Office address: 1201 Wills St, Baltimore, MD 21231; 6400 C St. SW, Cedar Rapids, IA 52499 (statutory home office)
Website: transamerica.com
Year established: 1904
Company type: financial services
Employees: 6,100+
Expertise: retirement plans, mutual funds, annuities, life insurance, employee benefits, investment management, financial planning, workplace benefits, insurance claims, asset management
Parent company: Aegon
Key people: Will Fuller (CEO), Andrew Yorks (CIO), Matt Keppler (CFO), Bonnie Gerst (president, financial assets), Chris Giovanni (chief strategy and development officer), Todd Buchanan (president, World Financial Group), John McCrossan (chief risk officer)
Financing status: corporate-backed or acquired
Transamerica is a financial services company based in Baltimore, with a statutory home office in Cedar Rapids. The company serves over 10 million customers and manages $416 billion in revenue-generating investments. It offers retirement plans, mutual funds, annuities, life insurance, and employee benefits through a network of agents and financial professionals.
Transamerica’s story began in 1904, when Amadeo P. Giannini wanted to help people whom banks often ignored. The Bank of Italy opened in San Francisco to give small merchants and immigrant farmers a fair chance. After the 1906 earthquake, the bank offered loans from a makeshift desk on the docks, trusting people with just a handshake.
Giannini’s banking group expanded its reach in 1921 by supporting a bank for women that was staffed entirely by women. In 1928, the Bank of Italy became Bank of America.
The group soon formed Transamerica Corporation to acquire Occidental Life Insurance Company. By 1946, Bank of America was the world’s largest private bank. In 1956, new federal banking laws led the firm to focus on insurance and divest its banking operations.
In 1972, the firm made a mark on San Francisco with the Transamerica Pyramid, an 853-foot tower designed by William Pereira. The building soon stood out as a landmark in the city’s financial district and remains part of the company’s logo. Even though Transamerica no longer owns the building, it remains a symbol of the company’s history.
The company became part of Aegon, a global financial group, in 1999. Since then, the company has served over 10 million customers and has managed $416 billion in investments.
In 2023, it focused on helping middle-market Americans with life insurance and retirement solutions. Aiming to offer pooled retirement plans for employers seeking simple options, Transamerica partnered with SageView, an independent RIA, in 2024.
Transamerica’s investment-related offerings are available through several channels and are tailored for individuals, employers, and financial professionals:
Some of its offerings are supported by research from the Transamerica Institute, a nonprofit foundation funded by Transamerica affiliates. Their studies and insights help clients and advisors make informed financial and retirement decisions.
Transamerica states that it values diversity and inclusion through its workforce, workplace, and marketplace pillars. The company reports a culture that supports unique career paths, rewards accountability, and encourages work-life balance.
It says it also offers an environment focused on collaboration and helping people plan for the future. Employees have access to a range of benefits, including:
Building on its commitment to employees and communities, the company supports local and national causes through the Aegon Transamerica Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit that offers grants and matches employee donations. In 2024, it contributed over $8 million to help improve community well-being.
Will Fuller has been the president and CEO of Transamerica since 2021 and serves on the company’s Risk Committee. He has held senior leadership positions in financial services for 30 years, focusing on advocacy and education. Fuller earned a business and finance degree from The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.
The executive team leads Transamerica’s strategy and daily operations with expertise in finance, investment, and risk management:
This team seeks to guide Transamerica’s strategy and daily management. Their leadership ensures the company’s goals and operations are aligned.
The firm, through its Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, released a national survey highlighting retirement challenges for all generations. The study shows that Americans of all ages face common obstacles when planning for retirement. Its research gives advisors and clients valuable data on savings habits, stress, and financial gaps.
Through the same research center, Transamerica also surveyed over 10,000 middle-class Americans about retirement readiness. It found that many people fall short on savings, lack written financial plans, and need more guidance at every age. These findings allow the firm to create solutions that address real gaps and help clients prepare for retirement.
To pry shellshocked investors out of their cash positions, several big fund companies are nudging investors into the next least-conservative position: short-term-bond funds.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners plans to look into legitimacy of third-party originated annuity transactions
The hearing will concentrate on the practice of baiting seniors and terminally ill people to act as insured lives on an annuity purchase, with the death benefit going toward a third-party investor or an intermediary.
Two life insurers are suing a trio of broker-dealers, accusing them of fraudulently selling to third parties variable annuities with lucrative death benefits on terminally ill individuals.
An Ohio man has sued life settlements and insurance guru Barry Kaye's firm, alleging that the firm encouraged him to buy a $5 million life policy and left him hanging when it couldn't find a buyer on the secondary market.
Insurers are rolling out adjustments to their variable annuity products — this time with an air of caution.
The Iowa insurance commissioner has eased accounting rules for 11 insurers based in the state, allowing them to polish up their balance sheets.
Seeking to wrest market share from the asset management industry, life insurance executives will embark on a campaign of simplified consumer communications and stress real-life contexts for the use of their products.
Fixed annuity sales in the United States hit $27.1 billion in the third quarter, up by 54% from the third quarter of 2007, according to data from Beacon Research of Evanston, Ill.
Four more insurers have lined up to become banks in the hopes of qualifying for some money from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Sales hit an estimated $24.6 billion during the second quarter, up 54.1% from the second quarter of 2007.
State insurance regulators are displeased with the Securities and Exchange Commission and state securities regulators about a proposal that would regulate equity index annuities as securities rather than as insurance products, and one state insurance regulator is meeting with SEC Chairman Christopher Cox this week to address those grievances.
