2019 Annual & Corporate
Responsibility Report
As generations shift across the workplace, financial needs are changing as well. So in 2019, we added two new policies, Legacy 12 and Legacy 15, to our suite of Whole Life Insurance products: These new policies are designed to give policyowners additional options for not only meeting their insurance protection needs, but also may provide supplemental retirement income1 or fund other financial goals. We also enhanced our policy riders to allow policyowners more flexibility to add and maintain long-term care options to their life insurance coverage.
In 2019, we significantly revised our underwriting guidelines to expand access to more individuals with breast and prostate cancer, many at more favorable ratings, thanks to recent medical advances. As the medical community continues to gain greater understanding into breast cancer, attention is shifting diagnostically, allowing many more individuals to qualify as soon as treatment is completed, and be eligible for more favorable ratings.
Our experience serving defined benefit plans means a continual reinvestment in technology and services to improve the customer experience, which includes acknowledging choice and flexibility as required elements in the pursuit of excellence in pension investment management and de-risking strategies. These elements were at the core of our Defined Benefit business investment in 2019.
Building a leading Defined Benefit investment platform means not only providing access to a broad array of investments and robust reporting capabilities, but also simplifying the sponsor and advisor experience.
To achieve these goals, we delivered a modern and sophisticated platform that complements our pension expertise and provides advisors and consultants with the tools they need to improve client outcomes.
When it comes to the world of asset management today, the whole is increasingly greater than the sum of its parts. In 2019, we decided to combine OppenheimerFunds, Inc. with market leader Invesco to create exactly that. Over the years, OppenheimerFunds has been an incredibly successful affiliate of MassMutual since we acquired it in 1990. Back then, purchasing a retail asset manager was considered a bold move in our industry. And the bold move paid off. Today, we have increased OppenheimerFunds’ assets under management (AUM) fifteenfold, with customer accounts growing more than 10 times.
So, when the opportunity came to join with Invesco to form a leading, diversified, global asset management firm, we knew it was time for another bold move. We are confident that the opportunity to be the largest shareholder of one of the largest global asset managers is leading us in the right direction. The power of bringing these two companies together into a combined entity, one in which we became a significant owner, was greater than either could achieve alone. We closed the deal in May 2019 as Invesco’s largest shareholder. The new combined entity has a total AUM of more than $1.2 trillion (as of 12/31/19), making it the 13th-largest global investment manager and sixth-largest U.S. retail investment manager.
Together, Invesco and OppenheimerFunds can now provide even more relevant investment solutions to their existing mutual fund shareholders and an expanded number of institutional and retail clients in the U.S. and around the globe. And clients can now enjoy a simplified, integrated, and diversified platform.