Insurance: It’s About Disclosure, Not Investment Quality

Mark Walter, the Guggenheim Partners co-founder and CEO who oversees a business empire spanning insurance, asset management, and sports (including the LA Dodgers and, until recently, the Lakers), is facing mounting scrutiny as federal prosecutors and the SEC probe whether his insurers—Delaware Life and Clear Spring Life and Annuity—properly disclosed that a large share of their credit holdings were loans to entities connected to his other ventures, including TWG Global and Guggenheim itself. What began as a reported 3% affiliate exposure was restated to at least 39% and, by some accounts, as high as 42% of the insurance entities’ invested assets. 

The elevated exposure prompted a ratings outlook downgrade and a $6.5 billion asset swap to shore up the insurers' balance sheets. Walter has raised cash by selling his stake in the Lakers, underscoring how the fallout from an insurance-disclosure failure is now reshaping decisions across his broader sports and financial empire. 

This report includes FactSet data that shows Schedule D for Delaware Life Insurance Co., one of the two flagship carriers of Group 1001, ultimately controlled by Walter. FactSet data and functionality not only surfaced the Dodger Tickets, LLC holding by Delaware Life, but all US holders of Dodger Tickets, LLC shown on Schedule D. The investment itself has not been scrutinized. Instead, the central issue facing Walters is disclosure: failure to report that entities controlled by Walters also invested in businesses he controls. 

Schedule D

The Dodger Tickets LLC investment is included as one of Delaware Life Insurance Company’s investments on schedule D. What was not correctly reported, and the source of scrutiny, is the affiliation with Walters. 

Other Investors

Delaware Life Insurance Company is one of two dozen entities that have invested in Dodger Tickets, LLC. The issue is not the investment itself, but rather the failure to disclose the affiliation with Walters.

New FactSet functionality allows users to surface US insurance entities that hold specific securities. To produce the list of Dodger Tickets holders, access the new functionality through Sectors & Insights and select US Co. Inv. Holdings (shown below). 

Available Filters

The new US Co. Inv. Holdings functionality enables you to filter holdings based on a number of criterion. To produce the list of Dodger Holdings investors, the Issuer/Description filter was selected and Dodger Tickets was entered. 

Macro Drivers and Impact on Insurance Earnings

Macro summary: Payrolls fell 23,000 in July, the first negative headline print of this cycle, following a downwardly revised 20,000 gain in June—a sharp deceleration from the +214,000/+179,000 pace seen March-April. Job growth has now averaged roughly 61,000/month over the trailing 11 months, well below the ~150,000 breakeven rate most economists associate with a stable labor market.

Insurance earnings implications: For life/annuity carriers, a softening labor market slows group life and disability premium growth (fewer covered lives, slower payroll growth) but has limited, immediate impact. For P&C, weaker hiring modestly dampens exposure growth in commercial auto and workers' comp claims, though July's decline is not yet severe enough to signal a broader shift in claims-frequency.

Our Macro Tracker table below lists key economic data and the potential impact on insurance company earnings. The right-hand column identifies the specific, potential impacts on company earnings. 

Inflation

PPI (Producer Price Index): Final demand PPI was unchanged in July (seasonally adjusted), following a 0.3% decline in June, pulling the year-over-year rate down to 4.7% (unadjusted) from 5.5% in June—the clearest sign yet that producer-level cost pressure is easing alongside consumer prices. 

Earnings implications: PPI is the more direct proxy for auto and property repair/replacement cost inflation in P&C reserving—the drop to 4.7% year-over-year, paired with a second flat monthly print, supports a genuine easing in loss cost trend rather than a one-month blip, a modest tailwind for combined ratios. 

Earnings implications: Record-adjacent equity markets lift variable annuity and separate account fee income and AUM-based revenue for life insurers. For P&C, the benefit is mainly indirect through investment portfolio total return on equity and alternative asset allocations. 

The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1% in July from 4.2% in June, even as payroll growth stalled—a divergence driven by a modest pullback in labor force participation rather than hiring strength. 

Earnings implications: A still-low unemployment rate supports persistency on group life and disability books for life insurers; the linkage to P&C is indirect and is not a meaningful earnings driver this period. 

Nonfarm Payrolls

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, the weakest print since early 2026 and well below the prior six-month average, even as revisions added a combined 93,000 jobs to March and April. 

Earnings implications: Slowing payroll growth softens the base for group life and voluntary benefits premiums (tied to covered payroll), while a smaller labor pool has limited near-term read-through for P&C personal lines exposure growth. 

Weekly Jobless Claims

Initial claims fell to 203,000 for the week ending August 22, a decrease of 4,000 from the prior week's revised level, with the 4-week average holding at 205,500 and claims remaining comfortably below the 225,000 watch level all summer. 

Earnings implications: Claims well below the watch level point to stable workers' compensation claim frequency for P&C carriers; this series otherwise functions as an early warning indicator rather than a direct earnings driver for either segment this period. 

AUM Through the Cycle

The table below presents AUM roll forward data for PRU, EQH, and HIG from 2Q21 through 1Q26, individual company net change (as a percentage of beginning AUM), and the S&P 500 quarterly price return. The pattern that emerges is both consistent and actionable: AUM balances follow S&P 500 returns.

Updated company AUM data for Equitable and Voya show increases in AUM. That result is expected given the equity market data we tracked throughout 2Q. 

Company AUM Roll Forward Detail

Equitable (up): Company/Security - Assets Under Management - EQH-US - FactSet 

Hartford (drop): Company/Security - Assets Under Management - HIG-US 

Prudential (up): Company/Security - Assets Under Management - FactSet 

Principal (up): Company/Security - Operations by LOB - FactSet 

Voya (up): Company/Security - Assets Under Management - FactSet 

Manulife (up): Company/Security - Assets Under Management - FactSet 

Accessing Insurance Insight Reports

FactSet Insight blog: Read more insurance sector analysis in our previous blog articles.

Document search: Access insurance insight reports from the FactSet Workstation using the Document Search function. Search for "Insurance Tracker: Event of the Week".

Today’s Top News: Insurance insight reports are also delivered on the Workstation through StreetAccount’s Today’s Top News, or “TTN”. Aside from providing access to insight reports, TTN provides an insurance-focused daily sector synopsis, updated events calendar, and “insurance reads” that highlight current news stories that impact the insurance sector.

To access TTN, select the Today’s Top News tab on the FactSet Workstation and select Insurance from the drop-down menu (both highlighted below).

Insurance Solutions

Deep sector data and functionality shown in this report are available through the FactSet Workstation. Learn more about FactSet insurance solutions that combine investment research, portfolio construction, and risk management in a cloud-native platform. Our comprehensive tools enable investment and actuarial teams to enhance asset modeling and capitalize on market opportunities.

This blog post is for informational purposes only. The information contained in this blog post is not legal, tax, or investment advice. FactSet does not endorse or recommend any investments and assumes no liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction taken based on the information contained in this article.