TIAA life insurance

Overview

TIAA (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America) is one of the largest retirement-plan providers in the United States, best known for the pensions and annuities it runs for college professors, schoolteachers, hospital staff and other nonprofit workers. The TIAA Family group ranked #71 among U.S. life insurance groups by 2024 individual life direct premiums written, according to NAIC market share data, with $275.0 million in premiums and a 0.18% market share.

That ranking comes almost entirely from policies TIAA no longer sells. Its life insurance subsidiary, TIAA-CREF Life Insurance Company, stopped selling new life insurance on December 31, 2019, and the premiums in the NAIC data are renewal payments on term, universal and variable universal life policies written before then. At the close of business on December 31, 2025, TIAA-CREF Life was merged into its parent, so TIAA itself is now the insurer on those policies. If you hold one, nothing about your coverage changed except the name of the company that owes the benefit.

TIAA is a stock company, but its shares are held by the TIAA Board of Overseers, a New York not-for-profit corporation, so there are no outside shareholders. Its products are sold mainly through employer retirement plans and salaried, non-commissioned consultants rather than commissioned agents. TIAA also owns Nuveen, a large asset manager. Thasunda Brown Duckett has been president and CEO since 2021.

History

TIAA was founded in 1918 by Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, under foundation president Henry S. Pritchett, to give college professors a fully funded, portable pension system. In 1952 it created the College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), a variable annuity that let teachers invest part of their retirement savings in stocks, and the combined organization was known for decades as TIAA-CREF.

TIAA organized a life insurance subsidiary under New York law on December 18, 1996. It began as TIAA Life Insurance Company and was renamed TIAA-CREF Life Insurance Company on May 1, 1998. The subsidiary sold term life, universal life and the Intelligent Life variable universal life policies, plus personal annuities, directly to the public.

TIAA grew well beyond retirement plans in the 2010s. It agreed in 2014 to buy Nuveen Investments in a deal valued at $6.25 billion, and in 2017 it bought EverBank Financial, which it rebranded TIAA Bank in 2018. In November 2022 TIAA announced plans to sell the bank to private investors.

On the insurance side, the trend went the other way. TIAA-CREF Life discontinued new life insurance sales effective December 31, 2019. The boards of TIAA and TIAA-CREF Life approved merging the life company into TIAA, effective at the close of business on December 31, 2025, and TIAA issued a merger endorsement stating that it has assumed all liabilities and obligations of TIAA-CREF Life. The life company's last personal annuity, the Investment Horizon Annuity, closed to new sales after October 31, 2025.

In February 2026, Nuveen agreed to buy the British asset manager Schroders for about £9.9 billion (about $13.4 billion) in cash. The deal was completed on October 1, 2026, earlier than the fourth-quarter timetable first given, creating a combined asset and wealth manager with about $2.6 trillion under management; Schroders keeps its name and operates as a standalone business within Nuveen for now.

Life insurance products

TIAA does not sell new life insurance. The only remaining sale is a conversion: according to TIAA-CREF Life's 2023 filings, owners of TIAA term life policies that carry a conversion privilege can still convert to a universal life policy without new medical underwriting (conversion privilege, converting term life to permanent: how the conversion option works). If you own TIAA term coverage and your health has changed, check your conversion deadline before the term ends.

The in-force block TIAA now services includes:

• Term life policies sold before 2020.
• Universal life, including policies created through term conversions (universal life insurance).
• Intelligent Life VUL and Intelligent Life Survivorship VUL, plus the earlier M Intelligent VUL and M Intelligent Survivorship VUL. These variable life insurance policies invest in separate-account funds, so their cash value rises and falls with the market. Their prospectuses are still updated in SEC filings, the latest in January 2026.

Policy terms, guaranteed rates and charges did not change with the merger. TIAA's filings say the merger did not affect the terms of the contracts or policyholders' rights. If you want to understand why a policy you bought from one company is serviced by another, see when your life insurance policy is sold to another company and closed blocks: what happens to policies a company stops selling.

Other products

TIAA's core business is retirement savings: TIAA Traditional, a guaranteed fixed annuity, and the CREF variable annuity accounts offered in 403(b), 401(a), 457 and other employer plans, along with lifetime income annuities at retirement. Nuveen manages mutual funds and institutional money. See life insurance for teachers for the life coverage options open to educators.

Buying and service

Because TIAA no longer writes life insurance, there is nothing to buy. Teachers and other workers who want coverage today usually look at employer group life, a teachers' association plan or an individual policy from another insurer such as Horace Mann.

Existing life policyholders can call TIAA's life insurance service line at 877-694-0305, weekdays 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern, or manage policies through a tiaa.org account. TIAA's main customer number, 800-842-2252, is the line it gave policyholders for questions about the 2025 merger.

Claims

TIAA offers an online death notification on tiaa.org, and its Beneficiary Services team takes calls at 888-380-6428, weekdays 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern. Expect to provide a certified death certificate, the policy number if you have it, and a claimant statement; TIAA sends the forms after the death is reported. The how to file a life insurance claim guide covers the general process.

Ratings and reputation

TIAA's financial strength ratings are among the highest in the industry. AM Best affirmed its A++ (Superior) rating, the top of its scale, on July 23, 2026, citing balance sheet strength it assesses as strongest, very strong operating performance and TIAA's leading position in higher education and nonprofit pensions. AM Best also flagged significant realized investment losses in recent years, rising commercial mortgage delinquencies and increased leverage expected from the Schroders purchase. TIAA reports a Fitch rating of AAA (affirmed February 13, 2026), Moody's Aa1 (affirmed February 12, 2026) and S&P AA+ (affirmed August 27, 2025) (financial strength rating).

TIAA was not among the brands ranked in the J.D. Power 2026 U.S. Individual Life Insurance Study.

In July 2021 the SEC announced that TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, a TIAA subsidiary, would pay $97 million to settle SEC and New York Attorney General charges that it failed to disclose conflicts of interest when its advisers urged retirement plan participants to roll savings into a higher-cost managed account program from 2013 to 2018. TIAA agreed to reforms, including a fiduciary standard for rollover recommendations.

Who it suits

This profile is mainly for people who already own a TIAA-CREF Life policy or are beneficiaries of one. They are dealing with a very highly rated insurer that has absorbed the life company and stands behind the same contract terms. For anyone shopping for new coverage, TIAA is not an option; its strengths are in retirement plans and annuities.

• Strengths: A++ (Superior) from AM Best (July 2026) and AAA from Fitch (February 2026); no outside shareholders; policy terms unchanged by the 2025 merger; conversion to universal life still available to eligible term owners.
• Weaknesses: No new life insurance since December 31, 2019; a small in-force life block inside a retirement company; a $97 million SEC and New York settlement in 2021 over rollover sales practices; AM Best notes investment losses and real estate exposure.

How to contact TIAA