+ Annual bonus
What Amwins does: Amwins is the largest wholesale distributor of specialty insurance products and services in the United States. It works across property, casualty, group benefits, and reinsurance, serving insurance brokers, agents, and carriers with tailored solutions. How its product works: Amwins provides access to specialized insurance products and adds services such as product development, underwriting, premium and claims administration, and actuarial support, generating revenue by distributing these products and through the related services. How it is different from competitors: It stands out by its size and breadth in the wholesale specialty market, offering a wide range of product lines along with comprehensive administrative and actuarial services to a network of brokers and carriers. What its goal is: to help its clients meet their insurance needs with customized solutions and to maintain leadership in the wholesale specialty market while growing its market share.
Company Size
5,001-10,000
Company Stage
Private
Total Funding
$53.5M
Headquarters
Charlotte, North Carolina
Founded
2001
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CoverForce launches Startup Program, enabling any company to launch a digital brokerage in days. Program combines carrier connectivity, preferred pricing, vetted market access partners, and educational resources into a single path to launch - compressing what has historically taken new brokerages years NEW YORK, NY - September 15, 2026 - CoverForce, the largest commercial insurance distribution network in the US, today launched the CoverForce Startup Program, giving early-stage founders everything they need to launch a digitally-enabled commercial insurance brokerage. The program is the first to combine preferred access to CoverForce's 60+ carrier integrations with vetted market access partners and educational resources built for founders new to the industry. For any company that has wanted to distribute commercial insurance, the requirements have always been the same. Form a licensed entity. Secure producer and entity licensing in every state of operation. Win carrier appointments one at a time. Then build and maintain point-to-point carrier connectivity from scratch. That manual-heavy process typically consumed months to years of time and significant capital before a single policy was bound, and required institutional knowledge that lived almost entirely inside legacy brokerages. The CoverForce Startup Program collapses that sequence. It supplies the infrastructure, preferred pricing, market access partners, and foundational guidance a new brokerage needs - turning a multi-year build into a launch measured in days. "With this type of offering, we believe any company can be an insurtech," said Cyrus Karai, Co-Founder and CEO of CoverForce. "This was not possible five years ago. Every piece - the carriers, the appointments, the technology, the knowledge - existed in isolation, but no one had assembled them into something a small team could actually pick up and use. That is what we have built, and we are starting with early-stage founders who stand to gain the most from it." Already Proven on the Platform The program formalizes what is already happening on CoverForce. Today, over a dozen digital brokerage startups are building on the platform already, with several going from kickoff to live multi-carrier quoting in under 30 days - a timeline that would previously have been measured in years. "If you're building an AI-native brokerage, you can't do much programmatically without API access to carriers - and building those integrations ourselves would have taken years. CoverForce gives us the API connectivity we need without having to build all that plumbing ourselves, so all of our engineering time can stay focused on our product." - Chris Dwyer, Co-founder and CTO, Rosella "Brokers have spent years digitizing the front end of the application process, only to rekey the same data into carrier portals on the back end. CoverForce closes that gap for us. One API connection puts real-time quotes in front of our agencies without us building and maintaining carrier integrations ourselves." - Jason Keck, Founder and CEO, Broker Buddha What the Program Includes Preferred startup pricing - access to CoverForce's quoting and binding infrastructure at pricing built for early-stage brokerages, scaling with application volume as a book of business grows. Carrier connectivity from day one - a single integration for real-time appetite, quoting, and binding across General Liability, Business Owners Policy, Workers' Compensation, Professional Liability, and more. Market access through vetted partners - appointments remain the largest bottleneck for any new brokerage. CoverForce has partnered with Amwins DAIS to give program members access at preferred rates, so they can quote and bind through established appointments while pursuing their own over time. Educational resources for founders - practical guides for teams new to the industry, covering commercial insurance terminology, guides for how to launch a digital brokerage, and more. Throughout, CoverForce remains neutral infrastructure: the company is not a broker of record and does not offer its own market access solution, and so does not compete with the brokerages, MGAs, or partners it serves. Program Availability The CoverForce Startup Program is open to applications today. In this first phase it is built for teams at the earliest stages: stealth, incubated, venture-backed, and accelerator-backed digital brokerages with newly formed books of business, as well as startups looking to add commercial insurance distribution to their existing offerings. Founders can review the program and apply at coverforce.com/solutions/startups. About CoverForce CoverForce is the commercial insurance distribution infrastructure platform, providing brokerages, wholesalers, MGAs, and startups with a single API for real-time quoting and binding across 60+ carriers. CoverForce was named to CB Insights' 2025 list of the 50 most innovative insurtech startups and is backed by leading investors including Nyca Partners, QED, and Insight Partners. The company is headquartered in New York City. Learn more at coverforce.com. Media Contact Kenny Tsai Head of Marketing, CoverForce [email protected]
Amwins Special Risk Underwriters launches exclusive Management Liability program. Sep 9, 2026 Amwins Special Risk Underwriters (SRU) today announced the launch of its Management Liability program, an exclusive solution designed to give brokers broader access to D&O, EPL, fiduciary and crime coverage for private and not-for-profit companies. The new program marks another Amwins-exclusive offering in the management liability space, complementing the current Excess D&O offering and reflecting the company's continued investment in building differentiated solutions across specialty lines. Written on admitted "A+" rated paper, SRU's Management Liability program is designed for private and not-for-profit organizations with revenues up to $150 million and 250 or fewer employees, with limits available up to $5 million on a primary or excess basis. The program offers a broad set of coverage enhancements, including affirmative, full-limit antitrust coverage, Side-A coverage, wage & hour coverage, and social engineering fraud coverage, among others. "This program is a natural extension of our strategy to bring differentiated management liability solutions to market that complement our core specialty carrier relationships," said Mark Bernacki, chief underwriting officer at Amwins. "It gives brokers another exclusive tool for placing hard-to-fit management liability risks, without losing sight of underwriting discipline." The program targets a wide range of classes, including hospitality, contractors, professional services, technology, auto dealers and transportation, among many others. Available exclusively to Amwins brokers, this launch further strengthens SRU's role as a strategic partner within the broader Amwins platform. About Amwins Special Risk Underwriters As Amwins' in-house MGA, SRU provides Amwins brokers with exclusive access to a comprehensive portfolio of programs and products designed to help their clients succeed. Backed by the power of Amwins, SRU is known for having expansive market access to a number of reputable insurance carriers, all with an AM Best rating of "A-" or better. Currently, SRU offers 14 specialized products and an in-house team of actuaries delivering catastrophe risk data analysis along with the most accurate pricing possible. Amwins Special Risk Underwriters (SRU) was formed in 2008 as an exclusive MGA for Amwins. Exclusive products that SRU provides are available only through Amwins brokers. For more information, visit: Amwins Special Risk Underwriters
Amwins acquires firearms insurance specialist Joseph Chiarello & Co. September 2, 2026 Specialty insurance wholesale broker Amwins reports it has acquired Joseph Chiarello & Co., Inc., a managing general agent (MGA) specializing in commercial insurance for the firearms industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Chiarello will join Amwins Underwriting, adding a new area of specialty expertise to the division's program portfolio. Summit, New Jersey-based Chiarello provides commercial package, umbrella and general liability coverage to firearms manufacturers, distributors, retailers, hunting and shooting clubs, instructors and related businesses such as ammunition and accessory manufacturers. The company's institutional-grade risk assessment and claims management have earned it an endorsement from the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Founded in 1934 and now led by third-generation family members Joseph and Stephen Chiarello, the company has spent more than 40 years building its reputation in firearms industry insurance, serving more than 4,000 businesses. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Amwins serves retail insurance agents by providing property and casualty products, specialty group benefits, and administrative services. Amwins operates through more than 138 offices globally and handles premium placements in excess of $49 billion annually. Dowling Hales served as financial advisor to Joseph Chiarello & Co. in connection with the transaction. Was this article valuable? Interested in gun liability? Get automatic alerts for this topic.
CHARLOTTE, NC, UNITED STATES, September 2, 2026 / EINPresswire.com / -- Amwins, a leading distributor of specialty insurance products and services, today announced the acquisition of Joseph Chiarello & Co., Inc.
Amwins launches exclusive Human Services and Behavioral Health Liability product backed by leading "A" Rated specialty carriers. Aug 26, 2026 New exclusive capacity delivers stable Professional Liability, General Liability, Sexual Abuse & Molestation coverage and Hired & Non-Owned Auto coverage to a sector long underserved by the standard market Amwins, the largest independent wholesale distributor of specialty insurance products in the U.S., today announced the launch of an exclusive Human Services and Behavioral Health solution within its Brokerage division. Backed by leading AM Best "A" rated non-admitted carriers, the product provides dedicated Professional Liability, General Liability, Sexual Abuse & Molestation (SAM) and Hired & Non-Owned Auto (HNOA) capacity to human services and behavioral health organizations operating in one of the most complex and capacity-constrained segments of the specialty E&S market. The human services and behavioral health sector has faced sustained headwinds in recent years, including tightening capacity, increased carrier scrutiny of sexual and physical abuse exposure, changing litigation that promotes recurring lawsuit activity, statute of limitations reviver claims and rising minimum premiums that have left many organizations with few viable market options. "The need for stable, long-term solutions in the human services and behavioral health sector has never been greater," said Joe Carlson, Executive Vice President with Amwins Brokerage. "By combining the support of highly rated carrier partners with dedicated Human Services-tailored coverage and meaningful capacity, we've created a program that gives retail agents a dependable option for clients in one of the market's most challenging segments." The product is designed to serve a broad range of organizations, including some of the industry's most challenging classes of business, such as: * Youth residential treatment facilities * Foster care and adoption agencies * Group homes for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities * Halfway houses and large homeless shelters Coverage highlights include Professional Liability with medical malpractice, General Liability, dedicated Sexual Abuse & Molestation limits up to $1M/$3M, with higher limits available upon request, and Umbrella capacity up to $5M for select risks. The product offers flexible deductible and SIR options to accommodate a range of organizational structures. "This product's quota share structure gives our retail partners an enhanced, flexible solution to help them address the evolving needs of human services and behavioral health organizations as they grow and adapt their service profiles," said Carlson.