Why Unum, a 175-year-old benefits company, keeps inviting startups to challenge it

Chief Strategy Officer, Marco Forato, explains why Unum brings startups into the conversation, what separates a promising pilot from real impact and why the future of employee benefits will not be built from the inside alone. 

By Marco Forato, SVP, Chief Strategy Officer, Unum Group 

Companies like ours need to stay connected to people who see our industry's challenges from a different perspective. 

Proving an idea can work is different from making it work for thousands of employers and millions of people. That takes more than a promising pilot. It takes an understanding of customers, the realities of delivering benefits and a willingness to learn from people who approach the problem differently. 

That's why Unum Ventures brings founders, investors, operators and Unum leaders together for our annual Ventures Summit, hosted in Portland, Maine, this year. Each brings a different perspective on where work and benefits are headed. 

 

Experience is an advantage. It can also narrow your perspective. 

Unum has been helping the working world for more than 175 years. Today we help protect 47 million workers and their families and partner with 178,000 companies. That experience matters. We understand how employers make benefits decisions, what happens when an employee files a claim and what it takes to keep a promise years after it's made. 

That experience gives us a strong understanding of the problems. It doesn't give us a monopoly on good ideas. Looking beyond familiar approaches helps us question assumptions and see other ways to solve them. 

Founders can help us look at familiar problems from a different angle. They may question systems and assumptions we have learned to work around: why a process takes so many steps, why it is difficult for the person on the other end and whether there is a better approach. 

 

Why this matters now 

The working world is changing faster than most benefits models were built to handle. Employers want more value with less complexity. Employees expect experiences that feel simpler and more personal. And AI is moving out of experiments and into everyday work. 

Looking outside our walls isn't new for us. Our work with startups began years ago as an internal innovation fund and became Unum Ventures in 2022, backing companies like TruAgents which provides personal digital communications to workers. 

What's changed is the pace. As we look toward 2030, we want to protect more people and make their experience simpler. That means getting faster and sharper about which outside ideas deserve our attention. 

We need to explore ideas beyond our walls and be disciplined about which ones we pursue. Curiosity helps us see what is changing. Discipline keeps that work focused on problems worth solving. 

 

The question I keep coming back to

Every idea we look at starts with the same question: What problem are we trying to solve? Technology on its own isn't the answer, and an interesting idea isn't enough. It has to meet a real customer need and work in the real world. 

That question sat at the center of the Summit. We spent the day on digital health, benefits technology, customer experience and the future of work, with founders putting their ideas in front of people who know how benefits work, from enrollment and claims to compliance and broker relationships. 

Not every conversation will lead to an investment, a partnership or a product, and it shouldn't. Founders get candid feedback and a perspective on what customers need. We learn how others are approaching those needs and what they are seeing across the market. Both are valuable. 

When we pursue an idea, the test is the outcome the customer feels: a leave process an employee can understand or a claim that moves without unnecessary friction. That guides which ideas we take forward. It doesn't mean every useful conversation has to produce an immediate customer solution. 

 

Why we open the doors 

Fortune named Unum one of America's Most Innovative Companies for 2026, our third time on the list. I'm proud of that, but recognition isn't the goal. The goal is to see change early, make clear choices and move ideas from interesting to useful faster than we used to. 

Work is connected to almost every part of our lives, from health care and technology to how families plan for the future. When work changes, everything connected to it changes too, and a benefits company that only looks at its own industry will always be a step behind. 

The people building what comes next will help shape where employee benefits go. We want to be close enough to learn from them, and useful enough that they want to learn from us. 

That's why we're in Portland: to learn from the people building, investing in and experimenting with what comes next. Staying close to that work helps us understand where employee benefits are headed and make better choices for employers, employees and their families. 

 

About Unum Group

Unum Group (NYSE: UNM), a leading international provider of workplace benefits and services, has been helping workers and their families thrive for more than 175 years. Through its Unum and Colonial Life brands, the company offers disability, life, accident, critical illness, dental, and vision insurance; leave and absence management support; and behavioral health services. In 2024, Unum Group reported revenues of $12.9 billion and paid $8.0 billion in benefits. The Fortune 500 company is recognized as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere®.

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