Brookfield Quietly Built a $180 Billion Insurance Business. Here's Why It Could Be the Next Growth Engine.

Brookfield Corporation (NYSE: BN) has been quietly building an investment-led insurance platform. This strategy has provided it with a growing source of perpetual capital to invest, enabling it to generate more fee-based income. The company has grown its insurance portfolio to over $180 billion in assets.

That's only the beginning. Here's why insurance is becoming Brookfield's next growth engine.

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Quietly building an insurance behemoth one deal at a time

Brookfield initially formed its dedicated insurance platform in 2021 with the creation and spinoff of Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners, which it later renamed Brookfield Wealth Solutions (NYSE: BNT). The company initially created a separate insurance arm to grow that platform. It has certainly done that over the past five years.

The biggest growth driver has been acquisitions. Brookfield Wealth Solutions bought American National ($5.1 billion in 2022), Argo ($1.1 billion in 2023), AEL ($4.3 billion in 2024), and Just Group ($3.2 billion in 2026). These deals have helped grow its total capital from $5.7 billion in 2022 to $19.8 billion at the end of last year, while increasing its insurance assets from $45 billion to over $180 billion. Meanwhile, its distributable earnings have skyrocketed from $30 million in 2021 to $1.7 billion last year.

Only the beginning

Brookfield is about to embark on the next phase of its investment-led insurance growth strategy by recombining with Brookfield Wealth Solutions. Shareholders will vote on the deal later this week, which the company hopes to close by year-end. The combination will simplify its corporate structure, provide its insurance operations with greater access to Brookfield's corporate balance sheet, and give it greater flexibility to optimize its long-term expansion.

The company aims to grow its insurance assets to $350 billion by 2030. While Brookfield plans to continue making acquisitions, it expects organic growth to do most of the heavy lifting going forward. It sees a combination of the recently closed Just Group deal, annuity growth, and asset rotation and optimization of its existing insurance assets, boosting the distributable earnings of its wealth solutions platform to $4.8 billion by 2030. Meanwhile, it anticipates that future acquisitions will push this segment's earnings up over $5.5 billion.

That's a meaningful growth engine for the leading global investment firm. Brookfield currently expects the combined company to grow its earnings at a 25% compound annual rate through 2030. The company anticipates its wealth solutions business to contribute 34% of its total earnings growth during that period. That's the biggest growth driver, well ahead of the growth contribution it expects from capital allocation (23%), carried interest (22%), asset management (19%), and its operating businesses (2%).

Brookfield's big-time growth engine

Brookfield has quietly built up a leading insurance platform over the past few years. That business has become a major growth driver for the company. It will play a starring role in supporting Brookfield's plans to deliver 25% compound annual earnings growth through 2030. That robust earnings growth should significantly boost Brookfield's stock, which it expects will be worth about $140 by 2030. With its share price currently in the low-$40's, Brookfield's high-powered insurance-driven growth profile makes it look like one of the best financial stocks to buy and hold for the long term right now.

Matt DiLallo has positions in Brookfield Corporation and has the following options: short July 2026 $40 puts on Brookfield Corporation. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Brookfield Corporation and Brookfield Wealth Solutions. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.