Nationwide To Sell Annuities Through Independents
April 24, 2018 by Cyril Tuohy
Nationwide’s plan to cut loose 2,000 captive agents means the mutual will be selling its annuities through independents along with other institutional channels.
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Article excerpt:
Is Independence the Answer?
Nationwide has recently made big gains in fixed indexed annuity sales. Nationwide was the No. 3 seller of indexed annuities last year with sales of $4.6 billion, an increase of 70 percent from 2016, according to Wink.
“It will be interesting to see how this will affect the company’s product development, and what it will mean for policyholder dividends,” said Sheryl J. Moore, CEO of Moore Market Intelligence.
Whether the 2,000 agents cut loose choose independence remains to be seen as many of them might well prefer to join another insurer with a captive agent force such as Northwestern Mutual or MassMutual.
“It would be foolhardy to assume that these agents would transition to independent agents, given Nationwide’s decision,” Moore said. “I think it would be more likely that these agents would make the decision to become captive agents underneath another company that distributes through a captive agency distribution model.”
