Asset manager AllianceBernstein and three life insurers—Jackson National, Lincoln National, and Nationwide—are offering their Secure Income Portfolio deferred variable annuity (with income rider) to plan sponsors as a retirement drawdown tool.

This Missouri-domiciled life insurer epitomizes the asset-manager-driven life/annuity companies that have been disrupting the U.S. life/annuity business since 2010 or so. In its first year selling fixed indexed annuities, it sold $453 million worth.

Michael Gordon, CEO of Axonic Insurance, part of Axonic Capital, sees the future of the life/annuity/asset-management business as an increasingly a la carte affair, where the components of the business are like interchangeable Lego blocks and where platform providers help clients snap them together.