Axcelus, John Hancock Top Senate Finance's Private Life Rankings

The U.S. Government Accountability Office told lawmakers in August 2020 that it could find little data on the PPLI market.

In May 2022, U.S. prosecutors announced a deal with Swiss Life Holdings in connection with $1.45 billion in assets in 1,608 PPLI policies, or about $902,000 in assets per policy.

The new Senate Finance PPLI report: The new PPLI market report draws on survey responses from Axcelus Financial, Crown Global, Investors Preferred, John Hancock, Pacific Life, Prudential and Zurich.

Axcelus previously was known as Lombard International.

At least one of the companies that responded to the survey, John Hancock, still has PPLI policies on its books but stopped selling PPLI coverage years ago.

The survey team found that:

Axcelus was the leader in terms of PPLI assets under management, with $3.3 billion in PPLI assets.
Axcelus PPLI assets under administration increased from $1.6 billion five years earlier.
John Hancock was the leader in terms of number of PPLI policies in force, with 982.
Investors Preferred PPLI policies had the highest average death benefit amount: $38.5 million.
The average assets per PPLI policy ranged from about $571,000, at John Hancock, to $9.5 million, at Investors Preferred.
In 2021, at Prudential, the average income of a PPLI user was $5.9 million and the average net worth was $102 million.

Reactions: Marc Cadin, the CEO of Finseca, a group that represents estate planners and other financial professionals, said via email that Finseca is disappointed to see a vital tool ensuring Americans’ financial security is under attack.

“Life insurance is life insurance, and it’s taxed appropriately and serves as a crucial component in a family’s financial security,” Cadin said. “With a staggering $12 trillion-dollar protection gap, Americans need more protection, not less.”