Venerable Aims to Power Variable Annuity Issuers' Fund Menus

Venerable Holdings — a reinsurer that has taken responsibility for giant blocks of variable annuities off the shoulders of companies like Voya, Equitable and John Hancock — wants to provide the investment funds inside the annuities.

The West Chester, Pennsylvania-based company announced Tuesday that it’s setting up its own RIA and its own variable insurance trust to help insurers use Venerable funds when they’re separating from unwanted variable annuity blocks.

Venerable will start by letting outside companies manage the funds, but, over time, the trust will bring management of the funds in-house, the company said.

Venerable has picked Tim Brown, its chief legal officer, to be the president of the RIA, and Michal Levy, who is now the president of Equitable’s investment management business, to be head of the RIA.

What It Means

Traditional variable annuities may be out of favor with many insurers, but they still hold about $2.1 trillion of your clients’ assets. Some of those assets may be on the move.

Venerable

Apollo Global Management and its insurance arm, Athene Holding, backed efforts to create Venerable in 2018.

Early on, Venerable participated in a deal to reinsure $19 billion in in-force annuities for Voya, which wanted to get out of the annuity business.

Since then, Venerable has reinsured $12 billion in annuities for Equitable and $22 billion in annuities for Manulife’s John Hancock business. The Hancock deal increased Venerable’s assets under risk management to $94 billion.