iA Financial Group completes acquisition of Vericity

iA Financial Corporation Inc. (“iA” or the “Company”), the holding company of iA Financial Group (TSX: IAG), announced today that iA American Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary of the Company, completed its acquisition of Vericity, Inc. (“Vericity”) (Nasdaq: VERY). The agreement to acquire Vericity was announced on October 3, 2023.

With more than 400 employees, Vericity is comprised of Fidelity Life, an insurance carrier¹, and eFinancial, a direct-to-consumer digital agency. Together, the two entities leverage synergies and deliver innovative, proprietary technology powered by artificial intelligence and rich data analytics to serve middle-market life insurance customers in the United States.

“For several years now, iA Financial Group has enjoyed strong growth in its individual life insurance business in the United States. This acquisition will enable us to continue this strong growth, increase the size of our operations in this field south of the border, and give us access to a digital distribution platform,” points out Sean O’Brien, Executive Vice-President and Chief Growth Officer US Operations. “Synergies are to be expected, in particular due to Vericity's distribution capacities with direct access to consumers.”

The purchase price of approximately US$170 million was funded by iA with available capital, and the Company's solvency ratio was reduced by about 3 percentage points.

Forward-Looking Statements
This document may contain statements relating to strategies used by iA Financial Group or statements that are predictive in nature, that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or that include words such as “may”, “will”, “could”, “should”, “would”, “suspect”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “plan”, “believe”, “estimate” and “continue” (or the negative thereof), as well as words such as “objective”, “goal”, “guidance”, “outlook” and “forecast”, or other similar words or expressions. Such statements constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities laws. In this document, forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, information concerning the future operating results and expected benefits of the transaction. These statements are not historical facts; they represent only expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events and are subject to change.

Although iA Financial Group believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. More specifically, the transaction is subject to the risk and uncertainty of whether and to what extent iA would realize the expected benefits of the transaction.

Additional information about the material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements may be found in the “Risk Management” section of the Management’s Discussion and Analysis for 2023, the “Management of Risks Associated with Financial Instruments” note to the audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2023 and elsewhere in iA Financial Group’s filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators, which are available for review at sedarplus.ca.

The forward-looking statements in this document reflect iA Financial Group’s expectations as of the date of this document. iA Financial Group does not undertake to update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this document or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.

¹ Fidelity Life is licensed in all states and D.C. except for New York and Wyoming.