Marsh & McLennan's (MMC) Unit Joins Forces With Duck Creek

Dovetail Insurance, an affiliate Marsh, recently inked a strategic deal with Duck Creek Technologies. Investors should know that Marsh is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE:MMC) .

Duck Creek, which is a leading technology services provider to the insurance industry, is likely to manage and develop the technology supporting Dovetail’s proprietary platform with increased technology resources, per the agreement.

We note that Marsh & McLennan regularly engages in acquisitions, mergers and partnerships to boost growth. Since 2009, the company has invested more than $7 billion for growth and efficiency. The company made more than 130 acquisitions worth almost $6 billion, had capital expenditures of $2.4 billion and appointed over 10,000 employees during this period.

The growth efforts made by Marsh & McLennan and its subsidiaries seem to have pleased investors. Year to date, the Marsh & McLennan’s stock has gained 8.6% compared with an increase of 6% by the Zacks categorized Insurance Brokers industry.

Coming back to the latest deal, it is worth mentioning that Dovetail is an innovative provider of insurance services to the small commercial market. Dovetail’s platform is engaged in delivering better, more efficient service with independent insurance agents. It also offers clients an expanded scope of product along with providing insurance carriers with a new channel to distribute those products. Duck Creek’s sophisticated technology is expected to further enhance the speed and quality of Dovetail service. This strategic alliance should help both companies to introduce better solutions to the small commercial market.

On the other hand, Duck Creek is likely to gain a comprehensive insight on the Property & Casualty insurance industry through its association with Marsh and Dovetail. According to Duck Creek’s Chief Digital Officer, Curt Stevenson, the deal will support the technology services provider’s “potential for innovation; modern, highly configurable software that is inherently built for change; and the ability to get carriers and their partners to the cloud quickly and in a model that best supports their strategy,”.

Zacks Rank and Stocks to Consider

Marsh & McLennan presently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks from the insurance space include James River Group Holdings, Ltd. (NASDAQ:JRVR) , MGIC Investment Corporation (NYSE:MTG) and Cincinnati Financial. (NASDAQ:CINF) . Each of these stocks holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

James River Group offers specialty insurance and reinsurance services in the U.S. The company delivered positive surprises in three of the last four quarters with an average beat of 3.60%.

MGIC Investment provides private mortgage insurance and ancillary services to lenders and government sponsored entities in the U.S. The company delivered positive surprises in three of the last four quarters with an average beat of 21.74%.

Cincinnati Financial deals in the property casualty insurance business in the United States. The company delivered positive surprises in all of the last four quarters with an average beat of 9.17%.

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