PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP INC

Overview

Principal Financial Group, Inc. is a financial-services company operating in retirement and income solutions, investment management, and insurance. Its principal businesses include retirement plans and annuities; asset management across public and private markets; and employee and individual benefits such as dental, life, disability, and supplemental health insurance.[1][2]

The company serves customers in the United States and internationally, including through pension businesses in Asia and Latin America. Principal reports a presence in 25 nations and territories and nearly 20,000 employees.[1][3] Its stated purpose is to help more people, businesses, and communities access financial security.[4]

For the year ended December 31, 2025, Principal reported total revenue of approximately $15.6 billion.[5] The company traces its origins to The Bankers Life Association, founded in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1879.[6] [1]+5

Products & services

Principal Financial Group offers workplace retirement plans and individual retirement products, including defined-contribution and defined-benefit plans, nonqualified plans, IRAs, variable annuities, registered index-linked annuities (RILAs), pension risk-transfer solutions and investment-only services. Named annuities include Principal Strategic Income, a RILA with lifetime-income options, and Principal Strategic Outcomes, a RILA offering growth potential with some downside protection. Related services include plan administration and recordkeeping, digital participant and sponsor tools, and banking, trust and custodial services.[7]+3

Principal Asset Management provides investment solutions across public and private markets, including equities, fixed income, real estate, alternatives and multi-asset strategies, for institutional, retirement, retail and high-net-worth clients. Pension-related capabilities include liability-driven investing, outsourced chief investment officer services and actuarial services.[1][11]

Benefits and Protection products include group dental, life, disability, vision, critical-illness, accident and hospital-indemnity coverage, paid family and medical leave, and individual disability insurance. Disability benefits generally replace income weekly or monthly, with rehabilitation support for claimants returning to work. Individual life offerings include term life and interest-sensitive universal life, variable universal life and indexed universal life; these products differ in premium flexibility and how policy cash value is credited.[2]+4

For the six months ended June 30, 2026, segment operating revenues were approximately 45.3% Retirement and Income Solutions, 19.6% Principal Asset Management and 33.7% Benefits and Protection. These segment figures combine multiple product lines and are not product-level sales shares.[16] In 2025, interest-sensitive products represented 74% of individual-life annualized first-year premium sales, while term life represented 26%; these figures describe individual-life sales mix, not company revenue.[15] [7]+11

Geographic presence

Principal Financial Group operates internationally as well as in the United States. Its institutional and wealth advisory distribution is organized across the U.S./Europe, Asia Pacific/Middle East, and Latin America; its international pension businesses serve Latin American and Asian markets.[17][18] The 2025 annual filing describes activities in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico; China and Hong Kong; and Malaysia, with subsidiaries in Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand. Principal Islamic Asset Management also serves clients across Southeast Asia and the Middle East and offers funds in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.[19]+11

Principal’s worldwide-locations page reports nearly 20,000 employees across 25 nations and territories and lists offices in São Paulo and Santiago, and in Mexico City and Monterrey; it does not provide employee counts by country.[3] The 2025 annual filing does not report revenue by country or region, so geographic revenue percentages are not available from that filing.[31] [17]+15

Business segments

Principal Financial Group reports three operating segments—Retirement and Income Solutions, Principal Asset Management, and Benefits and Protection—plus Corporate. Its 2026 second-quarter filing continued to use these segment names; the revenue mix below is calculated from full-year 2025 segment operating revenue.[32][33]

Retirement and Income Solutions provides retirement and related financial products and services, including workplace retirement solutions, banking and trust services, annuities, pension risk transfer, and investment-only products. In 2025, it reported $8.18 billion of segment operating revenue, about 50.9% of the $16.06 billion total, and $1.19 billion of pre-tax operating earnings.[7]+2 Principal Asset Management offers investment solutions to institutional, retirement, retail, and high-net-worth investors. Its businesses include Investment Management and International Pension, with capabilities spanning public and private markets and pension accumulation and income solutions. It reported $2.81 billion of operating revenue (about 17.5%) and $930 million of pre-tax operating earnings.[1]+2

Benefits and Protection serves primarily small and midsized businesses and their employees through Specialty Benefits—including group dental, life and disability, and supplemental health products—and Life Insurance. It reported $4.97 billion of operating revenue (about 30.9%) and $523 million of pre-tax operating earnings.[2]+2 Corporate includes unallocated capital and related income, financing costs, inter-segment eliminations, and other unallocated activities; it reported $101 million of operating revenue (about 0.6%) and a $381 million pre-tax operating loss.[35]+2 These percentages use segment operating revenue, a broader measure than revenue from contracts with external customers.[5] [32]+7

Company history

Banker Edward Temple founded the Bankers Life Association in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 1, 1879, initially providing life insurance to bankers and their employees. The company expanded into farm lending in 1885 and began providing retirement plan services in 1941.[6][36]

In 1985, Bankers Life Company adopted the name Principal Financial Group. The mutual insurer converted to a stock company and completed its initial public offering in October 2001.[6][37] Principal broadened its international pension operations through acquisitions including Chile’s AFP Cuprum in 2013 and MetLife Afore in Mexico in 2018, and expanded its U.S. retirement-services business with the acquisition of certain Wells Fargo institutional retirement and trust assets in 2019.[38]+2

In 2025, Deanna Strable succeeded Dan Houston as president and CEO; Houston became executive chair, and Strable was elected board chair effective September 2.[41][42] [37]+7

Sources

• PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP INC — Full financial report (2025 Y)
  24 citations

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• www.principal.com[8]
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• PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP INC — Full financial report (2026 Q 2)[16][32]
• www.sec.gov[31]
• www.sec.gov[33]
• www.principal.com[36]
• PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP INC — Full financial report (2024 Y)[37]
• www.businesswire.com[38]
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• www.principal.com[41]
• www.principal.com[42]