Venerable Life Insurance and Annuity Company

About Venerable

Venerable Holdings is relatively new to the annuity business. The company was founded in 2018 by a group of investors with prior experience in the annuity and insurance industry.

Many of Venerable’s first team members came to the company from Voya Financial, an insurance and financial services company. Venerable acquired Voya’s annuity subsidiary, the Voya Insurance and Annuity Company, in 2019, soon after changing that business line’s name to Venerable Insurance and Annuity Company.

Venerable is a legacy annuity management company, not an annuity provider. They do not issue new annuity contracts but rather purchase and manage contracts from other providers, like Voya and Equitable.

Venerable is brand new by standards set by most annuity providers. They have acquired their existing contracts through various acquisitions of other companies’ annuity businesses. They aren’t issuing new contracts but instead manage existing variable and fixed annuity contracts.

Stephen Kates, CFP®Principal Financial Analyst for Annuity.org

Stephen Kates, CFP® is a personal finance expert specializing in financial planning and education. He serves as the Principal Financial Analyst for Annuity.org, where he delves into industry trends to support consumers and financial advisors on wealth management, annuities, retirement planning, and investing.

Credit Ratings

Insurance and annuity companies receive credit ratings, or financial strength ratings, from independent agencies. These scores give customers an idea of the company’s overall financial stability and the likelihood that the company will be able to meet its obligations.

Because Venerable Holdings does not issue its own insurance or annuity policies, the company has not received ratings from most major credit rating agencies, like AM Best or Fitch Ratings.

Venerable Insurance and Annuity Company, the subsidiary of Venerable Holdings that provides annuities, received an A financial strength rating from Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) in 2023. KBRA is a full-service credit rating agency and is recognized as a Credit Rating Provider by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

If your policy was purchased by Venerable, you would then call them for any questions or service on your annuity contract.

Annuity Acquisitions Managed by Venerable

One of Venerable’s first major acquisitions was purchasing Voya’s annuity business line in 2019. The company has acquired billions of dollars in existing variable annuity contracts from other providers in the years since.

In 2021, Venerable acquired $12 billion of legacy variable annuity business from Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company, an insurance and annuity provider based in New York City.

Venerable partnered with one of the nation’s largest annuity providers, Athene Holdings, in 2023. The company recaptured roughly $2.8 billion in annuity payout reserves from Athene; these reserves mainly consisted of annuitized fixed annuity contracts and payouts from variable annuities with guaranteed minimum income benefits (GMIBs).

Venerable’s Relationship to John Hancock

John Hancock was once a major annuity provider that sold fixed, immediate and variable products. But it began to withdraw from the annuity business in 2012 and currently no longer sells any annuities.

Venerable took over much of John Hancock’s former business in 2022, when it agreed to reinsure $22 billion worth of variable annuity contracts originally issued by John Hancock.

The reinsured policies are still administered by John Hancock.