Poolside's Read — For anyone whose financial safety net runs through an insurer — a master policy, an annuity, a life policy — this is a topic worth monitoring.

Per the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), U.S. insurers held $9.58 trillion in cash and invested assets at year-end 2025, up about 6.7% on the year and roughly 65% over the decade.

On the surface, the headline hasn't moved much. Glance at the overall investment mix and it looks conventional: 60% bonds (≈ $5.75 trillion), 14% stock (≈ $1.34 trillion), 6% cash (≈ $574.8 billion).

Where the $9.58 trillion sits · year-end 2025

Bonds — 60% Mortgages & alternatives — ~20% Stock — 14% Cash — 6%

The headline allocation looks traditional. The shift is happening inside the bond slice.

What has changed significantly is what those underlying bonds are made of: more private credit, more CLOs and more loans that don't trade every day.

$9.58T
U.S. insurer invested assets, year-end 2025
59.8%
held in bonds — down from 67% in 2015
$868B
mortgage loans on insurer books (9.1%)
$277B
CLOs held — more than double 2018

Private underneath

The bigger story is spread across the book: private credit, direct mortgage loans ($868 billion, about 9% of assets), collateralized loan obligations (roughly $277 billion, more than double the 2018 level), private placements, and a catch-all "alternatives" reservoir near $639 billion.

The appeal is real: higher yields, floating-rate income, access to loans public markets don't offer. So is the trade-off.

Private assets are slower to reveal trouble, and where an insurer and its manager are closely tied, questions of valuation and concentration follow. These investments are less liquid, priced less often, and harder to see through.

The NAIC is pushing new private-credit disclosure rules, and the Federal Reserve has flagged insurers' rising exposure to illiquid assets.

Why it matters from here

Condo Insurance: Condo master policies and hurricane coverage sit mostly with property & casualty carriers — a different corner of the industry than life and annuities.

Annuities and Permanent Life Insurance: These are long-dated promises, and insurers back them from the same general accounts now tilting toward opaque, private-credit markets. Annuities and life policies are still typically covered by state guaranty associations up to set limits.

Pensions: Traditional pensions are being drawn in too, through a quiet maneuver called pension risk transfer. A company hands its pension obligations to an insurer by buying one large group annuity; the monthly check keeps coming, just from an insurance company instead of the old plan. Once a pension becomes an annuity, the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) backstop falls away, and protection shifts to state guaranty associations.

Retirement Plans: Retirement accounts are the newest door. A 2025 executive order asked regulators to make it easier for 401(k) plans to hold private equity and private credit, and the Labor Department proposed the rule in March 2026. Nothing is live in any plan yet. But when they arrive, they will most likely enter quietly through target-date funds — the most common, all-in-one investment option that automatically changes your mix of stocks and bonds as you get closer to retirement.

But it's the weather system all insurers operate in. The same hunt for yield, and the same regulatory attention to opacity and solvency, touches the whole industry. And many absentee and seasonal owners hold annuities directly — those are squarely inside this shift.

The Wrap
  • Insurers' books still look traditional — nearly 60% bonds — but those bonds increasingly hold private credit, CLOs, and loans that don't trade daily.
  • The funds reach everyday Americans through annuities, life policies, pensions, and — soon — 401(k)s.
  • State guaranty funds still stand behind annuities and life policies up to set limits: a real cushion, just a thinner one than most assume.
  • Condo master and hurricane coverage sit in a different corner (property & casualty), but the same hunt for yield by insurers' asset managers runs industry-wide.
Sources