Corebridge Financial Brand Guidelines: American General Roots, a 2022 IPO & Equitable

A Houston multi-line insurer of 1926.

Corebridge Financial is a Houston company that sells annuities, life cover and retirement plans in the United States. The name dates from 2022; the business is much older. Its roots run back to the American General Insurance Company, which the Handbook of Texas, published by the Texas State Historical Association, says was organised in 1926 by Gus Sessions Wortham together with the Houston businessmen Jesse H. Jones, James A. Elkins and John W. Link. Wortham had started in insurance in 1912 at the Texas Fire Rating Board in Austin, the handbook says, and in 1915 he and his father had set up an agency in Houston, John L. Wortham and Son.

The handbook describes American General, incorporated in Texas, as one of the first “multi-line” insurers in the country — a model that let smaller companies write several kinds of cover and compete with the east-coast firms that then dominated the trade. Wortham served as chairman and chief executive for almost five decades, it says, and under him the company grew from two agents to more than 12,000, with operations in every state.

American General grew by acquisition. English Wikipedia says it bought The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company (VALIC), a provider of tax-deferred retirement plans for employees in education, government and non-profit organisations, in 1977, and won control of the Nashville insurer NLT in 1982 after a contested bid; it later sold NLT’s entertainment assets, including the Grand Ole Opry. In 2001, after a planned combination with the British insurer Prudential plc was called off, American General was acquired by AIG, and it continued for two decades as AIG’s life and retirement business.

A bridge for an IPO.

The Corebridge name came with the separation from AIG. English Wikipedia says AIG announced in 2020 that it planned to separate its life and retirement business through a public offering. In March 2022, Reinsurance News reported, AIG said it would rebrand the parent of that business, then called SAFG Retirement Services, as Corebridge Financial when it went public. Kevin Hogan, then chief executive of AIG Life & Retirement, linked the new name to the idea of a bridge to people’s financial futures, the publication reported.

The listing followed in September 2022. AIG priced the offering on 15 September 2022, and the shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRBG, Reinsurance News reported that day; it described the deal as the largest initial public offering anywhere that year.

AIG then sold down its holding. In December 2024 it closed the sale of about 120 million Corebridge shares, roughly a fifth of the company, to Japan’s Nippon Life, and agreed to keep a 9.9% stake for two years, Reinsurance News reported; earlier that year AIG had met the requirements to stop consolidating Corebridge in its own accounts. In May 2026 AIG agreed to sell its remaining stake of about 25 million shares, the same publication reported; AIG’s chief executive called it “the culmination of a five-year separation.” English Wikipedia lists Nippon Life as the largest shareholder at the end of 2025.

The operating companies kept older names. Corebridge says that VALIC and VALIC Financial Advisors continue to operate as legal entities within the group, and that VALIC and The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York issue its annuities; the group also includes American General Life Insurance Company, Reinsurance News reported in 2022. In 2023 Corebridge sold the British business AIG Life Limited to Aviva and its Irish business Laya to AXA, English Wikipedia says.

The brand also inherited a sporting partner. In January 2019 Insurance Business reported that AIG had become the official insurance partner of the PGA of America, extending a relationship in which VALIC ran the PGA Golf Retirement Plus programme; English Wikipedia says Corebridge continues that partnership, and that in September 2024 the Corebridge name replaced AIG’s on the America Tower at its headquarters, the American General Center.

Design and documentation.

American life insurers and annuity firms sell promises that run for decades, and their identities tend to say so. Many lean on steady colours, most often blues, greens and navies, set against white, with wordmarks drawn to look calm rather than playful. Symbols carry much of the meaning: shields, lighthouses, arrows, letterforms built into monograms, and in Pacific Life’s case a humpback whale, which the company has used since 1997.

The photography follows a pattern too. Consumer pages show families, couples planning retirement and people at work, while a second set of pages speaks to the financial professionals, brokers and advisers who sell most of these products. Websites are usually divided by audience, into individuals, employers, institutions and financial professionals, with sections on life cover, annuities, retirement plans and workplace benefits.

Much of the visual language is regulatory as well as decorative. Product pages carry long disclosure notes naming the issuing company and the states where a contract is offered, and many companies give a page to financial-strength ratings from agencies such as S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s, each quoted as of a stated date. Annual reports, statutory filings and investor presentations sit alongside the consumer site, and for listed groups they are often where the corporate identity is most fully set out.

The companies in this guide come from different structures: mutuals owned by their policyholders, demutualised and listed groups, spin-offs from larger insurers and businesses owned by investment firms. This guide sets out what can be checked about each one, from its founding and ownership to the symbols and lines it uses today, and gives the company’s own statements as its claims.

A merger agreed, still pending.

Corebridge may not keep its name for long. In March 2026 Corebridge and Equitable Holdings agreed to combine in an all-stock merger, InvestmentNews reported on 26 March 2026. Under the agreement the combined company would operate under the Equitable brand, trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker EQH and be headquartered in Houston, with Corebridge’s chief executive, Marc Costantini, as president and chief executive; Corebridge shareholders would own about 51% of it and Equitable shareholders about 49%.

The merger is pending. Stockholders of both companies approved it at special meetings on 30 July 2026, the companies announced, and the deal remained subject to regulatory approval, with closing expected by the end of 2026. Insurance Business reported on 2 November 2026 that the companies were still planning a year-end close. At the time of writing, the merger agreed in March 2026 has not been completed, and Corebridge still trades under its own name.

Corebridge describes itself as one of the largest and most established providers of retirement solutions and insurance products in the United States, and as a leading retirement plan provider for K-12 schools, government, higher education and other not-for-profit institutions; those are the company’s own words. Its brand is four years old, while the names of its operating companies reach back to American General and VALIC.

For a design guide, Corebridge Financial shows a name built for a spin-off: chosen in 2022 for a public listing, set above companies whose names are decades older, and due to give way to another brand if the merger closes. Compare AIG, the insurer that owned the business for two decades, and Brighthouse Financial, another annuity business separated from a larger insurer. For this guide we use a bayou green and a bridge copper with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Corebridge Financial’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.