Jackson National 2015 Net Income Soars to $1.4 Billion

By Cyril Tuohy InsuranceNewsNet

Net income at Jackson National Life Insurance, the top seller of variable annuities in the U.S., rose to $1.4 billion in 2015 from $379 million in the year-ago period, the company reported.

Jackson National raked in more fee income from higher separate account assets under management. As a result, 2015 pretax operating income rose 10 percent to a record $2.6 billion compared with 2014, the company said.

Based in Lansing, Mich., Jackson National is a subsidiary of Prudential, the United Kingdom-based financial services giant. Prudential is not connected with the Newark, N.J.-based Prudential Financial.

The company reports income under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Year-end 2015 IFRS assets total $220.3 billion, up from $212.2 billion at year-end 2014, the company reported.

A “long-term, disciplined approach” helped Jackson deliver record performance last year, said Barry Stowe, CEO of the North American Business Unit, in a news release.

“In 2015, this discipline enabled us to successfully manage volatile macroeconomic conditions and consistently drive positive outcomes,” Stowe said.

In the third quarter 2015, Jackson National recorded $6 billion in new sales of variable annuities compared with $5.6 billion in the year-ago quarter, according to the latest available data from Morningstar in Chicago.

In the third quarter, Jackson National occupied three of the top five slots for new sales of variable annuities. Its Perspective II variable annuity took top honors, while Elite Access B snagged third place and Perspective L fifth place, Morningstar data indicated.

Those three variable annuity families alone command a market share of 17.36 percent in the third quarter.

For the first three quarters of last year, Jackson sold $17.7 billion worth of new variable annuities, far ahead of the No. 2 seller TIAA with $9.4 billion, according to Morningstar.

Volatile equity markets have made this a difficult year for U.S. individual variable annuity sales and regulatory burdens have further cast a pall over the once high-flying products.

Sales of variable annuities last year dipped 5 percent to $133 billion compared with 2014, LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute data indicate. It marked the fourth consecutive year during which variable annuity sales recorded a decline.

Jackson also sells fixed annuities and hot-selling fixed indexed annuities (FIA).

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Writer Cyril Tuohy has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. Cyril may be reached at [email protected].

Cyril Tuohy is a writer based in Pennsylvania. He has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. He can be reached at [email protected].