Company Overview

BenefitMall provides a network of more than 15,000 independent brokers with products, services, and tools that make selling employee benefits—including thousands of group health, dental, vision, life insurance, and short-term disability plans—a streamlined and efficient process. Through these brokers, BenefitMall sells to thousands of small companies, which comprise 100 employees or fewer. Such companies can’t afford their own full-fledged benefits departments, so they welcome the access to thousands of employee-benefit plans as well as the convenience of using BenefitMall, which then takes a cut of the transactions it facilitates. On the other side, brokers not only get access to a huge number of potential customers, but also can use administrative services offered through the website and shop on the site for plans that meet the needs of their employer-customers. BenefitMall was founded in 1979; in the mid-1980s it created computer software for delivering quotes from multiple providers to brokers in real time. The company, which had made a series of acquisitions and name changes, was purchased in 1995 by the giant health insurer, Humana, which spun it off as BenefitMall, an independent Internet company, in 1999. BenefitMall is owned by company management, Austin Ventures, Humana Ventures (Humana Inc.), Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Technology Crossover Ventures, MetLife, and BMI Fund, L.P.