Merger Joins Two MassMutual Financial Services Agencies

Jan. 3--In a move that transfers some 20 jobs from Nashua to Bedford, two of New Hampshire's largest financial services agencies have merged.

Nashua-based Northern New England Agency and Shaugnessy Financial Group of Bedford, both affiliated with Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., have a combined 33,000 clients and $3.4 billion in life insurance coverage.

MassMutual announced the merger Friday.

The combined agency, which also provides money management services and sells products such as disability and long-term care insurance, becomes the insurance giant's only affiliate in New Hampshire.

The combined agency is based in Bedford but took the Northern New England Agency name and has retained a smaller office in Nashua.

The Nashua office was at 436 Amherst St. with 52 people until Dec. 19, when it moved to 20 Trafalgar Square, where nearly 30 agents and staff remain. The rest were relocated to the recently expanded Bedford office at 2 Executive Park Drive.

Before the merger, the Bedford agency had 33 staff and agents.

Despite the faltering economy, MassMutual General Agent McMahon said the agency has plans to grow. He said , the Nashua operation saw about a 55 percent increase in sales in 2008.

"When the markets are in flux, there's typically a flight to certainty, to guarantees," McMahon, who will lead the combined agency, said. "Our industry is actually pretty much in vogue."

McMahon said he plans to grow the agency 20 percent and contract with 25 new associates each year for the next three years. The agency currently has a staff of nearly 100 career agents along with over 300 independent brokers.

Merger discussions began about a year ago, when Shaugnessy Financial Group General Agent Jim Shaugnessy announced plans to retire as the general agent in Bedford, but stay on with the company in private practice, according to McMahon and a statement from MassMutual.

"We felt it was an excellent opportunity to consolidate and merge services," he said. The agencies were already serving much of the same territory, which includes all of New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont.

McMahon, who lives in Nashua, said he didn't want to leave the city altogether as a result of the merger.

"I'm not only the general agent here; I'm also a resident," McMahon said.

The agency has close ties to the city and its 300 independent affiliated brokers will continue to be managed here, he said.

As part of its New Hampshire expansion, the agency is adding specialists in whole life insurance, disability income insurance, long-term care insurance, fixed annuities and retirement services. McMahon expects the majority of the agency's future job growth to be in sales.

Nationwide, MassMutual grew its workforce by 5 percent in 2008, adding 249 agents, and has grown 25 percent since 2005. MassMutual, was one of two insurers, along with New York Life, that said in November it had plenty of capital and was not interested in a government bailout, an Associated Press report said.