Ascent Insurance Advisors and Afore Insurance Services Form Strategic Alliance to Expand Insurance Solutions for Clients

Alliance gives clients of both firms a more comprehensive and coordinated approach to protecting their families and businesses

FORT MITCHELL, Ky. & ALPHARETTA, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ascent Insurance Advisors and Afore Insurance Services today announced a strategic alliance connecting Ascent’s advanced life insurance and wealth transfer planning with Afore’s commercial, personal, and employee benefits insurance.

Most clients carry risks on two different clocks. One renews every year: property, vehicles, liability exposure, and the health and benefits programs that cover employees. The other plays out over decades: an owner’s death, a key employee’s departure, an estate that owes tax before it owes anything else. The two are rarely reviewed by the same people.

“Insurance planning works better when someone is looking at the whole picture,” said Kenny Kinman, Managing Partner of Ascent Insurance Advisors. “A client’s risks don’t sort themselves into neat categories. Our relationship with Afore lets us bring more of the picture into view and gives Afore’s clients access to the sophisticated life insurance and wealth transfer work we specialize in.”

Under the alliance, Ascent’s clients gain access to Afore’s coverage for home, auto, valuables, and personal liability, along with commercial property and liability protection and employee health and benefits programs for their businesses. Afore’s clients gain access to Ascent’s high-end life insurance work, designing coverage for estate taxes, business succession, and family protection, guiding clients through medical underwriting, comparing options across carriers, and reviewing policies a client already owns. Ascent also works directly alongside clients’ attorneys, accountants, and trust officers.

The alliance is very relevant to private business owners, where the two clocks run at once. The same client may need commercial property, liability, and employee benefits programs for the business and, separately, life insurance to fund a buy-sell agreement, help cover estate taxes, or protect against the loss of a key employee.

“Our clients look to us to help protect what they’ve built, their property, their business, and their people,” said Joe Guercio, President & Chief Operating Officer of Afore Insurance Services. “This relationship with Ascent extends that. It expands our ability to address the individual life insurance and wealth transfer needs of our clients while giving Ascent’s clients access to our property, casualty, and employee benefits expertise.”

For individuals and families, the same gap shows up as coverage that has not kept pace, an umbrella limit set years earlier, or a second home added without a corresponding review.

“Property and liability coverage and life insurance planning each require real depth, which is why they are usually handled by different specialists,” said John Paolini, Executive Vice President, National Personal Lines Division Leader at Afore Insurance Services. “This relationship lets those two conversations connect, so clients get the benefit of both perspectives without having to bridge them on their own.”

The alliance operates through mutual client referrals, with both firms continuing to operate independently. That structure is deliberate: each firm keeps the specialized focus and personal service its clients already rely on, while gaining a direct path to capabilities it does not offer in-house. Coverage in every case remains subject to carrier underwriting, product terms, exclusions, and individual suitability.

“This is about looking at the client as a whole,” Kinman added. “By combining our respective areas of expertise, we can help clients address both their protection and their planning needs through a single, comprehensive approach.”

About Ascent Insurance Advisors

Ascent Insurance Advisors is a national firm specializing in the evaluation, implementation, and ongoing servicing of sophisticated life insurance solutions. The firm provides end-to-end policy analysis and design, concierge underwriting, multi-carrier product comparison, and ongoing policy management in support of wealth transfer, business succession, executive benefits, charitable planning, and estate liquidity objectives. Ascent works with high-net-worth families and private business owners directly, and alongside their attorneys, accountants, investment managers, trust officers, and family office managers.

About Afore Insurance Services

Afore Insurance Services is a national independent insurance brokerage platform serving individuals, families, and businesses through local independent insurance professionals. Afore provides commercial property and casualty insurance, personal lines coverage, and group employee benefits — including health, group life, and voluntary benefits — combining the resources of a national platform with the personalized service of a local advisor.

To learn more, visit www.ascentinsuranceadvisors.com and www.afore.insure.

Certain individuals at Ascent Insurance Advisors offer Securities through Valmark Securities, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC: Certain individuals at Ascent Insurance Advisors offer advisory services through Valmark Advisers, Inc., a SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Ascent Insurance Advisors is a separate entity from Valmark Securities, Inc. and Valmark Advisers, Inc.

Property and casualty insurance and group employee benefits products and services are provided solely by Afore Insurance Services. Neither Ascent Insurance Advisors, Valmark Securities, Inc. nor Valmark Advisers, Inc. offers, recommends, or is responsible for those products. Afore Insurance Services and its representatives are not affiliated with Valmark Securities, Inc. or Valmark Advisers, Inc.

The firms do not compensate one another for client referrals.