MassMutual Ascend passes $2 billion in advisory annuity sales

MassMutual Ascend has crossed $2 billion in lifetime advisory annuity sales, a milestone the Cincinnati-based insurer reads as evidence that registered investment advisers are warming to guaranteed income. InvestmentNews reports that the company, a wholly owned MassMutual subsidiary focused on the RIA channel, built the total on relationships with more than 1,700 investment advisor representatives across nearly 1,000 RIAs.

The cumulative figure matters less than its timing. Roughly $900 million of the total arrived in 2025 and 2026, close to half of everything MassMutual Ascend has written in the category since it started. The company traces that start to 2016, when it introduced what it calls the industry's first advisory fixed-indexed annuity, a product built for fee-based practices rather than commission-based ones. Its lineup has since broadened to include fixed, fixed-indexed and registered index-linked annuities, and LIMRA has ranked it the top provider in advisory fixed-indexed annuity sales for eight consecutive quarters, according to the firm.

RIAs have historically kept annuities at arm's length, wary of commissions and complexity. The fee-based structure changes the conversation: instead of a commission that can look like a conflict, the annuity carries the same kind of advisory fee as a fund or separate account, aligning the product with the fiduciary standard RIAs operate under. The sales case also leans on an actuarial detail — a dollar placed in an annuity can be structured to yield more guaranteed lifetime income than a dollar in a comparable fixed-income allocation, because risk is pooled across a large group of policyholders.

That argument has won over asset managers far bigger than any insurer's RIA unit. BlackRock and State Street have folded annuities into target-date products in recent years, placing the category inside funds that anchor many retirement plans. The endorsement matters because most RIAs do not take product calls from carriers, but they do follow where the largest asset managers put their money.

Joe Maringer, senior vice president and national sales manager, framed the milestone as confirmation that the long game is paying off. "Ten years ago, we entered this space with the belief that annuities would become an increasingly important part of advisors' retirement planning conversations," Maringer said in a statement. "This milestone is evidence of that momentum."

The $2 billion is one carrier's cumulative sales total, so it is not a market-size number. The composition tells the story. Nearly half of the lifetime figure was written in the past two years, and the decade before produced barely more than the past two years did. If that pace holds, the next $2 billion will not take ten years.