BINGHAMTON — Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of New York (RLHINY) and its sister company Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of America (RLHICA) have formally opened a permanent location of the Renaissance New York office at 2 Court St., Suite 102 in Binghamton. The insurer held a ribbon-cutting event in early August with […]
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BINGHAMTON — Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of New York (RLHINY) and its sister company Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of America (RLHICA) have formally opened a permanent location of the Renaissance New York office at 2 Court St., Suite 102 in Binghamton.
The insurer held a ribbon-cutting event in early August with the Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, to commemorate the new office and “celebrate strategic growth” at the company. Renaissance says it is a multi-line insurance provider, offering dental, vision, life, disability, and accident coverage to groups and individuals nationwide.
The 8,700-square-foot office, which opened to employees in May, houses Renaissance’s group life, disability, and accident insurance services.
The office is the company’s first in Binghamton and comes after Renaissance acquired the Security Mutual group life and disability division late last year. Following that purchase, “the decision was made to relocate the legal address and headquarters of RLHINY to Binghamton at our new 2 Court St. location,” Robert P. Mulligan, president and CEO of Renaissance told CNYBJ in an email response provided through a spokesperson.
Before that, RLHINY had a legal address in Manhattan that was unstaffed. Prior to the acquisition, RLHINY contributed just 1 percent of total Renaissance revenue while Indianapolis–based RLHICA, licensed in the other 49 states, provided the remaining 99 percent, according to Mulligan. Now, RLHINY represents 9 percent of overall Renaissance revenues.
Renaissance’s acquisition of the group insurance division of Security Mutual Life was finalized in December 2017. “The primary value of this transaction to Renaissance is the personnel and their expertise in life and disability products, as well as the systems and processes that support these products,” Mulligan said. As a result, Renaissance planned to keep as much of the existing workforce as possible by locating its new office in Binghamton. It retained all 34 of the Security Mutual employees in the transition. The employees’ average length of insurance experience is 17 years.
“As a part of the transaction, we made arrangements to lease office space owned by Security Mutual Life and located across the street from their main headquarters until such time that we finalized the build-out of our permanent location at 2 Court Street,” he said. Renaissance moved into its new location in May.
The office features an open concept with glass walls and space for up to 60 employees. It underwent a complete renovation costing about $750,000, according to Mulligan. Renaissance has a 10-year-lease agreement on the space.
The Binghamton office is Renaissance’s main operations center supporting its group life, disability, and accident policies for both New York state and national clients, he said. Services provided at the location include underwriting and administrative support in claims processing, policy issuance, and customer service. New group sales and account-management staff also work at this location.
“The primary role of the office currently is to support our national group ancillary sales division, for life, disability and accident coverages, serving various brokers and groups across the country. Longer term, this location will also become a regional support center for our group dental and vision products as well,” Mulligan said.
Local economic-development officials welcomed Renaissance’s decision to make downtown Binghamton the home for its New York office.
“We are so thrilled that Renaissance has chosen Binghamton to expand their business and has created a strong partnership with an existing business as a strong foundation,” Jennifer Conway, Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, said in a news release about the ribbon-cutting event. “We are confident that Renaissance will find great success here. This is exactly the kind of business investment that we are looking for in Broome County, and we look forward to the future as we grow together.”
Donald J. Smith, VP of the Renaissance Binghamton operation, said his firm is pleased to be a part of the changes talking place in the Binghamton area.
“We’re excited about the momentum and being a part of the growth at Renaissance as well as the revitalization in downtown Binghamton,” he said in the release. Smith is a graduate of Binghamton University.
Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of America and Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of New York are part of a family of companies collectively operating under the holding company Renaissance Health Service Corp. Founded in 1957, the family of companies has offices in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. Collectively, the Renaissance companies cover 13.1 million people with annual paid claims of nearly $3 billion.
Renaissance has produced seven consecutive years of top line growth and profitability, growing from about $45 million in revenue in 2011 to more than $200 million projected for 2018, Mulligan said.