AUSTIN, Texas — Open Lending, the parent company of Lenders Protection, announced it has teamed up with the insurance carriers of AmTrust Financial Services, which will become the insurance provider for the Lenders Protection program.

Basically, the program allows credit unions to "safely" price and approve more near- and non-prime auto loans. More specifically, Lenders Protection combines a risk management tool with default insurance coverage to help credit unions expand their auto loan market share.

Open Lending describes AmTrust as a multinational, specialty property and casualty insurer with more than $3 billion in assets.

With a rating of "A" (excellent) by A.M. Best, the AmTrust Group of insurance carriers provides the Lenders Protection program with the financial strength expected by credit unions, officials highlighted.

"We are excited to have the opportunity to join forces with Open Lending to re-introduce the Lenders Protection program to the credit union market," said Jerome Breslin, senior vice president at AmTrust. "The financial strength of AmTrust brings, coupled with the proprietary knowledge and expertise Open Lending providers, promises to deliver a uniquely valuable service to credit unions."

Open Lending became the only owner of Lenders Protection in the fall of 2009. This enabled Open Lending's management team to focus all of its attention on refining the state-of-the-art LendPro technology platform, officials indicated.

The insurance underwriting and pricing process has been validated and refined by using Open Lending's extensive proprietary performance data, management went on to point out.

Basically, the information has been built into Open Lending's highly sophisticated interest rate pricing tools, which can help ensure that client credit unions achieve the targets yields they need.

John Flynn, president of Open Lending, said, "Our new relationship with AmTrust enables us to restore the value proposition back to Lenders Protection so we can again help credit unions increase their auto loan yields and safely grow their vehicle loan portfolios. Open Lending is now in a position to reemerge in the industry and to once again assist credit unions in realizing the full potential of their vehicle lending opportunities."

For more on Open Lending, visit www.openlending.com. For more on AmTrust, visit www.amtrustgroup.com.