Health Insurance Innovations, Inc. Acquires Healthcare Data Site for $32 Million
Health Insurance Innovations, Inc. (HII) announced on Monday, July 14 that it acquired the privately-held HealthPocket, Inc. for approximately $32 million in cash and stock, according to the Wall Street Journal.
HII offers industry-leading health plan development, virtual administration and agent distribution of affordable health insurance plans while HealthPocket is known for its data aggregation technology.
HealthPocket, founded in 2012, offers the only technology available to provide consumers independent comparisons and ranking of all health plans available in a single interface. Its website, HealthPocket.com, aggregates vast amounts of government, non-profit and private data for the U.S. health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, as well as healthcare provider, network and cost data, according to an issued release.
“The incorporation of HealthPocket into Health Insurance Innovations fits with our growth strategy of continued innovation of unrivaled products and technology solutions within the insurance industry to further enhance our competitive advantage,” said Mike Kosloske, CEO of Health Insurance Innovations. “HII has achieved a track record of rapid year-over-year growth since 2009. This transaction will significantly increase leads, drive sales and enable us to more swiftly expand into lucrative market adjacencies such as the $402B Medicare marketplace, the $35B ACA segment of individual major medical and the $220B employer-sponsored market, positioning the combined company for long-term leadership in our dynamic industry.”
Benefits of the acquisition include a strong position and competitive advantage as health insurance aggregates, big-data driven insights to enter new markets and expand in others and a strong team with Bruce Telkamp and Sheldon Wang continuing as leaders of HealthPocket.
The aggregate merger consideration paid by HII was approximately $30.8 million, consisting of $20.8 million in cash, 788,000 shares of HII common stock, and options to purchase 113,000 shares of HII common stock. Additionally, HII also repaid HealthPocket’s outstanding bank debt of $1.2 million.
With the acquisitions, Health Insurance Innovations hopes to offer a unique consumer platform merging its online plan development with HealthPocket’s comparison tools.