Aquarian Helps Investors Heritage Expand Into Annuity Market

Investors Heritage Life Insurance Company — a life insurer that was recently acquired by Aquarian Investors Heritage Holding LLC — today introduced the Heritage Builder Annuity contract.

The new product is a single-premium deferred, multi-year guaranteed annuity (MYGA).

The product is the first the company has launched since it was acquired by Aquarian.

(Related: Investors Heritage Chooses SOX Software)

Rudy Sahay, the managing partner at Aquarian, said in a statement that the new MYGA contract is just the first of many new products that Investors Heritage will be introducing.

The Product

Investors Heritage is offering versions of the MYGA with three-year, five-year and seven-year initial interest rate guarantee periods.

The issue age range is 0 to 90 years.

One feature, which is available only for issue ages 0 to 80, lets the holder withdraw up to 50% of account value one year after the effective date.

The usual investment amount ranges from $25,000 to $1 million for the three-year version and $10,000 to $1 million for the other versions. Purchasers may be able to invest more than $1 million with home office approval.

Wink Inc. reported earlier this week that MYGA contracts have been selling well: Sales in the second quarter were 27% higher than in the second quarter of 2017, and sales in the third quarter were up 63%.

Investors Heritage

Investors Heritage is a Frankfort, Kentucky-based company that was founded by Harry Lee Waterfield in 1960. Waterfield died in 1988. His son, Harry Lee Waterfield II, has been the company's chairman and president since that year.

The company is licensed to operate in 38 states. Traditionally, it has focused on the preneed life insurance and final expense insurance markets.

Investors Heritage was a public company, with stock that traded on the over-the-counter market.

Aquarian acquired the company and took it private in the spring. Sahay, the head of Aquarian, spent three years at Guggenheim Partners, from 2011 through 2014. He went on to co-found 54 Madison Partners LLC, a private real estate equity investment firm with backing from Leucadia National Corp.

The Future

Investors Heritage said it's expanding into the annuity market to complement its preneed life and final expense products.

Waterfield said in a statement that company has sought to combine an innovative approach with a family-rooted commitment to service. "Our focus has always been on customer service, from a platform that we have built one client at a time, one policy at a time," he said.

— Read Q3 Non-Variable Annuity Sales Were Shocking, on ThinkAdvisor.

— Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on LinkedIn and Twitter.