MEDFIELD, Mass., Aug. 26, 2003—Small businesses with just one foreign office can now take advantage of global insurance pools to lower employee benefit costs through a new joint venture by benefit management firms Benemax of Medfield, Mass. and Leagold Miller of London. To offer insurance pools to their clients, Benemax and Leagold Miller have selected the Insurope Multinational Benefits Association, a major international pooling network.

Pooling employee benefits gives small and mid-sized companies, insured through Benemax in the US or Leagold Miller in the UK, an opportunity to qualify for year-end dividends if premiums paid exceed claim costs. Without a multinational pool, only very large employers are dividend eligible. Through Insurope, Benemax and Leagold Miller are extending this benefit to companies of all sizes. The Insurope pool is fully reinsured so there is no risk to participating employers.

“Increasingly, business today is global, yet employee benefits have remained local and, frankly, parochial,” said David Cowles, co-founder of Benemax. “With Insurope we can offer clients a way to provide a consistent level of benefits to their employees worldwide while using local carriers. It is an ideal way for small companies to maintain control yet reap the financial rewards of benefit pools.”

“You don’t have to be a huge multinational corporation to qualify for the advantages of pooling,” added Malcolm Penny, Regional Director for Insurope in the UK and Ireland. “If your main office is in the US or UK, and you have a presence in just one other country, Insurope will design a plan combining local market practices with international coverage and cost-savings.”

For Leagold Miller, “teaming up with Benemax and selecting Insurope means we are able to extend our services and better cover the international operations of our clients,” said managing director Barry Marks. “We are strengthening the much needed international benefits bridge for our customers.”

About Insurope
The Insurope Network, (www.insurope.com) based in Brussels, was established in 1966 as an association of independent employee benefit insurance companies to provide services to multinational firms. Today it operates in more than 60 countries, with offices in the UK, US, Singapore and Finland. Insurope’s practice focuses on multinational pooling, a concept which links insured employee benefit plans worldwide for multinational companies to reduce overhead costs. Insurope has over 400 multinational accounts in force, covering some 5,000 local country plans.

About Leagold Miller
Leagold Miller (www.leagoldmiller.co.uk) is an independent, composite brokerage with an international practice offering employee benefits, financial services and general insurance including property, liability and casualty. Founded in London in 1890 as A Miller & Sons, many of the firm’s customers today are descendents of its first clients. The company is a member of the General Insurance Service Council and is regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

About Benemax
Benemax, based in Medfield, Mass. (www.benemax.com), was founded in 1975 and now manages employee benefits for more than 200 corporate clients ranging from start-ups to divisions of Fortune
500 companies. Benemax designs and administers attractive yet highly cost-effective employee benefit packages, specializing in consumer -driven health and dental plans. The company grew by more than 35 percent in 2002, the third consecutive year of over 35 percent growth.