Even as the credit crunch unfolded, US investment firms continued to build their insurance company assets impressively in 2007 with a 22% increase in non-affiliated outsourced assets under management (AUM) to a record $1.42 trillion, according to Insurance Asset Manager’s (IAM) newly-published annual survey.
The IAM Annual Survey (2008 Edition) shows a total of $906 billion in non-affiliated general account assets and $514 billion in non-affiliated subadvised assets at 31 December 2007, compared with $815 billion and $348 billion, respectively, for a total of $1.16 trillion at year-end 2006.
The 64-page IAM survey displays listings for each of the 44 participants, including asset allocation charts, client numbers, mandate types and sizes, assets under management by type of insurance company, and other detailed information.
Deutsche Insurance Asset Management led the rankings by a wide margin in IAM’s primary category of non-affiliated general account assets with $160 billion, followed by BlackRock, Inc. with $126 billion and Conning & Co. with $69 billion.
When subadvised insurance assets are added to general account assets, BlackRock moved into first place with $183 billion, followed by Wellington Management with $174 billion and Deutsche Insurance with $163 billion.
The top five insurance asset managers accounted for $476.5 billion of general account assets, or more than 50% of the total. The top ten accounted for 70%.
“On the surface, the data for US insurance asset management firms in 2007 show another year of healthy growth — but a closer look hints at the encroaching credit crunch, reflected in a greater number of firms reporting lower levels of insurance assets under management (AUM) despite the higher overall industry totals,” says IAM editor Alex McCallum. “Still, it was a very successful year for many of the players in this specialized field.”