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AmeriLife's building in Clearwater, Florida. (Photo: AmeriLife)

Life Health > Life Insurance

Prudential to Transfer a Wholesale Life Distribution Unit to Saybrus

By Allison Bell

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An arm of AmeriLife Group — a rapidly growing, private-equity-backed life insurance, health insurance and annuity distributor — has landed a whale.

AmeriLife’s Saybrus Partners unit said Tuesday that it has agreed to acquire Prudential Life Distributors from Prudential Financial through a transfer agreement.

Prudential Life Distributors is a wholesale life insurance brokerage general agency.

The companies are not disclosing how much Saybrus will pay for the BGA unit, but Saybrus said it will add 75 institutional life distribution specialists to its team.

What It Means

In spite of all of the turmoil in the capital markets, private equity-backed life distributors still have cash to spend.

It also means that, at a time when regulators are emphasizing the need for providers of financial product recommendations to review a wide range of options, efforts to place in-house life insurance company distribution units with independent distribution organizations might become more common.

The Companies

Prudential Life Distributors is a business that helps life insurance agents, financial advisors, financial planners and other financial professionals use large cash-value life insurance policies in retirement planning, business planning, estate planning and other arrangements.

Saybrus Partners is a distributor that was created by the Phoenix Companies in 2009. Nassau Financial acquired Phoenix in 2016, and AmeriLife acquired Saybrus from Nassau Financial in 2021.

Saybrus has about 200 employees and provides $130 billion in life insurance death benefits for about 500,000 people, or about $260,000 in death benefits per insured.

AmeriLife is a Clearwater, Florida-based company controlled by a group of investors that includes Genstar Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

Earlier this year, AmeriLife acquired TruChoice Financial Group, a life insurance and annuity field marketing organization, from Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America.

Allianz Life is part of Allianz, the parent of PIMCO.

AmeriLife has also acquired Brookstone Capital Management and ICON. The company says it has relationships with about 300,000 agents and advisors.

The Future

Mike Vietri, who recently took over as chief distribution officer for wealth at AmeriLife, said the deal will inject talent into a business that´s already performing well.

AmeriLife plans to continue to expand services and support for the institutional life insurance distribution market, Vietri said.

AmeriLife’s building in Clearwater, Florida. (Photo: AmeriLife)

Allison Bell

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