Insurance-owned broker-dealers are the liftout wave's next donors

OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners pulled a $3 billion breakaway and an 18-advisor team out of Northwestern Mutual on Sept. 7, the clearest sign yet that the advisor liftout wave has found its next hunting ground in insurance-owned broker-dealers. Kevin Spahn led the 18-advisor team to OnePoint that day, and Andy Schwartz broke away to Bleakley Financial — now OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners — with the $3 billion book.

Two different formats — a full team liftout and a large book breakaway — left the same insurance-owned broker-dealer for the same destination platform on the same day, and the concentration suggests independent platforms are treating insurance channels as a donor pool rather than an occasional source of a stray advisor.

Northwestern Mutual's two losses came with very different arithmetic: Spahn's move was measured in advisors, 18 in total, while Schwartz's was measured in client assets, $3 billion — a book large enough to anchor an independent platform's recruiting quarter by itself, and it landed the same day as the 18-person team. For OnePoint, the day was a two-front harvest from one firm.

Whether OnePoint has built a playbook specifically for insurance-owned broker-dealers is a question the Sept. 7 data cannot answer, but simultaneous wins — one by dollar amount, one by advisor count — indicate the firm is drawing from that channel with unusual speed.

Curtis Wilcox moved a two-advisor team from Corebridge Financial to Lincoln Investment under the Blue Harbor Wealth Management banner on Sept. 7, making the pattern not confined to Northwestern Mutual. That team is small enough to miss in a headcount sweep, but it points in the same direction: insurance-owned firms are losing teams at both the flagship and smaller ends.

That Lincoln Investment's Blue Harbor Wealth Management unit took the Corebridge team means smaller independent platforms are now receiving liftouts from insurers, and because the move carried no disclosed asset figure, the day's disclosed outflow understates any broader movement if similar small teams are leaving without reporting assets.

A fourth move that day cautions against calling the insurance channel a one-way exit: Zachary Karason moved from U.S. Bancorp Advisors to Prudential Advisors through Mid America Financial Group with $106 million in client assets. Prudential Advisors sits inside an insurance organization, and $106 million is a meaningful book, but the disclosed dollar flow still ran overwhelmingly the other way — $3 billion left Northwestern Mutual while the insurance-side recruiting win was $106 million, roughly a 28-to-1 ratio by disclosed assets.

The independent-to-independent lane also stayed open, with the McGarry, Ahern & Sanchez team moving five advisors from Allworth Financial to Sachetta on Sept. 7 — a familiar beat in this cycle. The new information is that the same day produced two separate departures from Northwestern Mutual and a Corebridge departure, even as the only disclosed inflow to an insurance-owned shop was a fraction of the outflow.

That pattern, if it persists, changes the recruiting map. Sept. 7's data shows the liftout wave reaching into insurance-owned firms with enough force to produce a $3 billion breakaway, an 18-advisor team and a two-advisor team on the same day, and that kind of simultaneous, multi-size outflow is what a channel looks like when platforms have begun to work it systematically, not when it is merely a one-off source.

The Corebridge move matters precisely because it is small: a two-advisor team can leave without the same headlines as a $3 billion breakaway but still shifts client relationships, and if insurance-owned firms are now losing small teams as well as flagship books, the donor pool is broad rather than top-heavy.

If the Sept. 7 pattern repeats, insurance-owned broker-dealers will become a leading source of breakaway assets. OnePoint took two Northwestern Mutual teams through two different formats on the same day, Corebridge lost a two-person team to Lincoln Investment, and the only disclosed inbound move to an insurance-owned platform that day was $106 million. The next recruiting quarter will show whether that was a one-day event or a new donor channel.