Special Markets Operations at Standard InsuranceCompany (The Standard). Sloan oversees administration ofreinsured group insurance business. In addition, Sloan isresponsible for operational compliance for The Standard LifeInsurance Company of New York and is also The Standard's paidfamily and medical leave business product sponsor.

The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation ParalysisResource Center (PRC) is hosting a webinar on ABLEaccounts for individuals with paralysis looking to keepextra income safe to sustain quality of life.The free webinar willreview how to select the right plan and answer commonly askedquestions, on June 27 from 2 p.m – 3 p.m. ET. See the ReeveFoundation's events page.

Benefit management software and services provider Hodges-Mace wasnamed a 2019 Top 25 HR Technology Provider by CIO ApplicationsMagazine. The award recognizes companies whodeliver game-changing solutions to simplify and improve thebenefits selection experience and enhance employee engagement.

Women's Advantage (CWA), the CBIZ Program that focuseson the recruitment, retention, and advancement of CBIZ women,announced that Lori Novickis,Director of Corporate Relations, will serve as National Leader fora three year term, succeeding Nancy Mellard,Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the Benefits &Insurance Services Division of CBIZ, Inc., who will remain on theExecutive Board for the next three years. It alsoannounced eight new board members:

• Sherry Burick, Area Sales Director – Winston-Salem, NC
• Amy Grant, Director – New York, NY
• Heather Hernandez, Senior Manager – San Diego, CA
• Sarah Jackson, Managing Director – Denver, CO
• Catherine Latham, Managing Director – New England, MA
• Kim Randolph, Managing Director – Boca Raton, FL
• Janet Thompson, Principal – Overland Park, KS
• Leonora Yurichak, Senior Director – Cleveland, OH

Ellen Duffy has been named senior vicepresident, head of Employment Law, at Lincoln FinancialGroup. Duffy will lead the Employment Law team and assumestrategic counsel to senior leadership on HR-related law.Duffy will report to Leon Roday, executive vice president andgeneral counsel.

Unum Groupannounced that John F. “Jack” McGarry, executivevice president and chief financial officer since 2015, will retirefrom the company effective October 31,2019.  Steven A. Zabel,president of Unum's closed block of business, will assume the roleof executive vice president and chief financial officer effectiveJuly 1.

Zywaveannounced the acquisition of RateFactory. Zywave will incorporateRateFactory's small group quoting into its product suite.RateFactory customers will become Zywave customers,and its employees will become Zywave employees.RateFactory will continue to sell, service and support itsproducts while Zywave begins integrating businessoperations.

Athene,a pension annuity provider, has adopted RiskFirst's pensionrisk analytics and reporting platform, PFaroe. Athene will usePFaroe's on-demand liability and transaction price monitoringservices to help plan sponsors evaluate risk.

The HealthEnhancement Research Organization (HERO) announced theappointment of Jack Groppel, Ph.D. andShelly Wolff, Ph.D. to the HERO board ofdirectors. They replace outgoing board members Sue Willette, seniorvice president, employer healthcare strategy, Consortium HealthPlans; and Lilly Wyttenbach, executive director, JPMorgan Chase& Co.

British insurer Legal & General has teamedup with Amazon to establish what it said is thefirst blockchain system for corporate pension deals, Reuters reports. Theinsurer said it would use a managed blockchain system launched byAmazon Web Services (AWS) to handle bulk annuities, which involveLegal & General taking over companies' defined benefit or finalsalary pension schemes.

Innovator Capital Management, LLC (Innovator)announced plans to expand its Innovator Defined OutcomeETF suite with two additional Buffer ETFs based on the MSCI EAFEand the MSCI Emerging Markets Indexes. Developed to provideinvestors buffered exposure to leading international equitybenchmarks, the two new ETFs are anticipated to list on the NYSEArca on July 1, 2019.

Health AlliancePlan,  a Michigan-based, nonprofit health plan thatprovides health coverage to individuals and companies of all sizes,has appointed Seth Crawford as vice president ofUnderwriting. Crawford most recently served as a licensedagent/broker at J.S. Clark Agency, and prior to that spent 25 yearsat Blue Cross.

Springbuk, a health intelligence platform, announced anational preferred partnership with One Drop, a providerof healthy lifestyle and condition management programs foremployers. Springbuk's data sets and insights aim to enable OneDrop to identify high-cost claims before they happen and automatetargeted outreach.

WillisTowers Watson announced that Luba Nikulinawill become head of research, effective July 1. ChrisRedmond will replace Nikulina as head of manager research.Nikulina will oversee key internal investment researchteams and will continue to report to Craig Baker, chiefinvestment officer.

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