Principal Financial Group life insurance

Overview

Principal Financial Group is a Des Moines, Iowa, retirement, asset management and insurance company whose main U.S. insurers are Principal Life Insurance Company and Principal National Life Insurance Company. It is a shareholder-owned company listed on Nasdaq as PFG. The group ranked #22 among U.S. life insurance groups by 2024 individual life direct premiums written, according to NAIC market share data, with $2.01 billion in premiums and a 1.28% share.

The most important fact for shoppers is that Principal no longer sells individual life insurance to ordinary retail consumers. In June 2021 it announced it would stop selling term and universal life to retail consumers and leave the retail fixed annuity market. Since then its individual life sales have gone entirely to owners, executives and key employees of small and medium-sized businesses: coverage for key people, buy-sell agreements, succession planning and nonqualified deferred compensation. Its 2025 annual report says it still administers about 710,000 individual life policies with more than $570 billion of coverage in force. It also remains a very large employee benefits carrier. Citing LIMRA, it reports being the top U.S. group life insurer in 2024 by number of contracts in force, and the third-largest group dental insurer.

History

Edward Temple founded The Bankers Life Association in Des Moines on July 1, 1879, to provide inexpensive life insurance for bankers and their employees. In 1911 it converted into Bankers Life Company, a mutual legal reserve company, and it later expanded into farm and home loans, pensions (from 1941) and group insurance (from the 1940s). It introduced an adjustable life policy in 1977 and sold its first 401(k) products in 1984. In 1985 the company changed its name to Principal Financial Group, and the insurer itself became Principal Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1986.

On July 1, 1998, Principal reorganized into a mutual holding company structure, and Principal Mutual Life became the stock company Principal Life Insurance Company. A closed block was set up then to support dividends on participating policies already in force. Principal demutualized fully and became a public company on October 26, 2001. It bought Wells Fargo's institutional retirement and trust business in 2019.

The 2021 retreat from retail life insurance followed a strategic review undertaken under a cooperation agreement with Elliott Investment Management, one of Principal's largest investors. In May 2022 Principal closed a deal to reinsure about $25 billion of in-force retail fixed annuity and universal life with secondary guarantee (ULSG) liabilities with an affiliate of Sixth Street and its Talcott Resolution platform. Principal continues to service and administer those policies. It has also left the group medical and long-term care insurance businesses. Deanna Strable-Soethout, who joined the company in 1990, became president and CEO in January 2025 and chair in September 2025.

Life insurance products

Principal does not sell individual life policies to consumers buying for their families. The company's 2025 annual report describes what it still offers to the business market:

• Term life, which made up 81% of Principal's individual life insurance in force and 26% of first-year individual life premium in 2025.
• Universal, indexed universal and variable universal life, which together made up 74% of 2025 first-year individual life premium. It no longer sells universal life with lifetime secondary guarantees.
• Business uses: key person coverage, buy-sell funding, ESOP repurchase funding and life insurance for nonqualified deferred compensation. Principal also offers personal coverage to the owners and executives it serves.

It no longer sells whole life or adjustable life, though older whole, adjustable and participating policies remain in force and are serviced. Its business life page says some policies let the owner draw on the death benefit after a chronic illness diagnosis. For estate plans, Principal Trust Company can serve as trustee of an irrevocable life insurance trusts funded with Principal policies.

If you bought a Principal term or universal life policy before 2021, the exit from retail sales did not change your contract. Principal still administers its in-force individual policies, including the ULSG policies it reinsured in 2022. When it announced that deal, it said it would keep policy administration and servicing and that the transaction would not affect its commitments to customers. Our when your life insurance policy is sold to another company guide explains how reinsurance deals like this work: the policy terms stay the same, and the original insurer remains responsible to you.

Other products

Principal's largest businesses are workplace retirement plans, asset management and employee benefits. For employers it offers group term life, short- and long-term disability, dental, vision, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity coverage, and paid family and medical leave in a few states. It sells individual disability income insurance, which it says ranked fourth in the U.S. by premium in force at the end of 2024, along with business overhead expense and disability buy-out coverage. Principal Bank, a limited-purpose federal savings bank, offers IRAs and deposit products, mainly to people leaving Principal-serviced retirement plans.

Buying and service

New individual coverage is sold only through a financial professional, either one of Principal's affiliated financial representatives or an independent broker, as part of a business or executive-benefit plan. You cannot apply online on your own. Existing policyholders can log in at principal.com or in the Principal app to see their coverage, and download forms such as collateral assignments and secondary-addressee requests. The general customer line, 800-986-3343, is open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central time on weekdays.

Claims

For an individual life policy bought through a financial professional, the beneficiary completes Principal's Individual Life Insurance Claim form, which can be signed and submitted online through AdobeSign. A paper version can be emailed to [email protected] or faxed to 866-894-2096. Principal pays individual life benefits by check or electronic funds transfer. Have a certified death certificate and the policy number ready, and see how to file a life insurance claim for the general steps.

Group life claims through an employer are filed with the online beneficiary claim form or a paper form emailed to [email protected] or faxed to 800-255-6609. Principal says group life claims are generally processed within five working days once all information is received, and paid in a lump-sum check. Beneficiaries can also use free grief and financial support services through Empathy.

Ratings and reputation

AM Best affirmed the A+ (Superior) financial strength rating and "aa" issuer credit rating of Principal Life and Principal National Life on April 28, 2026, with a stable outlook, as it had in April 2025; the company's 10-K for 2025 lists the same rating. That filing also lists AA- (Very Strong) from Fitch, A1 (Good) from Moody's and A+ (Strong) from S&P, all with stable outlooks. See AM Best, S&P, Moody's and Fitch ratings explained for how the scales compare.

In the J.D. Power 2026 U.S. Individual Life Insurance Study, released in October 2026, which measures customer satisfaction with buying and owning a policy, Principal tied with MassMutual for 6th of 23 brands with 671 points, above the study average of 649. Principal was not among the brands ranked in the 2025 study.

The 2021 exit, together with the 2022 reinsurance of the ULSG and fixed annuity blocks, is the main reputational issue for individual buyers. Principal remains strong financially, but it no longer competes for family coverage, and part of its older universal life book is now backed by a Sixth Street-owned reinsurer based in the Cayman Islands, although Principal still administers those policies.

Who it suits

Principal suits business owners, partners and executives of small and midsize companies who want life and disability coverage as part of a buy-sell, key person or deferred compensation plan, ideally alongside group benefits or a retirement plan the company already gets from Principal. It also matters to the hundreds of thousands of people who already own Principal policies. It is not an option for a family looking to buy a term or whole life policy on its own.

• Strengths: A+ (Superior) from AM Best and AA- from Fitch; deep experience with business-owner and executive-benefit planning; one of the largest U.S. group life and dental carriers; long history, dating to 1879.
• Weaknesses: no individual life sales to retail consumers since 2021; no whole life; ULSG and retail fixed annuity blocks reinsured to a private-equity-backed offshore affiliate in 2022; Moody's and S&P ratings are in the single-A range rather than double-A.

How to contact Principal Financial Group