Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. has acquired BlueStar Retirement Services, Inc., effective Sept. 30.
Founded in 1991, BlueStar is a full-service recordkeeper and TPA headquartered in Florida specializing in open architecture retirement plans built on a proprietary high-tech and high-service delivery model. According to a press release, in addition to traditional 401(k) plans, BlueStar, which currently serves some 75,000 participants and some $4 billion in plan assets, is one of the industry leading providers of MEPs.
“Ameritas and BlueStar share a commitment to excellent customer service,” said Bill Lester, Ameritas’ President and CEO. “Bringing us together creates opportunities to serve more people, drive growth and continue building the momentum in our retirement plans business.”
“This is an exciting time for the Ameritas retirement plans division,” said Jim Kais, Ameritas SVP/head of retirement plans. “Integrating BlueStar's capabilities with our own will offer advisors a well-resourced service and technology enabled open-architecture platform. We're deepening our expertise in specialty markets like the pooled plan marketplace. This is especially important as this market is seeing significant growth and few providers have robust experience or capabilities in this space.”
BlueStar will operate as a subsidiary of Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. The BlueStar and Ameritas sales and service teams will begin collaborating immediately to ensure that existing customers experience no disruptions. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“We’ve reached a major milestone in the BlueStar journey,” said Tim Werner, founder and President of BlueStar. “Our focus has been to deliver sharp, smart and transparent services to our advisors and partners. By joining Ameritas retirement plans, our collective models will deliver the solution stack and service excellence we're both committed to providing.”
Ameritas is a marketing name for Ameritas Mutual Holding Company and its affiliated subsidiary companies, including Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. and Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. of New York.
