A newly launched digital platform gives advisors more choice when shopping for commercial insurance policies for corporate clients.

Sacramento-based benefitRFP announced the launch of Nations Choice Trusted Advisors, a risk management firm that combines the infrastructure behind benefitRFP’s platform with BD Capital’s network of risk managers and agencies to provide insurance and benefits solutions for businesses.

“Companies want to make sure they have risk taken care of so they don’t insure 95 percent of their business and then encounter 5 percent that’s causing a problem,” says Bob Nienaber, co-founder of benefitRFP. “The system asks them about benefits, also, and evaluates any risks associated with those. It finds areas of exposure, and then shops the entire marketplace for solutions, shop any products to the carriers who provide the products, then goes through application, finalization and all the associated paperwork.”

At the beginning of August, BD Capital Partners acquired benefitRFP and a sister firm, Affiliated Companies, as part of a cash transaction. Nations Choice was created as a partnership between BD Capital and benefitRFP. As part of the BD Capital acquisition, Nienaber remains at the helm of benefitRFP and Nations Choice Trusted Advisors.

Nations Choice uses a diagnostic tool to determine shortcomings in a business’s benefits and insurance coverage, then matches the firm’s needs with the suitable products and managers.

According to Nienaber, companies requested that benefitRFP apply the platform it has used for executive benefits to the commercial insurance and benefits space, thus Nations Choice was born.

“We were approached by a lot of business-to-business firms asking us to work on their benefits,” says Nienaber. “It was an area that many folks stayed away from in the past because they worried that someone would bring up questions that they had no expertise on. We decided that we wanted to open up our technology to commercial organizations and center a new platform around risk.”

Whereas benefitRFP offers cloud-based executive benefit programs for American companies through an efficient digital platform, Nations Choice marries that technology with BD Capital’s commercial risk management business to offer a more comprehensive line of service to companies.

The benefitRFP platform first analyzes a firm’s executive compensation and benefit package for shortfalls and opportunities. The company’s eponymous software then combines products and services from asset managers and insurance providers with administrative solutions to create a holistic benefits package.

“Instead of being sold a solution by a producer, companies could now understand their funding and planning needs and shop the entire marketplace of providers,” says Nienaber. “It helped take the guess work out. At the same time, it created opportunities for providers as companies recognized and understood their needs.”

The benefits platform aligns with policy and regulations from federal and state agencies like ERISA, the IRS and the Department of Labor, easing the compliance requirements that accompany executive benefits.

The executive benefits business needs to scale, says Nienaber, because demand for benefits packages has become widespread.

“Whereas before our starting point was companies doing $50 million in revenue or higher, we’re now seeing bonus programs for companies doing $3 million in revenue,” says Nienaber. “Small businesses, if they want to keep one or two people, they’ll try to do something beyond normal compensation. We’re seeing this happen in restaurants and tire shops – small, normal companies are coming into the picture, and it’s absolutely changing the marketplace.”

Whereas benefitRFP targets executive benefits for the top tiers of the corporate world, Nations Choice is targeting businesses in general while including the executive benefits functionality of its predecessor.

Nienaber says that Nations Choice goes beyond a simple insurance platform, combining business planning, wealth management, commercial insurance and executive benefits on a digital platform.

With the benefitRFP infrastructure, Nations Choice will perform a full risk assessment and seek to fill any gap in a company’s insurance, risk management and benefits offerings across its entire workforce.

“Then they can shop the marketplace for a product and get the cost down for the customer,” says Nienaber. “The real advantage is that they’re usually not just shopping for one item or one product, the platform brings a whole list of opportunities to the carriers.”

Though the benefitRFP platform wasn’t designed to analyze workplace retirement plans, Nienaber says that Nations Choice will also be able to give clients an idea of plan health.

Just as benefitRFP may now be applied to a larger client base via Nations Choice, BD Capital will in turn harness the technology to grow its practice of acquiring and streamlining independent insurance agencies.

“BD Capital was a small company with an already developed line of business accessing the client base we were most interested in working with,” says Nienaber. “We can grow side-by-side with them, with a branding that encompasses both of our businesses. It’s really a partnership, a relationship that we’re using to drive technologies.”

With Nations Choice, BD Capital has a natural draw for agents and advisors, as the new offering should be attractive to professionals interested in offering commercial line insurance to businesses while remaining compliant and objective, says Nienaber.

“The platform is designed to get the end client the best results: The best plans for that client managed by the best carriers,” says Nienaber. “This is something that could belong in the suitcase of a young advisor who is worried about selling insurance and benefits. Now they have a true partner in the marketplace.”