Equitable Holdings Boston Consulting Group Matrix
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Stars
Educator 403(b)/457 leadership
Equitable’s large footprint in K-12 and public retirement plans, with continued district modernization, has driven high share and steady participant growth, placing Educator 403(b)/457 squarely in the Star quadrant. Continued investment in guidance, enrollment technology, and payroll integrations is critical to defend that lead. Holding share through maturation will convert this franchise into a material cash engine for the firm.
Fee-based Wealth Management platform
Advice and Wealth Management is riding secular growth in advisory accounts and recurring fees, with strong brand, advisor productivity, and planning depth capturing real share in a growing market. Keep investing in planning tools, tax tech, and model portfolios to scale while automating admin. The goal: grow fee-based revenue without losing advisor time to busywork.
Registered Index-Linked Annuities (buffered annuities)
Registered Index-Linked Annuities (RILAs) are one of the hottest corners of the annuity market and Equitable has established credibility through a suite of competitive RILA products and distribution relationships. Client demand is rising as investors seek equity participation with defined downside protection. Scaling RILA growth consumes cash—distribution, hedging and advisor education require meaningful upfront investment. Leadership here can compound into a category-defining franchise.
Indexed Universal Life for affluent planners
Indexed Universal Life for affluent planners is a Stars asset for Equitable, driving protection-plus-accumulation share as IUL sales rose about 10% in 2024 while advisors leverage tailored crediting strategies to preserve margins and retention.
- Pairing design with advanced planning keeps margins healthy
- Tax-aware wealth transfer expands market
- Prioritize underwriting speed and transparent illustrations
Digital advice and planning tools
Digital advice and planning tools are a Star for Equitable in 2024: advisors close more and retain clients when planning software is crisp and integrated, and usage and attachment rates climbed through 2024 across channels. Continue iterating on UX, data pipes, and compliance automation to lock adoption, because if usage sticks this becomes the connective tissue across businesses.
- Adoption trend: 2024 usage and attachment rates rising
- Value driver: higher close and retention with integrated planning
- Execution focus: UX, data pipelines, compliance automation
- Strategic outcome: platform as cross-business connective tissue
Educator plans, IULs (+10%) and digital advice fuel fee and cash growth in 2024
Equitable’s Stars — Educator 403(b)/457, Advice & Wealth, RILAs, IUL and digital advice — show high market share and growth in 2024; IUL sales rose about 10% in 2024 while digital planning adoption and attachment rates climbed through 2024. Continued investment in tech, distribution, and advisor enablement will convert these Stars into sustained fee and cash engines.
| Franchise | 2024 metric |
|---|---|
| Educator 403(b)/457 | High share, steady participant growth |
| Advice & Wealth | Secular advisory fee growth |
| RILAs | Demand rising; scale requires cash |
| IUL | Sales +10% in 2024 |
| Digital advice | Usage & attachment rates climbed in 2024 |
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Cash Cows
In‑force Variable Annuities (seasoned cohorts)
In 2024 in‑force seasoned variable annuity cohorts at Equitable continued to produce steady fee revenue with modest capex requirements. Growth is low, with persistency and market levels doing the heavy lifting. Optimize hedging and cut expenses; avoid over‑investment. Milk cash flows to fund new product bets and capital allocation priorities.
Traditional Whole Life and fixed protection in-force
Traditional whole life and fixed protection in-force deliver stable premiums, predictable claims and solid persistency, making them reliable cash cows for Equitable Holdings; the mature market and rational competition support steady margins. Incremental operational and underwriting efficiencies are widening margins, so prioritize high service levels and disciplined cost control to sustain cash generation.
Workplace retirement recordkeeping (existing plans)
Installed workplace retirement recordkeeping delivers steady admin and asset-based fees with low churn; as of 2024 U.S. defined-contribution assets exceed $9 trillion, underscoring predictable cash flow. Upsell tends to be incremental, not explosive—classic Cash Cow behavior. Prioritize service SLAs and payroll integrations to protect margins and let scale drive profitability.
General account spread from seasoned assets
General account spread from seasoned assets supplies steady net investment income that supports product guarantees; in 2024 corporate bond yields averaged about 5.0%, helping lift portfolio cash generation without risk stretching. Duration and credit discipline preserved spreads through 2024 rate volatility; focus remains on optimizing ALM rather than pursuing yield heroics.
- Steady net investment income
- 2024 corporate yields ~5.0%
- Duration & credit discipline
- ALM optimization; avoid heroics
Closed blocks and runoff portfolios
Closed blocks and runoff portfolios release capital and cash as liabilities mature and risk winds down; built for low growth by design, they deliver disproportionately high contributions to Equitable Holdings’ parent.
Management prunes, reinsures and streamlines administration to accelerate cash emergence and reduce capital strain; harvested proceeds in 2024 were prioritized to fund Stars and retire debt.
- Legacy runoff: steady cash generation
- Low-growth, high-contribution model
- Actions: prune, reinsure, streamline
- Use proceeds: fund Stars, retire debt
Runoff funds steady income - DC > 9T, bonds ≈ 5%
Equitable’s in‑force annuity and protection books generated steady, low‑growth fee and premium cash flows in 2024, funding capital allocation and product bets. Workplace recordkeeping (DC assets > $9 trillion) and runoff blocks provided predictable admin and investment income; corporate bond yields ~5.0% supported spreads. Management harvested runoff proceeds to fund strategic priorities while preserving ALM discipline.
| Metric | 2024 |
|---|---|
| DC market size | > $9.0T |
| Corporate bond yields | ≈ 5.0% |
| Growth | Low |
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Dogs
Price-only term life in commoditized channels
Price-only term life in commoditized channels is a dogs quadrant offering for Equitable: low share, race-to-the-bottom pricing, and high customer-acquisition costs make margin recovery difficult. Hard to differentiate products means losses on price are easy and scale benefits limited. Even operational turnarounds rarely move the needle in this segment. Better to narrow focus or exit unprofitable pockets.
Legacy VA guarantees with high capital drag
Legacy VA guarantees at Equitable trap capital and drive earnings volatility: by 2024 hedging costs and runoff losses have replaced growth, turning the book into a cash sink with low incremental return. Persistent hedging drag forces frequent cash injections and compress ROE. Prioritize reinsurance, targeted buyouts, or disciplined runoff to stop funding guarantees for minimal value.
Long-tail, low-productivity advisor segments
Servicing tiny books across scattered reps drains operations and compliance, creating high per-client costs and elevated supervisory risk; these long-tail advisors show little growth and little market share, generating outsized noise for minimal revenue. Consolidation—trimming, merging, or reassigning these books—typically improves unit economics and compliance oversight. Focus resources on higher-ROA segments rather than revitalizing dogs.
Outdated legacy tech stacks
Dogs:
Outdated legacy tech stacks
At Equitable Holdings these stacks are high maintenance and low strategic value, consuming an estimated 60–70% of IT run-the-business spend (Gartner 2024) and slowing product and regulatory change cycles. They soak up budget that should fuel growth; large turnarounds rarely pay back within acceptable ROI windows, so decommission decisively and migrate workloads to cloud-native platforms and SaaS.- cost: 60–70% IT spend on maintenance (Gartner 2024)
- impact: slow time-to-market, regulatory lag
- action: decommission, migrate to cloud/SaaS
- risk: low strategic upside, poor ROI on big rebuilds
Non-core group ancillary benefits experiments
Non-core ancillary benefits pilots at Equitable often sit stuck in the middle: low share against crowded incumbents and thin margins, and McKinsey notes roughly 70% of pilots fail to scale; chasing breadth dilutes core capabilities—divest or partner rather than build solo to avoid margin erosion and capital misallocation.
- Low-share risk
- Crowded competitors
- Thin margins
- 70% pilot non-scale
- Prefer divest/partner
Legacy term-life units: low share, thin margins - exit, reinsurance, or consolidate
Equitable dogs—price-only term life, legacy VA guarantees, tiny advisor books, outdated IT, and non-core pilots—deliver low share, thin margins, and high operating drag; exit, reinsurance, consolidation, or decommissioning are preferred. Gartner 2024 cites 60–70% IT run-the-business spend; McKinsey 2024 finds ~70% pilots fail to scale.
| Item | 2024 metric | Implication |
|---|---|---|
| IT maintenance | 60–70% spend (Gartner 2024) | Decommission/migrate |
| Pilots | ~70% fail (McKinsey 2024) | Partner/divest |
Question Marks
Small-business 401(k) and PEP expansion
SMB retirement expansion accelerated after SECURE 2.0 and PEPs gained momentum in 2024, creating a multi-trillion-dollar addressable US retirement market; Equitable holds a clear adjacency but market share remains early.
Winning requires heavy investment in payroll integrations and turnkey onboarding to reduce friction and drive employer conversion.
If customer acquisition cost stabilizes, this Question Mark can flip into a Star.
RILA distribution into independent RIA/IBD channels
Demand for RILA in independent RIA/IBD channels is real, with about 13,000 SEC-registered RIAs in 2024 but platform penetration and home-office approvals vary significantly. Education and compliance buy-in are the primary bottlenecks. Prioritize wholesaling, accredited CE content, and model-friendly wrappers. Securing a few major platforms should materially accelerate growth.
Commission-free, fee-based annuities for RIAs
RIAs, overseeing roughly $5.5 trillion in AUM in 2024, demand clean, portable annuities that map to fee-for-advice billing and custody workflows. The commission-free, fee-based annuity category is young with unit economics likely single-digit margins until scale is achieved. Focus on API-first servicing and native integrations with Orion/Envestnet/Addepar-type platforms (used by ~60% of RIAs) to lower friction. If adoption climbs toward even single-digit penetration, these annuities become a strategic wedge into recurring advice wallets.
Protection + wealth bundled offerings
Protection + wealth bundled offerings are a Question Mark for Equitable: packaging insurance with managed accounts is compelling but operationally complex, requiring tight data plumbing and advisor integration; a 2024 BCG industry note highlights bundling as a key growth lever for incumbent wealth managers.
Pilot with targeted segments and advisor playbooks to prove uplift before scaling—run A/B pilots, track cross-sell conversion and margin uplift, then expand on demonstrated ROI.
- Pilot segments: high-net-worth advisors, pre-retirees
- KPIs: cross-sell conversion, retention uplift, incremental revenue
- Infrastructure: unified data, CRM + policy linkage, advisor playbooks
AI-assisted planning and service automation
AI-assisted planning and service automation offers huge productivity upside—Deloitte 2024 estimates up to 40% of financial‑services tasks are automatable—but governance and accuracy are gatekeepers; early pilots show paraplanning and client‑service time savings but remain unproven at scale. Keep experiments narrow with measurable KPIs; if advisor time saved converts to revenue, this moves toward Star.
SMB retirement and RILA in RIA channels: early-share growth post-SECURE 2.0
SMB retirement (post-SECURE 2.0) and RILA in RIA channels are high-opportunity Question Marks for Equitable with early share despite multi-trillion US retirement market and ~13,000 SEC-registered RIAs (2024).
Key barriers: payroll integrations, platform approvals, advisor education; unit economics likely single-digit until scale.
Pilot focused API integrations, wholesaling, CE and major platform wins.
| Metric | 2024 | Target action |
|---|---|---|
| RIAs | ~13,000; $5.5T AUM | Platform integrations |
| Automatable tasks | ~40% (Deloitte 2024) | Paraplanning pilots |