The Largest Life Insurance Companies In The U.S. (Ranked 4 Ways)

For some questions, a quick answer works perfectly well.  For questions like, “who are the largest life insurance companies in the U.S.?”, nuance goes a long way.

So let’s see who leads the industry when judged by four metrics:

Coverage Issued Metrics

1. Annual life insurance coverage issued
2. Total in-force life insurance (think of this as “all-time” coverage issued)

Asset Metrics

3. Annual net premiums written
4. Total assets

Life Insurers By Coverage Issued

If someone asked you to name the largest company in an industry, a logical starting point would be:

“Which company has sold the most ‘stuff’ in that industry over time?“

In life insurance, “selling stuff” is analogous to “issuing coverage,” so our question becomes: “which company has issued the most coverage over time?”

The final step is to pick the time frame.  Then we’ll have our lens to discover our “largest company.”

… By Total Annual Life Insurance Coverage Issued

Let’s start with the recent past and look at the largest life insurance companies in the U.S. by total life insurance issued per year. In other words, the amount of coverage each company sold to the market.

The table below shows the result, listing the top 25 U.S. life insurance companies by total coverage issued in 2019 (the most recent year we have annual data).

In the fourth and fifth columns, you will see a breakdown of each company’s total into the amounts sold as “individual life insurance” and “group life insurance,” respectively.

Individual life insurance is a single policy contract that covers a single individual, as the name suggests. Group life insurance, on the other hand, is a single life insurance policy that covers many people. Many U.S. companies offer life insurance as an employee benefit and are the largest buyers of group life insurance.

This coverage is generally annual renewable term life insurance, which employees can renew each year during their open enrollment process.

In the final column, we indicate whether a Company was in the 25 for the Individual market, the Group market, or both markets.

	($ in billions)	LI Issued / Year	Individual	Group	In Top 25?
1	Prudential	$238	$100	$138	Both
2	Lincoln Financial	$179	$73	$106	Both
3	MetLife	$171		$166	Group
4	Northwestern Mutual	$159	$157		Individual
5	New York Life	$132	$98	$34	Both
6	Securian Financial	$123		$97	Group
7	UNUM	$113		$100	Group
8	Principal Financial	$96	$52	$44	Both
9	MassMutual	$86	$81		Individual
10	Primerica	$85	$85		Individual
11	AIG	$82	$82		Individual
12	State Farm	$80	$80		Individual
13	Guardian	$70	$34	$36	Both
14	Mutual of Omaha	$68	$28	$41	Both
15	Voya Financial	64		58	Group
16	Sun Life	62		62	Group
17	Protective Life	62	61		Individual
18	CIGNA	61		60	Group
19	Legal & General	59	59		Individual
20	Hartford Life	53		53	Group
21	Meiji Yasuda	51		51	Group
22	Transamerica	45	41		Individual
23	Manulife Financial	43	43		Individual
24	Pacific Life	41	41		Individual
25	Torchmark	40	37		Individual

The data shows that Prudential tops the list, with $238 billion of life insurance coverage issued in 2019.

Lincoln Financial and MetLife round out the top three, with 2019 issuance of $179 billion and $171 billion, respectively.

As you’ll see in each of the following data sets, the top five companies here, Prudential Financial, Lincoln Financial, MetLife, Northwestern Mutual, and New York Life, consistently appear near the top of each list.

Three of these companies, Prudential, Lincoln Financial, and New York Life, are active in individual and group life insurance markets. On the other hand, MetLife is almost exclusively in the group insurance market, while Northwestern Mutual does 99% of its business in the individual life insurance market.

These five companies issued $880 billion of life insurance coverage, which equated to approximately 40% market share.

The Takeaway

Prudential is the largest life insurance company in the U.S. when measured by annual coverage issued, having sold $238 billion of life insurance coverage in 2019.

Life Insurers By Coverage In-Force

This section looks at the top 25 U.S. life insurance companies by total life insurance coverage in force. This is equivalent to total life insurance coverage issued historically that is still outstanding.

Total coverage in force can be thought of as “all-time” coverage issued (that is still outstanding).

Prudential once again tops the list, with $1.75 trillion of life insurance coverage in force. MetLife is a very close second, with $1.71 trillion in life insurance in force.

After these two companies, there is a sizable drop of $414 billion (or 25%) before you get to the third-place company, Northwestern Mutual ($1.30 trillion).

New York Life and Swiss Re round out the top 5, with $1.23 trillion and $1.02 trillion of coverage in force, respectively.

In this data set, we see four of the five “usual suspects” we mentioned above. This is not surprising since life insurance coverage in force is essentially the first metric (annual coverage issued) cumulated over the long term.

Prudential is the largest U.S. life insurer when measured by total life insurance in-force, with $1.75 trillion of coverage outstanding.

	($ in billions)	LI In-Force	Individual	Group	In Top 25?
1	Prudential	$1,745	$587		Individual
2	MetLife	$1,710	$178	$1,529	Both
3	Northwestern Mutual	$1,296	$1,294		Individual
4	New York Life	$1,229	$804	$425	Both
5	Swiss Re	$1,016	$898	$117	Both
6	State Farm	$924	$910		Individual
7	CIGNA	$748		$740	Both
8	Securian Financial	$644		$557	Both
9	Lincoln Financial	$597	$241	$356	Both
10	RGA	$589	$552		Individual
11	Guardian	$493	$221	$271	Both
12	AXA Financial	$402	$386		Individual
13	Protective Life	$398	$396		Individual
14	UNUM	$392		$333	Group
15	Berkshire Hathaway	382	358		Individual
16	Transamerica	329	308		Individual
17	Pacific Life	327	327		Individual
18	Hartford Life	268		268	Group
19	Sun Life	243		230	Group
20	AIG	229	224		Individual
21	MassMutual	222	177	45	Both
22	Nationwide	214	165	49	Both
23	Manulife Financial	210	190		Individual
24	Principal Financial	205		151	Group
25	Allstate	201	191		Individual

Life Insurers By Annual Premiums

In this section, we use “total annual net premiums written” as the yardstick.

Net premiums written = the premiums insurers will receive based on the policies they “wrote” that year.

A lot of jargon for what is essentially revenue.

Judged by this metric, Northwestern Mutual is the largest life insurance company in the U.S., with $13.5+ billion in annual premiums.

Conceptually, does it make sense that NW Mutual would lead the industry in annual revenue while selling only 67% of the coverage that Prudential did that year?

Yes, and here’s why. As the table shows, Northwestern Mutual does nearly 100% of its business in the individual life insurance market, while 58% of the policies Prudential issued were group insurance policies.

The premium rate on group life insurance is much lower than on individual life insurance. Like other products, when you sell in bulk, you offer a discount, which is no different in life insurance.

Prudential ($12.3 billion), MetLife ($12.0 billion), New York Life ($11.7 billion), and MassMutual ($7.2 billion) round out the top five. These five companies take in almost $57 billion in life insurance premiums annually, equating to a 38% share of total life insurance market revenue.

But when you move down to the fifth position, MassMutual brings in only 53% of the leading insurer’s revenue.

Northwestern Mutual is the largest U.S. life insurance company when measured by annual premiums received.

	($ in millions)	Premiums / Year	Individual	Group	In Top 25?
1	Northwestern Mutual	$13,526	$13,524		Individual
2	Prudential	$12,293	$9,220	$3,073	Both
3	MetLife	$11,962	$2,753	$9,186	Both
4	New York Life	$11,679	$9,063	$2,616	Both
5	Massachusetts Mutual	$7,219	$6,573	$646	Both
6	Protective Life	$7,054	$7,046		Individual
7	Swiss Re	$6,090	$5,744	$346	Both
8	Great West	$4,961	$4,853		Individual
9	State Farm	$4,940	$4,873		Individual
10	Guardian	$4,701	$4,087	$614	Both
11	Pacific Life	$3,585	$3,585		Individual
12	Securian Financial	$3,570	$1,732	$1,790	Both
13	Nationwide	$3,050	$1,758	$1,292	Both
14	AXA Financial	$2,718	$2,688		Individual
15	Manulife Financial	2463	2394		Individual
16	RGA Group	2457	2396		Individual
17	Berkshire Hathaway	2289	2196		Individual
18	Torchmark	2250	1795	455	Both
19	Transamerica	2063	1838	223	Both
20	Mutual of Omaha	1802	1529	273	Both
21	CIGNA	1746		1689	Group
22	Sammons Financial	1724	1682		Individual
23	Thrivent Financial	1676	1676		Individual
24	UNUM	1567	636	931	Group
25	Hartford Life	1408		1399	Group

Life Insurers By Total Assets

Judged by total assets, Prudential is once again the largest U.S. life insurer, with more than half a trillion dollars in assets ($578 billion to be precise).

MetLife is a distant second at $409 billion, or only 70% of Prudential’s assets.

New York Life and TIAA-CREF are a near tie for third, coming in at $324 billion and $316 billion in assets, respectively.

After these four, many companies have between $200 billion and $300 billion in assets. From fifth to tenth, these are AIG, Northwestern Mutual, Lincoln Financial, MassMutual, Manulife Financial, and Jackson National.

The remaining companies in the above top 25 list include several household names – Nationwide, Pacific Life, and State Farm – and finishes with Guardian at #25, with $76 billion in assets (just 13% of the largest company, Prudential).

Prudential is the largest U.S. life insurance company (by far) by total assets.  Its 2019 asset balance of $578 billion dwarfed the next insurer, MetLife, by nearly $200 billion.

	Companies	Assets ($ in billions)
1	Prudential	$578
2	MetLife	$410
3	New York Life	$325
4	TIAA-CREF	$316
5	AIG	$285
6	Northwestern Mutual	$272
7	Lincoln Financial	$256
8	MassMutual	$255
9	Manulife Financial	$248
10	Jackson National	$237
11	Transamerica	$201
12	AXA Financial	$195
13	Voya Financial	$189
14	Principal Financial	$185
15	Brighthouse Holdings	179
16	Nationwide	170
17	Allianz	145
18	Pacific Life	136
19	Hopmeadow Holdings	118
20	Ameriprise Financial	104
21	Thrivent Financial For Lutherans	94
22	Sammons Financial	85
23	Athene	84
24	State Farm	78
25	Guardian	76

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

We hope we answered your questions about the largest life insurance companies in the U.S.!

If not though, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or send us an email at [email protected].

Warm Regards,
The GetSure Team