Voya Remains on Track for OneAmerica Retirement Integration in 2025

Voya Financial Inc. is on track to complete its acquisition of OneAmerica Financial Inc.’s retirement plan business by the start of 2025, with client integration beginning shortly after closing, according to a top executive speaking on the heels of Voya’s third-quarter earnings announcement.

“We’re going through a very structured process to consider all the people [at OneAmerica], their current roles and how those roles go into the Voya model,” says Doug Murray, Voya’s senior vice president of wealth solutions distribution and client engagement. “Clients really like consistency in their service teams, and we are focused on what it is going to take to maintain those clients and maintain the satisfaction levels for those clients.”

Voya, the country’s sixth-largest recordkeeper by assets, announced in September the acquisition of OneAmerica’s retirement plan business, a move which will add another $60 billion in client assets. The deal closure is subject to certain conditions and regulatory approvals; OneAmerica Financial’s other businesses include life insurance, employee benefits and long-term care.

Once the acquisition is complete, Murray says the process of integrating clients onto the Voya platform will take place through 2025 and potentially into 2026. The fact that OneAmerica’s retirement plans are also on the FIS Omni platform, like Voya, will ease that process.

Murray says the acquisition will add both clients and distribution channels that Voya has been building organically in recent years, particularly in the emerging markets and mid-market segments. The deal will also bring on new capabilities, including an employee stock ownership plan division.

In the other direction, Voya will be looking to serve OneAmerica’s clients in areas it had not specialized in before, Murray notes, including workplace health benefits.

“We’ve gotten tremendous reception about the deal when we’ve talked about it with advisers, consultants and clients,” he says.

Voya’s third-quarter earnings, in terms of retirement plans, showed the firm’s inroads into the middle of the market, which the company defines as plans with $50 million through $250 million in assets. Murray says that sector increased by four times year-over-year, the result in part of an effort a few years ago to add staff focused on that client segment.

Murray expects continued mid-market growth for Voya, along with growth in its emerging market and startup plan businesses. He notes that state mandates are driving conversations with advisers about the available options, and Voya has championed its service model in front of advisers and plan sponsors.

Overall, the wealth solutions division reported pre-tax adjusted operating earnings of $211 million, up from $179 million in the third quarter of 2023.

“We delivered robust results in Wealth Solutions and Investment Management in the third-quarter of 2024,” Heather Lavallee, Voya’s CEO, said in a statement. “This helped offset higher loss ratios in Health Solutions.”

Murray says decisions about future acquisitions will continue to be made based on fit, rather than scale. With more than 7 million participants, he says, Voya feels “very comfortable from a size perspective.”

“When we think about acquisitions, we think more about: How does this fit relative to our underlying strategic objectives?” he says. “We’re looking for complementary products, market segment focus, talent, price—we felt this OneAmerica story and package was a great fit to advance us in many different areas.”