Verisk to Acquire FAST to Strengthen Its Data and Analytics Solutions in Life Insurance and Annuities Market

JERSEY CITY, N.J., Dec. 04, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Verisk (Nasdaq:VRSK), a leading data analytics provider, announced today it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire FAST, a leading software company for the life insurance and annuity industry. FAST offers a flexible policy administration system that helps insurers accelerate underwriting and claims to enhance the customer experience and support profitable growth.

“As customer expectations for a fast and easy insurance experience rapidly increase, life insurers are being pressured to modernize operations across the policy life cycle,” said Neil Spector, president of ISO, a Verisk business. “But transitioning from legacy solutions is a major investment in time and money. The plug-and-play software that FAST has developed lets life insurers make this transition in stages and without a large up-front capital commitment.”

FAST, which stands for “Flexible Architecture, Simplified Technology,” provides a SaaS suite of out-of-the-box components that life insurers can use to quickly enhance or replace their legacy policy administration systems. FAST software, which is used by a wide range of life insurers, also provides a channel for Verisk to deliver its new innovative analytics to support straight-through underwriting.

“The acquisition of FAST will extend our offerings to the life insurance market as we build a comprehensive suite of innovative solutions to support insurer modernization,” said Mark Anquillare, chief operating officer of Verisk. “By working with FAST technology and its customers, we’ll be able to improve our predictive models and offer integrated data analytics to life insurers through an end-to-end workflow solution.”

“Verisk has become a leader in developing solutions that help insurers make critical decisions with increased speed and precision,” said Tom Famularo, CEO of FAST. “As part of Verisk, we’ll be able to enhance our software, expand our reach, and provide robust analytics to meet the rapidly changing needs of life insurers and their customers.”

To support life insurers across the policy life cycle, Verisk has developed a suite of solutions that apply advanced analytics, automation, and machine learning to existing and emerging data sources. The solutions are designed to transform existing workflows in life insurance underwriting, life and pension analytics, claim insights, compliance and fraud detection, and actuarial and portfolio modeling. To learn more about Verisk’s life insurance solutions, visit . 

The purchase price is $193.5 million. The transaction is subject to the completion of customary closing conditions.

About FAST

FAST, which stands for “Flexible Architecture, Simplified Technology,” is a privately held company located in Iselin, N.J. FAST focuses on solving the challenges our financial services and insurance clients face as they seek to modernize their systems environments or completely replace legacy systems. To learn more about FAST, visit .

About Verisk 

Verisk (Nasdaq:VRSK) is a leading data analytics provider serving customers in insurance, energy and specialized markets, and financial services. Using advanced technologies to collect and analyze billions of records, Verisk draws on unique data assets and deep domain expertise to provide first-to-market innovations that are integrated into customer workflows. Verisk offers predictive analytics and decision support solutions to customers in rating, underwriting, claims, catastrophe and weather risk, global risk analytics, natural resources intelligence, economic forecasting, and many other fields. Around the world, Verisk helps customers protect people, property, and financial assets.

Headquartered in Jersey City, N.J., Verisk operates in 30 countries and is a member of Standard & Poor’s S&P 500^® Index. In 2018, Forbes magazine named Verisk to its World’s Best Employers list. For more information, please visit .