Our goal is to improve the profitability of your risk management program.
Where other firms may see segmented projects, we see connections between different areas and provide consultation with the entire PEO in mind.

Our Competitive Advantage
- We support PEOs across the spectrum of size, geography, and industry niches, with roughly 30% of the market represented as a client.
- We have worked with and/or know most of the major industry participants, be they insurance carriers, accounting and audit firms, brokers, risk management firms, management consulting firms, technology/analytics vendors, bankers, and private equity firms.
- We are actuarial thought leaders. No other actuarial consulting firm is more active in industry events, whether as speakers, panel moderation, webinars, industry publications, or producing online content.
- We provide a wide range of services to those in the industry, including but not limited to: start-up support, GC-to-LD transition support, program development, carrier/vendor negotiation support, actuarial liability estimation and forecasting, development of pricing and predictive models, and buy-side and sell-side mergers & acquisitions (“M&A”) transaction advisory.
PEO Blog
Deciphering AI’s Promises and Perils to Ensure Value in Workers’ Compensation Analytics
Avoiding Roadblocks: Creating Ideal Risk Management Dashboards
Injury Intelligence: Modernizing Safety and Loss Control
Filling In The Data Gap
Workers’ Comp Reserves: Finding the Right Number
The State of the Employment Practices Liability Insurance Market
Minimizing Risk for PEO Investors
PEO Risk Management & Insurance Issues
Insight Into PEO Vulnerability via Stress Testing
Workers’ Compensation Risk Issues Facing PEO Investors
The Importance of Measuring Customer Profitability
Intriguing Details of the Largest Public PEOs in 2020
Lowering PEO Workers’ Comp Costs
COVID-19s Impact on Worker’s Compensation Costs and What PEOs Can Do
COVID-19, PEOs, and the Workers’ Comp Market
A Deep Dive Into Workers’ Comp Stats
Intriguing Details of the Largest Public PEOs in 2019
The Role of AI in the PEO Industry Circa 2019 (Part 2)
The Role of AI in the PEO Industry Circa 2019 (Part 1)
Show Me The Money – Turning Workers’ Comp Risk into Profits
Intriguing Details of PEO Industry’s Largest Public Firms
Strategic Pricing for Long-Term Profitability
A PEOs Field of Dreams
How PEOs Should Use Actuaries
Strategic Claims Management for PEOs
Underwriting is the PEOs Hidden Advantage
An Actuary’s Love for PEOs
PEO Case Studies
PEO Transaction Advisory
Merlinos & Associates specializes in providing buy-side and sell-side merger & acquisition due diligence and other transaction advisory services of professional employer organizations. LEARN MORE
PEO Industry Involvement
Our Team
David Shepherd
dshepherd@merlinosinc.com
678.684.4842
David has more than 30 years of actuarial and underwriting experience serving a wide range of clients, including PEOs, PEO-only insurers & MGAs, and others.
Frank Huang, FCAS, MAAA
fhuang@merlinosinc.com
678.684.4874
Frank has more than 15 years of actuarial experience serving a wide range of clients, including serving as ADP’s Chief Actuary.