The hidden cost of managing the general account

Insurance investment costs are disclosed. They are rarely comparable.

SFCRs, annual reports and fund documentation contain fragments of information about the cost of managing insurers’ general accounts: internal expenses, external management fees, fund charges and transaction costs.

Individually, these disclosures often appear anecdotal. Collected systematically, they could reveal something much more useful.

How much does managing €100 billion of insurance assets actually cost? How does the answer differ between internally managed and outsourced portfolios? And how much additional cost accompanies greater use of private markets?

The challenge is not the absence of information. It is making heterogeneous disclosures comparable.

Dutch pension reform: three years on, what actually changed?

Three years after the Netherlands began dismantling its traditional pension system, more than a third of the country’s €1.7tn in retirement assets has moved to the new regime. The consequences for investment portfolios are proving harder to measure than the scale of the reform might suggest. When the

The numbers insurers publish — and the ones they don’t

European insurers disclose an extraordinary amount of information. Solvency II has created one of the richest public datasets available on any group of institutional investors. Balance sheets, investment exposures, capital requirements and solvency positions can be compared across hundreds of companies. The apparent precision is deceptive. The same economic exposure

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What does it cost in 2026 to manage €100bn of insurance assets?

Asset-management fees are usually discussed from the perspective of the fund investor. Insurance company accounts offer another, much less explored view. Managing a large general account generates several layers of cost: internal investment teams, affiliated managers, external mandates, investment funds, custody, transactions and specialist assets. Some insurers disclose parts

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Dutch pension reform: three years on, what actually changed?

The numbers insurers publish — and the ones they don’t

Solvency II: Europe is rewriting the rules for long-term capital

What does it cost in 2026 to manage €100bn of insurance assets?