Advantage Investigations Acquires NorStar

Advantage Investigations, the insurance investigative services platform backed by Align Capital Partners (ACP), has acquired NorStar Investigations, a founder-owned surveillance and claims-investigation firm serving insurers and law firms across the Northeast.

Advantage Investigations examines insurance claims for the carriers and employers who pay them. Working for property and casualty insurers, third-party administrators that run claims on behalf of self-insured employers, and defense law firms, the company sets out to confirm whether a claim is what it appears to be.

Its field investigators conduct surveillance — discreetly observing a claimant over the course of a day to document whether a reported injury matches the person's actual activity — while its desktop researchers comb public records and social media toward the same end, a service the company markets as NetSweep. Other assignments include recorded statements, background checks and activity checks that establish a claimant is alive, at a given address and doing what they say they are doing.

The company staffs assignments with investigators it employs directly rather than subcontractors, a model it says keeps evidence consistent and defensible when a claim decision is contested or reaches a courtroom.

Cases are routed and tracked through a proprietary case-management system, and the in-house investigator network reaches across 45 states, giving a national carrier a single vendor in place of a patchwork of local firms. Alongside its live surveillance capabilities, Advantage offers remote camera monitoring and analysis of vehicle event-data recorders to help insurers judge liability. Charlotte, North Carolina-headquartered Advantage, led by CEO Shelly Kummings, was founded in 1998 and employs about 300 people across its investigator network.

NorStar Investigations works for general liability carriers, third-party administrators and law firms, handling surveillance, insurance-fraud and claims investigations, background checks and legal investigations across New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. NorStar is based about 60 miles north of New York City in Fishkill, New York.

"The acquisition enhances NorStar's value proposition by providing access to the expanded national resources, technology and operational support of Advantage Investigations," said Bill Troiano, the founder of NorStar. "We're excited about the future as our team joins forces with Advantage to offer clients continuity with the same experienced personnel and investigative resources that have supported their results for years."

NorStar is the second add-on for Advantage under ACP ownership. In June 2026, it acquired Lange Technical Services, a Long Island-based provider of forensic vehicle investigation services including fire origin and cause determinations, collision damage analysis, accident reconstruction and event data recorder retrieval for auto and property and casualty insurers and law enforcement. For Advantage, NorStar deepens its Northeast coverage and adds a book of carrier, administrator and law-firm relationships in three contiguous states to a network that already reaches 45 states.

ACP acquired Advantage from MD Holdings, a Texas-based private equity firm that makes control investments in US-based business-to-business companies with $1.5 million to $5 million of EBITDA. MD Holdings had acquired a majority interest in Advantage in 2019 and added four investigation businesses to it before selling the platform to ACP in November 2025.

Insurance fraud is a large and persistent cost. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud puts the annual price of fraud across all lines of US insurance at about $309 billion, a figure that gives carriers a direct financial reason to scrutinize suspicious claims rather than simply pay them. Workers' compensation, disability, auto and general-liability claims are the most frequently contested, and insurers increasingly outsource the field work to specialist firms.

The investigation industry that serves them is fragmented, built largely of small, founder-owned firms licensed state by state. That structure favors buyers able to offer carriers national coverage, uniform compliance and shared technology, and it has drawn private equity into a wave of consolidation.

The broader market for insurance fraud detection, which spans investigative services and analytics software, was about $8.5 billion worldwide in 2026 and is projected to reach $20.2 billion by 2031, a compound annual growth rate of roughly 18.9%, according to Mordor Intelligence, with North America the largest regional market.

Cleveland and Dallas-based ACP makes control investments in lower-middle-market business-to-business companies, typically investing $20 million to $60 million of equity in businesses with enterprise values up to $150 million and EBITDA of $3 million to $15 million. Its sectors of interest are professional business services, tech-enabled services, industrial services, and specialty manufacturing and distribution.

The ACP transaction team was led by Partner Matt Iodice, Co-Founder and Managing Partner Rob Langley, Operating Partner Stuart Schardin, Vice President Sarah Whitney and Managing Director of Portfolio M&A Joe Vitale.