The management of insurance companies' assets is dominated by a select group of money management firms.
While the 70 managers polled by Pensions & Investments reported a total of $628.7 billion in non-affiliated insurance assets under management as of June 30, the 20 largest firms account for approximately 90%, or $566.3 billion, of the total.
The 10 largest managers of insurance assets run nearly 80% of total non-affiliated insurance assets — or assets from insurance companies other than a parent company or insurance subsidiary — reported in the survey.
Deutsche Asset Management, New York, was the survey's largest manager of insurance assets, reporting nearly twice the amount run by its closest competitor, BlackRock Inc. DeAM has $151 billion in insurance assets under management, or roughly one quarter of the total non-affiliated assets reported in the survey.
New York-based BlackRock reported $75.1 billion in insurance assets under management, followed by Principal Global Investors Inc., Des Moines, Iowa, with $59.8 billion; Conning Asset Management Co., Hartford, Conn., with $51.1 billion; and Wellington Management Co., Boston, with $47.5 billion.
Combined, these five investment managers have roughly $385 billion in external insurance assets under management, or approximately 61% of the total insurance assets in the survey.