Cloudadvisors

CloudAdvisors operates a digital platform for the Canadian employee benefits market. Advisors, insurers and employers upload employee benefit plan member booklets as PDFs, and the company's proprietary AI reads the coverage to identify gaps, risks and missed opportunities relative to comparable employers. The output includes an overall "Bar Score" — described by the company as a credit-score-style universal ranking for a benefit plan — along with ranked "Priority Insights" suggesting plan changes and an interactive benchmarking dashboard covering more than 200 benchmarks across benefits, retirement and financial measures.

A connected Solution Marketplace lets users search and browse more than 500 products and services from over 100 benefit providers, with instant quotes and proposals available on demand and at no obligation. The platform also generates plan evaluation reports and a block summary view that segments an advisor's client base by retention risk, retirement and up-sell opportunity. Typical use cases described by the company include annual pre-renewal or mid-year plan reviews, prospecting new employers, comparing and harmonizing plans during expansion or M&A, and setting up benefits for first-time employers.

Founding story

The concept originated in 2014 when benefits advisor Matt Lister discussed the insurance industry's outdated technology with his friend Rahul Rao, then CEO of Trans Oceanic Intelligence Solutions (TOIS), a company applying technology to logistics and driver behaviour tracking in Asia. Lister, who had been mentored at Davis Benefits & Pensions and wanted to reach employers beyond his own client block, found development costs prohibitive for a single advisory firm. Rao and Lister were joined by Faizal Mitha, who was pursuing a similar path at his own firm, and a report-automation project was initially funded by Matt and Faizal's employers. After that project succeeded, the stakeholders decided in 2015 to jointly develop the intellectual property under a new corporation, CloudAdvisors, using TOIS's development team to build the first version of the platform. With limited early capital, Rao sold his properties, invested his savings and relied on family support to fund the core team; Mitha later moved to HUB International, Lister left advising to become full-time CEO, and TOIS was merged with CloudAdvisors in 2020.

Business model

CloudAdvisors sells software to the advisory and insurance distribution side of the benefits market — advisors, brokers, consultants and MGAs use it to evaluate clients and prospects and to retain and grow their blocks of business, while providers, insurers, TPAs and vendors participate in the Solution Marketplace and a Preferred Partner arrangement to increase awareness of their solutions and quote at scale. Employers can create a free account to explore, compare and shop benefits, and the platform offers a time-limited trial with a free plan evaluation.

Advisor/insurer partnerships and provider marketplace participation are positioned as paid partner relationships, while employer access to comparison, quoting and benchmarking in the marketplace is offered at no cost and no obligation.

Traction

Company materials cite 15,000 employers on the platform in some places and 20,000+ employers elsewhere, along with more than 1,000 group advisors, 120 benefit providers, over 500 marketplace solutions from 100+ providers, and 200+ benchmarks. The about page states that CloudAdvisors benefits more than a million Canadian households through improved access to benefit plan information.

Latest developments

Current site materials describe AI-based booklet analysis with comparison against 15,000+ Canadian employers by industry, region and size, a Solution Marketplace with instant quoting, an advisor-facing portal with plan evaluation reports and block summaries segmented by retention risk, retirement and up-sell, and a partner program with enterprise/insurer, gold and silver tiers including carrier testimonials.