Equitable-Corebridge merger casts shadow over life insurance earnings

As life insurers toast another quarter of strong sales, executives are also eyeing the elephant in the room: a looming Equitable-Corebridge powerhouse.

The blockbuster merger, expected to close by the end of 2026, came up during multiple calls this week with Wall Street analysts. Corebridge ($27.4 billion) and Equitable ($23.3 billion) combined for more than $50 billion in 2025 annuity sales, with Corebridge finishing third and Equitable fourth in LIMRA's final sales rankings.

Not surprisingly, competitors stressed their own strengths and scale in the market. Ellen Cooper, president and CEO of Lincoln Financial Group, recalled the decision, made two years ago, to sell Osaic, Lincoln’s wealth management business.

“That was a business for us that we didn't have scale,” Cooper said Thursday morning. “Scale is clearly a factor, and we have scale in our businesses. We know that we have a real competitive advantage as it relates to our distribution and proven track record of pivoting, and we're doing that all across the platform."

During a Wednesday analyst call, Jackson Financial chief financial officer Don Cummings highlighted the steps the insurer has taken in recent years to strengthen and streamline the business. Jackson is “well-positioned” to compete with the new Equitable, he added.

“We already have a pretty comprehensive product suite, and we also happen to have one of the largest distribution forces in our space,” Cummings said. “Our wholesaler group has been quite effective over the last several years, and we're expanding this year.”

‘Irrational competition’

Also on Wednesday, Apollo Global Management briefed analysts on quarterly results, with subsidiary Athene once again taking center stage after leading LIMRA’s annuity sales rankings for a third consecutive year and continuing to deliver a major share of Apollo’s earnings.

Apollo CEO Marc Rowan said the industry is seeing some “irrational competition,” or annuity competitors “putting business on the books at ridiculously low spreads.”

Annuity sellers will often enter the market by undercutting established insurers with attractive rates. Cooper said Lincoln is seeing the practice as well.

“We know that there are certain pockets of the annuity product segments where it's a pure price competition play,” she said. “One of those examples at the moment is multi-year guaranteed annuities, and we see pockets of this. There are pockets of this on the registered index-linked annuities side as well.”

Both Rowan and Cooper said their companies are selling annuities responsibly with the bigger picture in mind.

"We are not focused on top-line growth," Cooper said. "We are focused on balancing growth with profitability, with capital efficiency as we continue to grow here, and we're leveraging the strength of our distribution franchise to pivot across products."

Critics contend that private equity-backed insurers such as Athene are leaning too heavily into higher-yielding, riskier assets such as private credit — potentially exposing policyholder funds to greater risk. Rowan pushed back on that narrative once again.

“What we are doing is totally transparent; no guesswork is required,” Rowan said. “I don't know of any other insurer or any other financial institution that puts out the kind of data that we do, whether it is liability data or granular data on our asset portfolio.”

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InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at john.hilton@innfeedback.com. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.