Financial services extend well beyond transactions. For Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. (Ameritas), it’s about helping customers enjoy a fulfilling life. In today's digital world, delivering on that promise means protecting their most critical assets — from retirement funds to life insurance policies — while helping providing a secure, seamless experience across every touchpoint.
To create this connected experience, the company is focused on its "One Ameritas" vision, where customers can access all their products with a single login, agents can serve clients efficiently, and partners can integrate seamlessly. "Identity is a vital piece of our user experience, but it’s also essential for the security of critical data," says Zach Black, director of information security at Ameritas. "Rather than reinvent the wheel, we decided to find a partner that had a really good wheel, one with dedicated expertise to help us grow.”
But in an industry that manages sensitive financial data across hundreds of applications, building this vision required more than good intentions — it demanded a rock-solid identity foundation. To bring users into a single ecosystem, standardize identity management across their product suite, and roll out secure mobile applications, Ameritas implemented a unified identity security fabric using Okta.
Delivering seamless experiences across channels
To build the One Ameritas vision, the team started by modernizing how customers, partners, and insurance agents authenticate across their entire ecosystem. This meant creating trustworthy user experiences across a complex ecosystem of 300 applications, multiple distinct brands, and both web and mobile channels. Every customer interaction had to feel secure and instantly recognizable as part of the Ameritas family.
Okta Customer Identity became the foundation for this omnichannel approach. Rather than directing users to a standard Okta-hosted page, Ameritas leveraged the Okta Sign-In Widget and custom code to build hyper-customized login experiences that feel native to each specific brand, product line, and user base. They extended this consistency to every notification—from password resets to authentication alerts—using customizable email templates.
This commitment to a consistent brand experience is more than just marketing; it's fundamental to establishing digital trust. "For our customers, trust begins with recognition. That's why presenting a consistent, professional brand is so critical,” says Chandra Bandaru, manager of identity access management at Ameritas. “From the moment they log in, they need to feel confident and secure that they are interacting directly with Ameritas, and Okta makes that possible.”
Customizing experiences while maintaining security standards
As an insurance provider that handles sensitive customer information, Ameritas’s security strategy must be both robust and flexible. With Single Sign-On (SSO) and Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (AMFA) centrally managed through Okta, the team can deliver secure access while maintaining consistent security policies. This gives them the flexibility to offer a range of MFA options based on specific needs, from standard factors such as SMS or email for less mature users to more secure, phishing-resistant factors such as Okta Verify for partners or biometrics (WebAuthn) for others.
This user-facing security is reinforced by powerful, automated defenses. Okta ThreatInsight, combined with network zones, also automatically blocks credential-based attacks from suspicious IP addresses and even entire geographies. This combined strategy has recently neutralized 956 threats over a three-month period. “This automated, layered approach gives us confidence,” says Black. “We can trust the platform to strengthen our overall security posture, which removes the constant worry about potential threats.”
A new pace of innovation
This new level of centralized control didn't just improve security. It fundamentally changed the pace of innovation at Ameritas. Previously, rolling out new capabilities or security policies across their 300-application portfolio was a monumental effort.
"Before Okta, developing and rolling out new capabilities could take years," explains Chandra Bandaru. "Okta has simplified that process. Now we just enable the policies and turn on the features we need with a few clicks.” This newfound agility proved essential as Ameritas expanded their mobile offerings and rolled out new MFA factors, projects that would have been prohibitively complex and time-consuming with their previous system.
Architecting for a complex partner ecosystem
Serving a diverse partner ecosystem required Ameritas to solve a complex architectural challenge. Some partner organizations require complete separation of their customer data and branding. Okta's multi-tenant capabilities allow Ameritas to maintain separate user bases for different partner organizations while applying consistent security policies across all environments.
While the multi-tenant architecture addresses privacy, Okta's federation capabilities address ease and growth. Enabling large customers and partners to use their own identity providers (IdPs) to access Ameritas applications has become a key business advantage. It removes friction for partners and streamlines the onboarding process for their users.
"Enabling partners to access our applications using their identity provider of choice has become a real selling point,” explains Chandra Bandaru. "In that way, Okta is directly supporting our business growth."
Building expertise through partnership
Ameritas' relationship with Okta is about far more than the product alone. It's a true partnership built on trust and shared success. "Our CSM is very proactive, setting up meetings every month to understand our roadmap and pulling in resources to help us," Bandaru says.
This proactive partnership proves its value most when complex challenges arise, and the stakes are high. Zach Black recalls a recent situation where the Okta team's response was immediate and decisive. “Support leads, a manager, and one of Okta's top architects all jumped in to help," he says. "The Okta team has been the most active of any vendor I've worked with. It's very clear they view this as a partnership."
This deep level of support empowers the Ameritas team to focus on their ambitious long-term strategic vision. Achieving these goals is possible because they have offloaded the complexity of identity to a trusted expert rather than building custom solutions. As Zach Black puts it, "We prefer to work with companies that have demonstrated expertise. Partnering with experts like Okta allows us to focus on what we do best, which is helping our customers live fulfilling lives."
About Customer
Helping people live a fulfilling life is Ameritas’s purpose. They do it through the products and services they offer, their support of the communities around them, and the commitments they keep for millions of customers. Ameritas earns customers’ trust by helping them improve their lives with insurance, financial services, and employee benefits.
