Zinnia Launches Whole Life Chassis on Zahara, Built for Final Expense Volume

Carriers and distributors can configure and launch whole life products in as few as three months, on a system of record built for volume

GREENWICH, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zinnia, a leading life insurance and annuity technology company, today announced the addition of a whole life chassis to its Zahara policy administration platform, giving carriers a path to launch whole life products within a quarter. The addition targets a shift already underway of final expense and other small face products pulling whole life demand toward middle and lower income households as the population ages, and carriers are writing policy volumes their systems were never designed to handle.

Whole life anchors the permanent life market and continues to set records. New annualized premium reached $6.4 billion in 2025, the highest to date, and whole life held 37% of total individual life premium, the largest share of any product line. The more telling number sits underneath. Policy count has grown faster than premium for several consecutive quarters, which means carriers are writing more policies at smaller face amounts, on margins that leave no room for manual handoffs. Legacy systems were not built for that. Decades of accumulated logic for dividends, paid-up additions, policy loans and non-forfeiture options make policy data slow and inconsistent to reach. What carriers need now is straight-through processing, underwriting decisions in minutes instead of weeks, and a cost to serve that stays flat as volume climbs.

Zahara is a system of record built so policy data and calculations are easy to query, not locked behind screens and overnight batch cycles. The chassis exposes both through APIs. That matters for carriers building AI and agentic strategies, which depend on fast, structured access to core policy data at scale, something most inherited platforms cannot deliver. Open access at the record level lets carriers evolve products, distribution partners and AI strategy without rebuilding the foundation underneath.

"The growth here is volume, not premium. Hundreds of thousands of small face policies,” said George Esposito, CEO of Zinnia. “Carriers do not win that business on systems built for one-off, custom contracts. We built this chassis so a whole life product launches in a quarter and runs at volume on day one."

Carriers can configure a common set of product structures, calculations, business rules and workflows to fit their own product design, riders and distribution needs.

Core Capabilities

• Product configuration and calculations: Defines whole life product features, premiums, cash values, benefits, riders and policy rules, including dividends, paid up additions, policy loans and non-forfeiture options.
• New business and policy issuance: Connects illustrations, case creation, policy data and issuance workflows through APIs, supporting simplified issue and high-volume patterns.
• Policy administration and servicing: Supports post-issue transactions, including premium activity, status changes, reinstatements, surrenders and customer updates.
• Digital experiences: Delivers policy information and servicing into customer, agent and operational tools.
• Enterprise and operational integration: Connects Zahara with calculation services, case management, enterprise APIs, accounting, reporting and other operational systems.

"The cost and delay in this industry usually show up in integration and testing, not in product design," said Michael Celi, Chief Product Officer at Zinnia. "We built the whole life chassis so carriers can begin testing from the earliest stages of implementation, not at the end, where most timelines break."

Zahara now offers pre-built frameworks spanning annuities and life. One foundation carriers launch from across product lines, instead of building separately for each.

About Zinnia

Zinnia, an Eldridge business, simplifies the life and annuity industry by delivering comprehensive technology solutions for the industry's most critical needs. Zinnia is the infrastructure behind the life and annuity industry, helping carriers move faster, distributors expand access, advisors build confidence, and consumers gain trust. Zinnia is also backed by funds managed by KKR and Vista Credit Partners, leading global investment firms. To learn more about Zinnia, please visit zinnia.com.