Different types of insurers have different investment needs. Life and annuity insurers hold 64% of the channel’s assets and may not need to pay out for 10–30 years or more. That gives them room to invest in longer-term private credit and real assets. Property & casualty and health insurers need more ready access to cash. For fundraisers, the starting point should be how a strategy fits an insurer’s payment obligations.
Insurers’ private-markets exposure is larger than the “alternatives” total suggests. The $638 billion reported on Schedule BA captures only part of the picture. Some bonds reported on Schedule D are privately placed debt, and much of the $868 billion mortgage category is direct commercial lending. At the same time, some of Schedule BA’s 2025 growth reflects investments moving between reporting categories under new NAIC rules, rather than new money invested.
Reaching insurance capital increasingly means knowing who manages it. Partnerships between insurers and private-market firms, along with greater use of outside investment managers, mean the insurer itself may not be the one selecting funds. Getting on an outside manager’s approved list can be an important route to that capital.
Insurance capital is also reaching smaller and mid-market managers. Schedule BA data shows lower- and middle-market buyout managers—including Vance Street, GHK, Trinity Hunt, and Wind Point—with 10+ insurance investors in their funds. This should signal to fund managers that insurance capital isn’t going to just the largest asset management firms.
U.S. insurance companies held $9.6 trillion in cash and invested assets at year-end 2025, making them one of the largest pools of institutional capital available to investment managers. The business is straightforward in concept: insurers collect premiums and policyholder deposits today, invest that money, and use it to meet future claims and benefit payments. When those payments come due (and how predictable they are) shapes everything from the assets insurers buy to the amount of illiquidity they can accept.
That investment base is growing. Total cash and invested assets increased 6.7% in 2025, while Schedule BA assets rose 10.3% to approximately $638 billion, according to the NAIC. Schedule BA is the reporting category that captures many private equity, hedge fund, real estate, and other long-term investments. Even that figure captures only part of insurers' private-market exposure: privately placed bonds and qualifying private credit investments also appear elsewhere on the balance sheet, particularly Schedule D.
The research and analysis in this report are powered entirely by Dakota Marketplace, the most comprehensive private markets database built for the institutional investment community. Dakota’s 60-plus person data team researched, verified, and maintained every data point referenced in these pages by hand, with real people who verify the information and update records with the rigor that institutional-grade intelligence demands. This report is the output. The database is the foundation.
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