North American Company for Life and Health Insurance

The firm's invested assets are managed within Sammons Financial Group, where Esfand Dinshaw serves as Chairman and CEO. Specific CIO or investment committee leadership details are not publicly disclosed. The parent, Sammons Enterprises, is employee-owned, meaning there is no external fund sponsor or private equity backer dictating portfolio decisions.

North American is a regulated life and health insurance carrier that operates a general account — meaning it invests policyholder premiums and its own statutory surplus to meet future liabilities. It is not an asset manager seeking third-party capital. The parent holding company, Sammons Financial Group, makes the asset allocation and investment decisions, with a heavy tilt toward buyouts, private credit, and commercial real estate.

North American maintains a dedicated life-settlements portfolio, purchasing individual life insurance policies on the secondary market and collecting the death benefit as a return stream. This is a common strategy among life insurers seeking non-correlated yield, as the underlying asset's payoff is linked to mortality, not market cycles. The exact size of the portfolio is not publicly disclosed.

Sammons Enterprises is the ultimate parent — an employee-owned holding company based in Dallas. Sammons Financial Group sits directly below it as the insurance-focused intermediate holding company. North American Company for Life and Health Insurance and Midland National Life Insurance Company are sister firms under Sammons Financial Group, both distributing life insurance and annuity products.

As an insurance general account, North American participates in club deals and co-investment structures through its parent's buyout program. The firm does not operate an open co-investment platform for external investors; it deploys its own balance sheet. The absence of external limited partners means co-investment decisions are evaluated purely on risk-adjusted return relative to liability duration, without fund-formation constraints.

Public disclosures are limited, but insurance general accounts of this type commonly avoid venture capital, early-stage technology, and other asset classes with extreme volatility or negative cash flow — such investments consume disproportionate regulatory capital under state insurance law. The Altss research record does not tag any venture, growth-equity, or pure-public-equity strategy.

Sammons Enterprises has no external equity holders — no quarterly earnings pressure, no private-equity exit clock. This lets the investment committee hold illiquid positions through entire credit cycles. It also reduces the mandate risk that public insurers face when a new CEO or activist investor demands strategic pivots. The trade-off is a lower public profile: the group discloses minimal financial data, making independent AUM estimates difficult to construct.