Brighthouse Financial Inc

Both the annuities and the life insurance markets are very competitive, with many participants and no one company dominating the market for all products. According to the American Council of Life Insurers (Life Insurers Fact Book 2023), the U.S. life insurance industry is made up of 727 companies with sales and operations across the country and U.S. territories. We compete with major, well-established stock and mutual life insurance companies and non-insurance financial services companies (e.g., banks, broker-dealers and asset managers) in all of our product offerings, including certain of our distributors that currently manufacture competing products or may manufacture competing products in the future. Our Annuities segment also faces competition from other financial service providers that focus on retirement products and advice. Our competitive positioning overall is focused on access to distribution channels, product features and financial strength.

Principal competitive factors in the annuities business include product features, distribution channel relationships, ease of doing business, annual fees, investment performance, speed to market, brand recognition, technology and the financial strength ratings of the insurance company. In particular for the variable annuity business, our living benefit rider product features and the quality of our relationship management and wholesaling support are key drivers in our competitive position. In the fixed annuity business, the crediting rates and guaranteed payout product features are the primary competitive factors, while for index-linked annuities the competitiveness of the crediting methodology is the primary driver. For income annuities, the competitiveness of the lifetime income payment amount is generally the principal factor.

Principal competitive factors in the life insurance business include product and underwriting features, customer service and distribution channel relationships, price, the financial strength ratings of the insurance company, technology and financial stability. For our hybrid indexed universal life with long-term care product, product features, long-term care benefits and our underwriting process are the primary competitive factors. The principal factors for our income product are its guaranteed distributions, crediting strategies and underwriting process.