Nassau Life

Nassau Life Insurance Company is part of the Nassau Financial Group platform that emerged in the 2010s as a specialist owner and manager of life and annuity blocks.[1] A defining early milestone was Nassau Re's acquisition of The Phoenix Companies, a transaction that positioned the group as a meaningful consolidator in the runoff and capital-intensive segments of the U.S. life market.[1]

That strategy fits a broader post-crisis pattern: large insurers looked to simplify, and new capital providers backed platforms built to manage long-duration liabilities with dedicated asset management and expense discipline. In Nassau's case, the emphasis has been on long-term stewardship-operating companies that service existing policyholders while pursuing selective new business that complements the platform.[1]

Economically, runoff management is less about chasing volume and more about surviving interest-rate regimes. The low-rate environment after 2008 raised the cost of maintaining guarantees and pushed the industry toward tighter pricing and more sophisticated asset-liability management. Reinsurance plays an important role in these models, both as a risk-transfer mechanism and as a way to restructure legacy exposures. The opportunity Nassau identified was structural: by specializing in portfolios that other owners wanted to exit, it could build scale where incumbents saw only capital drag.[1]

Sources: [1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140623005717/en/Nassau-Re-to-Acquire-The-Phoenix-Companies