Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. has closed on a $3.5 billion deal for Great American Life Insurance Co. and four Great American Life affiliates.
MassMutual already was the seventh biggest U.S. life and annuity issuer, based on net admitted asset figures compiled by Moody's Investors Service.
The Springfield, Massachusetts-based insurer ended 2020 with about $313 billion in net admitted assets, and Great American Life had about $39 billion in assets.
Great-American Life is a major issuer of fixed and non-variable indexed annuities, and it makes about half of its annuity sales through banks.
MassMutual is now the fourth biggest life and annuity issuer. It ranks second, after New York Life Insurance Co., among companies that continue to express a strong interest in selling a wide range of individual life insurance and annuity products in the United States.
Like New York Life, MassMutual is a mutual insurer, meaning that it's owned by its own policyholders, not by public stockholders.
For financial professionals and their clients, the deal could mean that the life and annuity market will be shaped more by companies that think in terms of how everything will look in 50 years, and less in terms of how everything will look next quarter.
The History
Great American is a Cincinnati-based offshoot of a company that came to life in 1872, as German American Insurance Co. The New York-based company changed its name to Great American Insurance Co. in 1918, in response to World War I.
The property and casualty company formed a life insurance subsidiary, Great American Life, in 1961.
National General Corp., a conglomerate, acquired Great American and Great American Life in 1968 and moved the companies' home office to Los Angeles.
Carl Lindner Jr., a Cincinnati-based businessman, acquired control over National General Corp. and its insurance operations in 1973. He then merged the companies into American Financial Corp. and focused American Financial on the sale of insurance.
