Revol One Financial retools with new annuity products, big goals

There are a lot of insurance companies in the annuity sales game. But the new regime at Revol One Financial say they have a strategy to dent the leaderboard: speed and customer service.

And good products, said Cindy Reed, CEO of Revol One Financial. Time spent working on the retail side in recent years sharpened Reed's intuition about how to run an insurance company, she explained.

"What I'm thinking as I'm sitting in there on the retail side for four years, helping run retail operations, how I could build a company and build it differently and build it better and eliminate the pain points that the agents experience," she said.

Revol One made a splash last month announcing its market entry with three annuity products. They will be "followed quickly" by an additional three products during the second quarter, the company added. Revol One is kicking off operations nationwide.

With annuity products flying off the shelves, application processing is a way for manufacturers to stand out in a highly competitive distribution world. Annuity sellers had another very strong first quarter, with $113.5 billion in sales, 21% higher than the first quarter 2023, LIMRA reported last week.

“We've seen the status quo, and frankly, it's not cutting it," said Mark Zesbaugh, executive chairman of Revol One, said in a news release. "We are revolutionizing the playbook. Our tech-driven platform is all about speed and agility – we're delivering products faster to provide financial professionals and distributors with the products and tools they need to meet market demands and better serve their customers."

44-year history

Revol One Financial is the marketing name for Revol One Life Insurance Co., which dates to 1980 and is domiciled in Michigan. Revol One Financial was acquired by Axar Capital in 2022, AM Best noted, "with the intent to leverage the platform to build a life insurance franchise initially focused on annuity growth."

The company has stabilized its run-off back book of business, AM Best concluded in assigning Revol One a Financial Strength Rating of B++ (Good).

"Capitalization is also expected to be supported by contributions from its parent structure including investment funds, as Revol One Financial executes on its growth plans," AM Best said. "The investment portfolio is currently allocated to high quality assets ... but allocations are expected to shift as the profile of liabilities shifts with new business. In addition, the business plan is expected to incorporate significant use of reinsurance with top tier annuity reinsurance partners."

The vision from day one was always to focus on customer service and being a "one-stop shop," Reed explained, and the Revol One team has the technology systems in place to do that.

"I want to be different," she said. "And that's a disruption in the industry. Companies have gotten I think, complacent out there. There's not a lot of the out-of-the-box thinking. But we really did want to bring a different experience to the industry."

Revol One generated some industry buzz with its announcement, including a mention on the influential LinkedIn page of Sheryl Moore, industry intelligence analyst. 

The product rollout

Revol One choose to enter the market with a fixed annuity lineup: Excelera multi-year guarantee annuity, Excelera Plus multi-year guarantee index annuity, and Enduris fixed index annuity.

Fixed annuities are the hottest-selling products due to economic conditions. Total fixed-rate deferred annuity sales were $48 billion in the first quarter, 16% higher than first-quarter 2023 sales, LIMRA reported, while fixed indexed annuity sales totaled $29.3 billion, up 27%.

"One of our tenants of our strategy was to be a robust product machine," Reed said. "What I kept hearing from agents and distribution is 'We need new products.' So, we built our system so that we could quickly put products out there in weeks, not months."

Revol One products are available in 49 states, with New York excepted. The insurers aims to make LIMRA's top-selling annuity lists before too long, Reed said.

"Our goal is to be a top-tier life insurance company," she said. "Actually, over the next five years, I'd like to be in the top 10, quite frankly, from not just a sales, but service, quality orientation, from a product innovation [standpoint]."

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.

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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 [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.