Originally founded in France, group insurer Alan officially launched its Canadian subsidiary, Alan Canada, in Ontario on January 6, 2025. The company secured a licence in Alberta shortly afterward and planned to obtain one in British Columbia during the summer, followed by Quebec later in the year. Mark Goad serves as general manager of Alan Canada, which targets tech startups and small businesses with a fully digital offering.
Founded in 2016, Alan made its mark in France by securing several government contracts, including a major upset that saw it replace long-time provider Mgéfi as the insurer for 130,000 employees at the ministère de l’Économie et des Finances, sparking backlash from public sector unions.
Although the insurtech continues to post financial losses, its revenues are rising. In Q1 2025, it generated €523 million in annual recurring revenue, over CAD 828 million at the July 30 exchange rate, representing a 44% year-over-year increase. Nonetheless, Alan reported a net loss of €12.7 million, or CAD 20 million, over the same period.
Alan Canada currently offers two group insurance plans. As of May 30, when Insurance Portal first covered the story, the company was offering only Alan Bear. That plan, initially priced at $100 per insured employee per month, now costs $107. Enrollment requires merely answering four questions.
Alan Bear covers 80 per cent of the cost of prescription drugs (up to $3,000 annually); 80 per cent of dental care (up to $1,500); and 80 per cent of paramedical services, with a $500 per provider cap.
The company has since added a second plan, Alan Marmot, at $150 per month. This is its most comprehensive product, covering 100% of eligible health expenses. Coverage caps are set at $10,000 for prescription drugs and $2,000 for dental care.
A third plan, Alan Chipmunk, is not yet available, but Alan Canada’s displays it on its website. Initially expected to launch at $86 per month, its price has since been revised to $92.
A limited but disruptive offering
By selling group insurance directly to employers and bypassing brokers, Alan Canada positions itself as a disruptor in a traditionally broker-driven industry. On its website, the company pledges to lower plan administration fees from 30 per cent to 15 per cent of group insurance premiums.
Despite two interview invitations, one earlier this year and another in July, Mark Goad cancelled both appointments and declined to reschedule. Alan co-founder and global CEO Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve did not respond to a request for connection.
Insurance Portal spoke with three Canadian group insurance specialists, all of whom operate digital distribution models, about Alan’s entry into the market.
One of them is Chris Gory, president and founder of Orchard Benefits, a Toronto-based group benefits brokerage with over 20 years of experience serving tech startups. His brokerage firm is entirely digital.
Gory says Alan’s pricing is reasonable across its plans but finds the coverage limited. “There’s no life insurance, no disability coverage, and the health coverage is very restrictive,” he points out in an interview with the Insurance Portal.
He also notes that none of Alan’s products cover fertility support or vaccinations, “a lot of things that people are adding onto their plans nowadays”. “Insurers are aware of this,” says Gory, citing Manulife’s June 5 partnership with Maven Clinic, which provides digital support for fertility, menopause, and hormonal health. Manulife has offered such support since 2020. Several other insurers also offer fertility benefits.
If I were an employer, I'd want to know if life insurance and disability are important to my staff.
– Chris Gory
On May 27, Insurance Portal published a four-part series on women’s hormonal health, including an article titled Fertility: Employers lag behind in treatment coverage.
“If I were an employer, I'd want to know if life insurance and disability are important to my staff. I'd want to know about the drug coverage. I'd want to know whether fertility is important to the staff. If vaccines and things like that matter to them, you can’t get that through Alan Canada,” Gory warns.
Hardly a disability niche
Like Alan, Orchard Benefits specializes in the tech sector. Gory acknowledges that few of these companies show interest in long-term disability (LTD) coverage. “I don't sell a lot of disability in benefits plans because you have so many tech companies which are started by a 25-year-old guy. They think their life's ahead of them. They don't believe in disability coverage until they get older,” he says.
Crunching the numbers across his client base of 126 companies, representing 5,000 to 6,000 plan members, Gory found that just 29% of companies have LTD coverage.
Only about 15% of his client companies provide life insurance based on a salary multiple; the remaining 85% make it a flat amount, most of them $50,000.
“Alan is also doing business with tech companies. So, that's probably why they don't bother about offering LTD. But when it comes to life insurance, there’s no explanation,” he says.
Gory warns that the risks are very real. “I had a life insurance claim three weeks ago for a 33-year-old man who had cancer. And that's my ninth life insurance claim for someone under 50.”
Not easy to make your place
Alan may be a disruptor, but gaining traction won’t be easy. Even industry insiders launching digital alternatives face headwinds. One such example is Viver, a group benefits quoting and onboarding platform founded in November 2023 by Jorge Ramos, a seasoned advisor and national director of advanced planning at Carte Wealth Management, an MGA based in Mississauga, Ontario.
Viver’s plans include life insurance up to $150,000, critical illness up to $75,000, drug coverage (from $5,000 to $10,000), dental benefits, and access to 19 categories of health professionals. They also include travel insurance, vision care, eye exams, and health spending accounts.
Viver positions itself as a third-party administrator and claims payer. Advisors are given custom links they can share with their clients, which can generate quotes in minutes after clients answer a few questions. Co-operators Life underwrites the plans.
The average group size is about 10 employees, reveals Jorge Ramos in an interview with the Insurance Portal. Ramos says Viver’s soft launch targeted MGAs with which he had existing relationships. “We only go through MGAs. We ask the advisors to come directly to us, to introduce us to their MGAs, so as to get them onboard,” he explains. He emphasizes that Viver has no intention of becoming an MGA itself.
Jorge Ramos adds that Viver recently began a social media advertising and marketing campaign. “We started to get some sales attraction in the last two weeks. We're still under 100 clients. Our goal is to get to 250 clients in the first year. We're growing fast. We have 600 advisors listed in our system and we're getting 10 to 20 quotes every week, but one or two are translating into sales. We're trying to increase that 10% ratio,” says Ramos.
He remains optimistic: “We're getting a lot of good support from advisors, who see how we're different. We have a lot of early adopters. The newly minted advisors love us because we make everything so simple.”
Many advisors are slow to adopt us because they’re used to traditional methods and we’re shaking things up.
– Jorge Ramos
Even a fintech with industry roots faces reluctance from brokers, notes Ramos. “Even if you’re a fintech from the industry as opposed to a newcomer out of the field, with a very good idea, it takes longer to gain attraction. A lot of the more seasoned advisors are maybe a little slower, because they like the traditional way and we're shaking things up a bit. Advisors ask how renewals will work, who the insurer is. They have long-time relationships with their clients and their reputation on the line,” Ramos explains. More education and coaching, he believes, will help bridge the gap.
Shaking up the industry
Ramos has followed Alan’s trajectory for some time. While he believes Alan Canada will shake up the industry, he remains unfazed. “The future of group benefits is tech, and I think more players will just create more awareness. If we have some big players that are marketing technology and benefits and ease of use, I think the whole market will grow,” he says.
That’s also the view of Danny Boulanger, founder of Segic, a digital platform for group and individual benefits. Segic hosts a marketplace of digital wellness, telemedicine, and financial and insurance solutions featuring various partners, including digital life insurer Emma.
Segic also provides third-party administration and claims services. It enables self-enrollment and gives employers full control over plan data and member experience, even during insurer transitions. During the interview with the Insurance Portal, Boulanger stresses that Segic is not a broker, and that brokers are its clients. He points out that Segic recently launched a solution for them, called SegicPro AI. Built on Microsoft Power Platform, it uses Copilot's artificial intelligence to automate pre-sales processes.
On Alan Canada, Boulanger thinks many Canadian insurers have been reluctant to go direct, fearing backlash from their broker networks. “I’ve talked to brokers who long believed insurers would never go direct, because it’s complicated and risks damaging distribution relationships. But maybe they underestimated competition from Europe,” he says.
With Alan, I don’t need an expert to sell me group insurance. That’s when brokers realize they can be replaced.
– Danny Boulanger
Boulanger notes that Alan ended 2024 with €523 million in revenue, buoyed by strong fundraising. “Alan Canada’s disruptive model treats group insurance like a commodity. With Alan, I don’t need an expert to sell me group insurance. That’s when brokers realize they can be replaced,” he says.
But he believes this shift will push group insurance brokers to evolve into broader benefit plans advisors. “It’s about aligning benefit strategies with business goals like employee retention, productivity, and talent attraction, and the necessity to offer a health and wellness strategy.”
He says the brokers he’s spoken with share this view. They realize that entrepreneurs want more than just insurance. Boulanger believes that if group insurance becomes a commodity, advisors can create added value by offering a broader approach and more advice.
