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

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

OneDigital Health and Benefits has acquired Trinity Benefit Advisors, which has been serving clients in Pennsylvania and Florida, with services spanning benefits, compliance and wellness.

The Leapfrog Group, a national watchdog organization, accepted the 2019 Health Value Award for Value Transparency Services for its “Lives and Dollars Lost to Medical Errors” calculator. The interactive tool lets employers and other purchasers estimate the number of avoidable deaths among covered lives, how much they spend annually due to medical errors, and how much of their total health care spend goes to these medical mistakes.

Elizabeth Sloan has been promoted to assistant vice president of Special Markets Operations at Standard Insurance Company (The Standard). Sloan oversees administration of reinsured group insurance business. In addition, Sloan is responsible for operational compliance for The Standard Life Insurance Company of New York and is also The Standard's paid family and medical leave business product sponsor.

The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Paralysis Resource Center (PRC) is hosting a webinar on ABLE accounts for individuals with paralysis looking to keep extra income safe to sustain quality of life.The free webinar will review how to select the right plan and answer commonly asked questions, on June 27 from 2 p.m – 3 p.m. ET. See the Reeve Foundation's events page.

Benefit management software and services provider Hodges-Mace was named a 2019 Top 25 HR Technology Provider by CIO Applications Magazine. The award recognizes companies who deliver game-changing solutions to simplify and improve the benefits selection experience and enhance employee engagement.

Women's Advantage (CWA), the CBIZ Program that focuses on the recruitment, retention, and advancement of CBIZ women, announced that Lori Novickis, Director of Corporate Relations, will serve as National Leader for a 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 the Executive Board for the next three years. It also announced 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 vice president, head of Employment Law, at Lincoln Financial Group. Duffy will lead the Employment Law team and assume strategic counsel to senior leadership on HR-related law. Duffy will report to Leon Roday, executive vice president and general counsel.

Unum Group announced that John F. “Jack” McGarry, executive vice president and chief financial officer since 2015, will retire from the company effective October 31, 2019. Steven A. Zabel, president of Unum's closed block of business, will assume the role of executive vice president and chief financial officer effective July 1.

Zywave announced the acquisition of RateFactory. Zywave will incorporate RateFactory'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 its products while Zywave begins integrating business operations.

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

The Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO) announced the appointment of Jack Groppel, Ph.D. and Shelly Wolff, Ph.D. to the HERO board of directors. They replace outgoing board members Sue Willette, senior vice president, employer healthcare strategy, Consortium Health Plans; and Lilly Wyttenbach, executive director, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

British insurer Legal & General has teamed up with Amazon to establish what it said is the first blockchain system for corporate pension deals, Reuters reports. The insurer said it would use a managed blockchain system launched by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to handle bulk annuities, which involve Legal & General taking over companies' defined benefit or final salary pension schemes.

Innovator Capital Management, LLC (Innovator) announced plans to expand its Innovator Defined Outcome ETF suite with two additional Buffer ETFs based on the MSCI EAFE and the MSCI Emerging Markets Indexes. Developed to provide investors buffered exposure to leading international equity benchmarks, the two new ETFs are anticipated to list on the NYSE Arca on July 1, 2019.

Health Alliance Plan, a Michigan-based, nonprofit health plan that provides health coverage to individuals and companies of all sizes, has appointed Seth Crawford as vice president of Underwriting. Crawford most recently served as a licensed agent/broker at J.S. Clark Agency, and prior to that spent 25 years at Blue Cross.

Springbuk, a health intelligence platform, announced a national preferred partnership with One Drop, a provider of healthy lifestyle and condition management programs for employers. Springbuk's data sets and insights aim to enable One Drop to identify high-cost claims before they happen and automate targeted outreach.

Willis Towers Watson announced that Luba Nikulina will become head of research, effective July 1. Chris Redmond will replace Nikulina as head of manager research. Nikulina will oversee key internal investment research teams and will continue to report to Craig Baker, chief investment officer.

Benefits industry newsmakers: DailyPay, Hub International, PSCA, SCAN Health Plan, AIG Retirement Services

Benefits newsmakers: Callan, AlphaPoint, Hub International, Sheridan Road, TIAA

Benefits industry news makers: Nuveen, Humana, ParcelShield, FinFit, GoCo, Turbo

Benefits industry newsmakers: Voluntary Disruption, Healthjoy, NAPA

Employee benefits newsmakers: Jellyvision, Wink, Endeavor Plus, Milliman

Instant Insights /

Benefits industry newsmakers: One Drop, Zywave, HERO, Athene, Amazon

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