SS&C Technologies Holdings is expanding the insurance capabilities available to financial advisers through Black Diamond Wealth Solutions, deepening its effort to make annuities and protection products part of the same technology environment used for portfolio management and broader financial planning.

The company said on September 16 that its Annuities & Insurance Marketplace, or AIM, now includes term-life quotation and insurance-policy review capabilities. Jackson National Life Insurance Company and Protective Life Insurance Company have also joined the marketplace, expanding the number of integrated carriers to seven. The initiative is operated through Black Diamond in partnership with DPL Financial Partners, a provider of commission-free annuity and insurance infrastructure for registered investment advisers.

The new functionality addresses a persistent technology divide in wealth management. Investment accounts, model portfolios, performance reporting and planning data increasingly sit inside integrated adviser platforms, while life insurance and annuity contracts can remain dispersed across carrier websites, paper records and separate administrative systems. That separation can make it more difficult for advisers to incorporate protection needs and guaranteed-income products into a unified view of household finances.

Black Diamond’s expansion is designed to bring more of those activities into the advisory workflow. According to SS&C, AIM supports product discovery, applications, management and billing across insurance and annuity products. The newly integrated term-life quotation function allows advisers to compare coverage from highly rated insurers, while the policy-review capability is intended to help identify potential gaps in existing coverage. AIM also supports fee-based annuities as well as life, disability and long-term-care insurance.

The carrier expansion materially increases the breadth of products accessible through the platform. Jackson is bringing annuity products developed for the registered investment adviser channel, where advisers increasingly seek retirement-income instruments that can sit alongside traditional securities portfolios. Protective adds both annuity and life-insurance solutions aimed at accumulation and protection objectives.

They join Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, Midland National Life Insurance Company, MassMutual Ascend Life Insurance Company, Pacific Life and Security Benefit Life Insurance Company in Black Diamond’s integrated carrier roster. A larger carrier lineup gives advisers more alternatives when comparing product structures, guarantees and client objectives, although individual product availability and terms can vary by carrier and jurisdiction.

The expansion is particularly relevant for fee-based and fee-only wealth-management firms. Historically, annuities and insurance products were closely associated with commission-based distribution, creating an operational and compensation mismatch for advisers whose businesses are structured around fiduciary advice and recurring advisory fees. Newer commission-free and fee-based products have reduced some of that divide, while technology providers have developed infrastructure that lets advisers evaluate and administer insurance products without rebuilding their business models around traditional insurance distribution.

DPL has positioned itself around that transition. Its platform provides product-discovery, fulfillment, management and billing functions for advisers using fee-based annuities. The company says its network serves thousands of advisory firms and has accumulated billions of dollars of annuity assets under administration, illustrating the growing scale of insurance technology aimed specifically at the independent-adviser market. DPL reported in June that its annuity assets under administration had exceeded $6 billion.

For SS&C, embedding those capabilities inside Black Diamond can make the wealth platform relevant to a larger portion of the client balance sheet. Instead of treating an annuity or insurance contract purely as an externally held item reflected in a financial plan, an adviser can potentially move through more stages of evaluation and administration from within an established technology workflow.

That distinction matters commercially as wealth-management software providers compete to become the primary operating systems for advisory firms. Platforms that cover reporting, portfolio management, client portals, planning, investment proposals, alternative assets and insurance can reduce the number of separate systems an adviser must navigate. They can also increase the amount of client information available within a common data environment, potentially improving consistency across planning conversations and administrative processes.

Black Diamond has been developing AIM in that direction throughout 2026. Recent enhancements include pre-filled applications that automatically populate information across participating carriers, reducing duplicate data entry during the submission process. The platform has also added technology for reviewing legacy annuities and expanded modeling and reporting features designed to support discussions about insurance and protection strategies.

The legacy-annuity review function is strategically important for advisory firms acquiring practices or recruiting advisers from brokerage businesses. A new client relationship can arrive with older commission-based annuity contracts that sit outside the acquiring firm’s normal technology and compensation structure. Reviewing those contracts individually can require substantial operational work, particularly when an acquisition brings hundreds or thousands of households onto a new platform.

DPL has separately developed technology for analyzing annuity books at scale, allowing advisory firms to evaluate existing contracts and determine which may warrant further review. The objective is not necessarily to replace every legacy contract; existing annuities can contain guarantees or other benefits that may be difficult or uneconomic to replicate. Rather, centralized analysis gives firms a framework for identifying contracts that require attention and bringing appropriate assets into the broader planning process.

That emphasis also highlights the suitability considerations surrounding annuity transitions. Annuities are long-term insurance contracts and can include surrender charges, expenses, liquidity restrictions and guarantees dependent on the issuing insurer’s claims-paying ability. Moving from one contract to another can therefore involve trade-offs that extend beyond headline costs or advisory revenue. An integrated review system may improve visibility, but advisers still must evaluate product terms, client objectives and the consequences of any proposed transaction.

The addition of policy reviews extends the same logic to life insurance. For affluent households, insurance can interact with estate planning, income replacement, business succession, tax planning and family protection, yet policy information may not be updated with the same frequency as investment accounts. A structured review can help advisers determine whether existing coverage still corresponds with changes in a household’s assets, liabilities and financial responsibilities.

Term-life quoting gives advisers another entry point into those conversations. Unlike investment products, term insurance is primarily a risk-transfer tool, providing coverage for a defined period rather than accumulating an investment balance. Placing quotation functionality next to portfolio and planning systems makes it easier for an adviser to discuss protection requirements alongside asset allocation and retirement planning rather than treating insurance as a separate sales process.

For Jackson and Protective, joining AIM provides additional distribution into the independent and fiduciary advice channel. Insurers have been building products and digital infrastructure specifically for RIAs as advisory firms look for ways to provide guaranteed income and downside protection without relying on conventional commission-based insurance models.

That distribution opportunity is becoming increasingly important. InvestmentNews reported that LIMRA estimates fee-based annuity sales have doubled since 2020. The publication also cited Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s annuity industry survey, in which 45% of responding insurers identified the RIA channel as the area where they expected the strongest growth over the following three years.

The trend reflects broader changes in retirement planning. Advisers are managing clients through longer retirements, uncertain market returns and the transition from employer-sponsored defined-benefit pensions toward individually managed retirement assets. Those conditions have increased industry attention on products capable of converting portions of accumulated wealth into contractual income streams.

At the same time, advisers must balance demand for income guarantees against the flexibility clients often expect from investment portfolios. Liquidity, product complexity, fees and insurer credit quality can influence whether an annuity fits a particular financial plan. Technology cannot resolve those trade-offs on its own, but platforms that make insurance products easier to compare and monitor can change how efficiently advisers evaluate them.

The Black Diamond expansion therefore represents more than the addition of two insurers. It reflects a broader industry effort to make insurance assets operationally compatible with the RIA model. The wealth-management technology stack has historically been strongest around securities accounts because custodial data, portfolio accounting and trading systems developed around those assets. Insurance has been harder to standardize because contract structures, carrier systems and servicing requirements differ significantly.

Bringing insurance data and processes into adviser platforms could also affect client reporting. When advisers can incorporate annuities and protection products into a more complete household view, retirement-income guarantees, insurance coverage and investment portfolios can be considered together rather than through disconnected statements. That can be particularly relevant for high-net-worth clients whose financial arrangements span taxable portfolios, retirement accounts, trusts, insurance policies and business interests.

The strategy also increases the importance of data quality and workflow integration. Insurance administration can involve beneficiary information, policy values, premium schedules, contract riders and carrier-specific documentation. A platform that seeks to centralize these assets must keep those records synchronized while maintaining the controls expected within regulated advisory businesses.

SS&C already occupies a broad position across investment-management technology, fund administration and financial-services operations. Black Diamond is its adviser-focused wealth platform, and expanding AIM allows the company to deepen that platform’s role without requiring advisers to adopt a separate insurance interface for every stage of the process.

For advisory firms, the practical test will be whether greater integration reduces administrative friction enough to make insurance planning more scalable. Quoting and application automation can reduce manual work, while policy and annuity review tools can help firms identify planning issues across larger client books. The ability to manage and bill on qualifying advisory annuity assets can also affect the economics of serving households with significant assets held outside conventional brokerage or custodial accounts.

For clients, however, a broader technology toolkit does not eliminate the need for product-level due diligence. Insurance guarantees depend on the issuing company, products differ substantially in cost and liquidity, and replacing existing contracts may not always improve the client’s position. The value of the technology lies primarily in giving advisers a more systematic way to evaluate those questions within the overall financial plan.

With Jackson and Protective now added to AIM, Black Diamond is moving further toward a unified model in which investment management, retirement-income planning and insurance protection can be addressed through a common advisory environment. As RIAs expand beyond portfolio construction toward more comprehensive household financial management, the ability to incorporate previously disconnected insurance assets is becoming another competitive front for wealth-management technology providers.