Insurers rank IBDs above RIAs for annuity growth

Insurers now expect independent broker-dealers to grow fastest in annuity distribution, ahead of RIAs: 47% named IBDs, versus 33% for RIAs, in Goldman Sachs Asset Management's survey of 103 participants at 28 US carriers.

A year earlier, RIAs led at 45% and IBDs drew 38%, and InvestmentNews first reported the survey, which ran from June 30 to July 28. The sixth annual Annuity Industry Survey covered carriers holding more than $1 trillion in annuity assets, including nine of the 10 largest issuers by 2025 sales, based on LIMRA data.

Independent RIAs remain far less likely to sell commissionable insurance products, according to Cerulli: 15% use them, compared with 51% of advisors overall. The gap is wider for fixed-indexed annuities, used by 24% of independent RIAs versus 58% of all advisors, and for registered index-linked annuities, at 7% versus 37%.

Cerulli said hybrid RIAs with a broker-dealer affiliation can sell variable annuities on commission, an arrangement that can split fiduciary and registered-representative roles in the same client relationship. The arrangement creates a due-diligence question for RIA principals: which standard of care and compensation model applies to each annuity sale.

On a separate survey question, 24% of respondents chose RIA adoption of annuities as the most significant three-year industry trend, while continued RILA sales growth drew 30% and an expected rise in in-plan adoption drew 15%, according to InvestmentNews.

As Private Wealth Daily previously reported, Cerulli's separate analysis of RIAs with more than $5 billion in assets found insurance-capable RIAs doubled to 14%, while firms with a brokerage business held 51% in 2025, unchanged from 2020.