Fidelity Moves Ahead With Efforts to Launch SoteriaRe

A new Fidelity Investments annuity reinsurance arm, Soteria Reinsurance, is getting closer to opening its doors.

The Pembroke, Bermuda-based company recently hired Ari Lindner to be its president, and it’s now hiring a valuation actuary.

“Our mission is to empower our primary reinsurance partners via flow reinsurance to provide the best possible annuity solutions,” SoteriaRe says on its website.

A reinsurer that provides flow reinsurance agrees to accept risk related to future product sales on an ongoing basis, rather than simply protecting an insurer against some or all of the risk associated with business already on the books.

Fidelity said earlier this year that SoteriaRe will focus on reinsuring U.S. individual fixed annuities and on providing the kinds of big group annuities that employers use to transfer defined-benefit pension plan risk to insurers.

Company representatives were not immediately available to talk about the company’s plans.

What it means: Big asset managers are still putting cash in the life and annuity market.

Reinsurance: A reinsurer is a company that, in effects, insures the liabilities of an insurance company.