MetLife

Brighthouse Financial is the retail life and annuity platform that was separated from MetLife in the late 2010s, created to house business lines that are typically more capital- and market-sensitive than group benefits.[1] The core operating insurer, Brighthouse Life Insurance Company (NAIC 87726), reflects that lineage in regulatory records and branding history.[2] After the separation, Brighthouse operated as an independent, publicly traded company focused on retail annuities and life insurance.[4]

The strategic rationale for the spin was straightforward: variable annuities and certain universal life designs can carry market and interest-rate risks that require extensive hedging and careful capital management. By forming Brighthouse as a stand-alone company, management could align governance, investment strategy, and risk appetite specifically to those products, while MetLife reduced exposure to capital-intensive retail guarantees.[1]

Brighthouse's story is therefore inseparable from the post-2008 macro environment. Long periods of low rates and episodic equity volatility pushed insurers to redesign guarantees, expand derivative hedging programs, and use reinsurance opportunistically to manage tail risks.[1] At the same time, demographic aging created demand for retirement income solutions, keeping annuities commercially attractive despite the risk-management complexity. Brighthouse's opportunity has been to compete as a specialist-pairing focused pricing, digital servicing, and asset-liability management with a product set purpose-built for retirement-era consumers.[3]

Sources: [1] https://investor.metlife.com/news-releases/news-release-details/metlife-completes-separation-brighthouse-financial ; [2] https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/companyprofile/companyprofile?doFunction=getCompanyProfile&event=companyProfile&naic=87726 ; [3] https://www.brighthousefinancial.com/about-us/ ; [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighthouse_Financial