Pacific Guardian Life, a subsidiary of Meiji Yasuda Life, is acquiring the individual annuity business of another, bigger Meiji Yasuda subsidiary, Standard Insurance Company.
Meiji Yasuda is a big, Tokyo-based insurer. It acquired Pacific Guardian Life in 1985 and The Standard in 2016.
The Standard is handing the individual annuity business over to Pacific Guardian Life because it wants to focus on its investment and employee benefits businesses, according to Dan McMillan, the company's chief executive officer.
Nobutaka Yagi, the chair and CEO of Pacific Guardian Life, talked about the size of the deal.
"This transaction will significantly broaden our portfolio of annuity products and distribution network," Yagi said.
Pacific Guardian Life and The Standard hope to get the regulatory approvals they need to close on the deal in early 2027.
What it means: For clients who already own annuities from The Standard, the deal means that oversight for the annuities will stay in the same corporate family.
For advisors who want to help clients buy new annuities, it's possible that Pacific Guardian Life could become a bigger player in the individual annuity market.
The companies: The Standard is based in Portland, Oregon.
The company reported $14 billion in revenue in 2025 and ended the year with $48 billion in assets.
It collected $1.3 billion in individual annuity premiums.
The company ranked in the top 20 in the income annuity market, according to Wink's 2025 annuity sales survey report.
Pacific Guardian Life has offices in Honolulu. It reported $162 million in total revenue in 2025 on $1.8 billion in assets.
It collected just $48 million in individual annuity premiums.
The deal: Pacific Guardian Life is preparing to acquire the employees, operations and distribution partnerships supporting The Standard's annuities as well as the annuities.
The Standard will keep an existing closed block of in-force annuities.
The same people have been servicing both the in-force annuities that will stay with The Standard and the ongoing annuity business that's moving to Pacific Guardian Life.
"After closing, Pacific Guardian Life will continue to sell new individual annuities under The Standard brand for a period of time before transitioning to their own brand," the companies sasid.
The backdrop: In February, Meiji Yasuda completed the purchase of Banner Life and William Penn, which are big players in the U.S. term life insurance market, from Legal & General.
In 2024, it acquired the Elevance Health employee benefits business.
The company said when it completed the deal with Legal & General that it hopes to grow in the United States in both the employee benefits and retail products markets.
Allison Bell can be reached at allison.bell@arc-network.com.
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