Two concentrations joined MassMutual Financial Services Agen

 

Thursday, Mar 05,2009, 12:49:45 PM   Click:

Merger between two financial services organizations MassMutual Ashley Smith, The Telegraph, Nashua, NH McClatchy-Tribune Regional News
January 3 - In a move to transfer approximately 20 jobs in Nashua, Bedford, New Hampshire two of the largest financial services organizations have merged.

Nashua-based Northern New England and the Agency Shaugnessy Bedford Financial Group, both affiliated with Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., has 33,000 customers and $ 3.4 billion in life insurance.

MassMutual announced Friday the merger.

The combined agency, which also provides money management and sells products such as disability insurance and long-term care becomes the insurance giant that the affiliate in New Hampshire.

The combined agency is based in Bedford, but took the Northern New England Agency name and kept a small office in Nashua.

The office was Nashua 436 Amherst St. with 52 persons until December 19 when he moved to 20 Trafalgar Square, where about 30 agents and staff members remain. The remainder was transferred to the Office of Bedford has recently expanded to 2 Executive Park Drive.

Before the merger, Bedford agency had 33 employees and agents.

Despite the economic slowdown, MassMutual General Agent McMahon said the agency plans to develop. He said, the operation of Nashua has seen an increase of 55 per cent of sales in 2008.

"When markets are changing rapidly, there is usually a flight to safety, safeguards," McMahon, who leads all the agencies said. "Our industry is quite in vogue."

McMahon said he plans to grow by 20 per cent of the agency and contracts with 25 new employees each year for the next three years. The agency currently has a staff of nearly 100 agents along the career with over 300 independent brokers.

Merger discussions began about a year ago, when Shaugnessy Financial Group General Agent Jim Shaugnessy announced a retirement plan that the general agent of Bedford, but remain with the company in private practice, according to McMahon and MassMutual statement.

"We thought it was an excellent opportunity to consolidate and merge services," he said. The agencies are already in use most of the same territory, which includes all parts of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont.

McMahon, who lives in Nashua, said he would not leave the city altogether in the wake of the merger.

"I am not only the general agent here, I am also a resident," said McMahon.

The agency has close links with the city and its 300 affiliated brokers continue to be managed here, "he says.

As part of its expansion in New Hampshire, the agency is adding specialists in life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance, retirement annuities and fixed services. McMahon expects the majority of the agency of future employment growth in the sale.

Nationwide, MassMutual has increased its workforce by 5 percent in 2008, adding 249 agents, and increased by 25 percent since 2005. MassMutual was one of two insurers, with New York Life, who said in November there was a lot of capital and was not interested in a government rescue, a report from Associated Press.