Transamerica Corporation

History

In October 1904, A. P. Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco. In October 1928, Giannini created a holding company that he named the Transamerica Corporation, which owned Bank of America, Bank of Italy, Bancitaly Corporation, National Bankitaly Company, California Joint Stock Land Bank, and Banca d'America e d'Italia, which gave it assets in excess of $1.5 billion (equivalent to $28 billion in 2025). The Transamerica Corporation original headquarters was located at 4 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. The Bank of Italy later merged with Bank of America, Los Angeles in 1928, which was then renamed Bank of America in 1930.

In March 1930, Transamerica acquired Occidental Life Insurance Company, founded in 1906. At the time, Occidental had over $25 million in assets and over $150 million in life insurance policies in force. Giannini said the purchase of the West Coast-based life insurance company was part of a plan for Transamerica to control every type of financial service. Following the acquisition, Occidental was renamed Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Company.

Over time, the company became a more diversified conglomerate that included Liberty Records, the film distributor United Artists, Trans International Airlines (bought from Kirk Kerkorian, later known as Transamerica Airlines) and Budget Rent a Car.

In 1972, the company completed construction of the Transamerica Pyramid skyscraper in San Francisco which served as its headquarters for many years. Although the company currently retains no offices in the building, the pyramid is still depicted in the company's updated logo (as of 2025) and marketing materials.

In the 1980s, Transamerica began to divest and focused exclusively on financial services. In 1981, Transamerica sold United Artists to Tracinda Corporation, a media company owned by Kirk Kerkorian which in turn also owned Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Transamerica was eventually reduced to three main product divisions: insurance, investments, and retirement planning. In July 1999, Transamerica CEO Frank C. Herringer announced that Aegon, the Netherlands-based insurer, would acquire the company. Transamerica Occidental merged into Transamerica Life Insurance Company on October 1, 2008.

In 2018, Transamerica entered a 10-year, $2 billion agreement with Tata Consultancy Services, an Indian technology company, to digitize their policies under a single platform. However, this project was abandoned in 2023.

Foundations

Transamerica funds two foundations: the Aegon Transamerica Foundation and the Transamerica Institute. It created the Aegon Transamerica Foundation in 1994 to provide financial grants to community nonprofits. Transamerica employees also volunteer services to these organizations. The foundation received the Corporate Citizenship Award in 2013 for creating the first urban farm in Iowa.

Transamerica Institute is a nonprofit, private foundation dedicated to identifying, researching, and educating the public about health and wellness, employment, financial literacy, longevity, and retirement. The Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS), an operating division of Transamerica Institute, focuses on trends, issues, and opportunities related to saving and planning for retirement and achieving financial security in retirement.

Transamerica primarily offers insurance, retirement, and investment services. Types of life and health insurance policies offered include term life, whole life, universal life, variable universal life, accidental death, and final expense. Transamerica companies also offer a variety of mutual funds and annuities.

Transamerica's retirement division offers defined benefit pension plans and defined contribution retirement plans, including 401(k) and 403(b), 457, profit sharing, money purchase, cash balance, Taft-Hartley, multiple employer plans, pooled employer plans, retirement plan exchanges, nonqualified deferred compensation, and rollover individual retirement accounts. Other services include plan-level record keeping and administrative services, participant communications and education services, fiduciary risk mitigation services, open investment architecture, and compliance guidance and regulatory support.

In December 2020, Transamerica announced it would no longer sell variable annuities with benefit riders and fixed index annuities and is also exiting the standalone long-term care market.