Overview
Lincoln National Corporation, known commercially as Lincoln Financial Group, is a U.S. financial services holding company whose subsidiaries provide insurance and retirement solutions. Its core businesses are annuities, life insurance, group protection, and retirement plan services, and its products are designed around wealth accumulation, wealth protection, and retirement income needs. Key offerings include variable, fixed and indexed annuities; term, universal and variable universal life insurance; employer-focused disability, life, accident, dental and vision benefits; and retirement plan administration and related services for workplace plans.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
The company is primarily U.S.-focused, with principal executive offices in Radnor, Pennsylvania and major operating locations in Indiana, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire and other U.S. cities. Its stated mission is to provide financial protection and security to customers and their families across its four core businesses. Founded in 1905, Lincoln National reported total revenue of about $18.4 billion in 2024 and had 9,783 employees at year-end, indicating a sizable national insurance and retirement platform.
Products & services
Lincoln National’s product set is centered on annuities and life insurance. Its annuity lineup includes traditional variable annuities, registered index-linked annuities sold as Lincoln Level Advantage® and Lincoln Level Advantage 2®, and fixed annuities that include traditional fixed-rate and fixed indexed deferred annuities as well as fixed-rate immediate and deferred income annuities with lifetime-income options. Variable annuities let contract holders allocate among variable funds, and some also offer a fixed account; the RILA products combine indexed accounts and variable funds, with indexed options tied to benchmarks including the S&P 500®, Russell 2000®, MSCI EAFE, Capital Strength Net Fee IndexSM, First Trust American Leadership IndexTM, and NASDAQ-100 Index®. Its fixed indexed annuities allow a choice between fixed and indexed crediting, use a zero floor on indexed interest crediting, and are hedged with derivatives; fixed annuities also generally include surrender charges and, on many policies, market value adjustment provisions. Lincoln also offers the optional Lincoln ProtectedPaySM lifetime income suite, a set of riders that provide guaranteed withdrawal benefits and related income-base features, including Secure Core, Secure Plus, Secure Max, Select Core, Select Plus, and Select Max variants, with some versions also incorporating Estate Lock death-benefit features.[11][12][13][14][15][16] Its life insurance products include term life, universal life, indexed universal life, variable universal life, bank-owned life insurance, corporate-owned life insurance, linked-benefit products, and critical-illness or long-term-care riders. Named products include Lincoln TermAccel® Level Term, Lincoln LifeElements® Level Term, Lincoln WealthPreserve® IUL, Lincoln WealthAccumulate® IUL, Lincoln AssetEdge® VUL, Lincoln PremierSM Private Placement VUL, Lincoln PremierSM BOLI UL, Lincoln PremierSM VUL BOLI/COLI, and Lincoln Corporate ExecSM COLI. Lincoln MoneyGuard® combines UL or VUL with long-term-care coverage through riders that can accelerate death benefits on a tax-free basis for qualified long-term-care needs, provide access to an additional pool of dollars once the death benefit is exhausted, and in some cases preserve a reduced death benefit or maintain guarantees even if account value falls to zero.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]
In employer benefits, Lincoln sells group protection products spanning disability, life, supplemental health, dental, vision, and administrative services. Disability offerings include insured and self-funded administrative solutions for short-term and long-term disability, with short-term disability typically paying weekly benefits for up to 26 weeks after a 1- to 30-day waiting period and long-term disability generally beginning after a 90- to 180-day waiting period and often paying up to normal Social Security retirement age. Group term life products include basic, optional, and voluntary term life coverage for employees and dependents, with accidental death and dismemberment benefits available. Supplemental health products include accident insurance with scheduled benefits for more than 30 accidental triggers, critical illness insurance with lump-sum payouts on specified events, and hospital indemnity insurance with benefits for admission, daily confinement, and more than 20 hospitalization-related triggers. Dental products include indemnity, PPO, dental HMO, in-network-only, and self-funded options for groups with more than 200 employees, while vision plans are fully insured products with national-network access and both in- and out-of-network benefits. Lincoln also provides absence management, paid family and medical leave administration, statutory disability administration, and workplace accommodation services.[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]
Its retirement-plan products are built around three primary employer-sponsored offerings: LINCOLN DIRECTORSM, a group variable annuity aimed mainly at small 401(k) plans; LINCOLN ALLIANCE®, a mutual-fund-based recordkeeping platform for larger defined-contribution plans that bundles fixed annuity products, recordkeeping, compliance, and employee education; and Multi-Fund® variable annuity, a bundled retirement solution for healthcare, education, governmental, and not-for-profit employers sponsoring 403(b), 457(b), and 401(a)/(k) plans. Lincoln also offers YourPath® target-date portfolios, including versions with guaranteed withdrawal benefit income features, and the Lincoln Next Step® and Lincoln Next Step Select IRA products for rollovers, transfers, and ongoing contributions, with mutual fund access from roughly 20 or more fund families. Supporting services include plan recordkeeping, compliance testing, participant education, and trust and custodial services. At the segment level, the company’s 2024 operating revenues were weighted toward Life Insurance (34.1% of total), Group Protection (31.2%), Annuities (26.7%), and Retirement Plan Services (7.2%).
Geographic presence
Lincoln National Corporation is incorporated in Indiana and maintains its principal executive offices in Radnor, Pennsylvania.[41][1] As of December 31, 2024, the company and its subsidiaries owned or leased 2.3 million square feet of office and other space, with major U.S. locations in Radnor, Pennsylvania (0.2 million square feet, including the corporate center), Fort Wayne, Indiana (0.6 million, primarily Annuities and Retirement Plan Services), Greensboro, North Carolina (0.8 million, primarily Life Insurance), Omaha, Nebraska (0.3 million) and Dover, New Hampshire (0.1 million), primarily for Group Protection, plus another 0.3 million square feet in other U.S. cities for branch offices.[42] The company had 9,783 employees at year-end 2024.[8]
Its operating footprint appears predominantly U.S.-based: its insurance subsidiaries are regulated in the states, territories, and countries in which they are licensed to do business, and Group Protection products are marketed primarily through a national distribution system.[43][44] A notable non-U.S. presence is Lincoln Pinehurst Reinsurance Company (Bermuda) Limited, which began operating in 2024 as a licensed Bermuda-based life and annuity reinsurance company.[45][46] The company’s financial disclosures present operating revenues by business segment rather than by geography, and no revenue-by-country or revenue-by-region table was identified in the segment note.
Business segments
Lincoln National Corporation reports four operating segments: Annuities, Life Insurance, Group Protection, and Retirement Plan Services; it also presents Other Operations separately, but not as an operating segment. The Annuities segment focuses on tax-deferred wealth accumulation and retirement income products, including variable annuities, fixed and fixed indexed annuities, and registered index-linked annuities (RILAs). The Life Insurance segment includes protection and wealth-transfer products such as term insurance, universal life, indexed universal life, variable universal life, and linked-benefit products with long-term care riders. Group Protection provides employer-sponsored non-medical coverages and related services, including disability, paid family leave, absence management, group life, dental, vision, accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity. Retirement Plan Services serves primarily employer-sponsored defined contribution plans and also provides recordkeeping, compliance, education, trust, and custodial services, with more limited defined benefit and IRA exposure.[50][51][52][53][5][6]
Using 2024 operating revenue as an approximate segment mix, Life Insurance was about 34% of segment revenue, Group Protection about 32%, Annuities about 27%, and Retirement Plan Services about 7%. On an income-from-operations basis, the mix was more heavily weighted to Annuities, which contributed about 69% of total segment operating income, followed by Group Protection at about 25% and Retirement Plan Services at about 10%, while Life Insurance posted a small operating loss and therefore contributed negatively on that basis.
Company history
Lincoln National traces its roots to 1905, when The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company was founded in Fort Wayne, Indiana; company materials say Robert Todd Lincoln gave written permission for the insurer to use Abraham Lincoln’s name and likeness.[58][59] Lincoln National Corporation, the holding company that became the group’s corporate parent, was organized under Indiana law in 1968.[2]
In later decades, Lincoln expanded its offerings beyond traditional life insurance, including the launch of Lincoln MoneyGuard in 1987 and its first fixed indexed annuity in 1997.[60] A major corporate milestone came in 2005 and 2006, when Lincoln agreed to merge with Jefferson-Pilot Financial and then completed that merger on April 3, 2006, with the combined company continuing under the Lincoln Financial Group brand.
Sources
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