"The Pulse" --#67 / Why Private Equity Loves Insurance

Early Bird Sales!

SA 2026 interview szn is fast approaching! Don’t fall behind your competition by wasting time tracking applications.

1. For the next month, we will be running a 30% sale for the purchase of our Premium Database. Details of our Premium Database can be found below. Venmo @ThePulsePrep $35 or pay with credit card Premium Database 30% Sale ---Stripe.com and shoot us an e-mail @[email protected]

Video of Premium Database——>The Pulse Database Video

2. Pay for 3 coaching sessions, get one FREE! For the next month, we will be offering an exclusive offer to pay $150 to receive 4 coaching sessions with a current or future analyst (Venmo @ThePulsePrep or pay with credit card: (Coaching Bundle $150 for 4 Sessions). Interviews are right around the corner and we want you to be as prepared as possible. Last year, 95% of those coached received offers!

Recruiting Timeline:

Banking:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: Only one bank, HL, has announced the release date of its application (check "The Pulse" --#64 (FIRST SA 2026 APP) / Turnover in Finance (beehiiv.com) for detail.

• SA 2025: Marsh, Berry, and Company opened its application this week. This process is 99% complete and we will stop tracking as summer 2026 volume picks up. The total bank number is at 123 for the SA 2025 season.

• FT 2025: Scotiabank opened its FT app this week. There are currently 46 firms actively recruiting for FT 2025. Please reach out if you are looking for coaching!

New SA 2026 Applications:

• None

New SA 2025 Applications:

• Marsh, Berry, & Company: Boutique (SA 2025)

New FT 2025 Applications:

• Scotiabank: Middle-market Canadian bank (FT 2025)

See below to gain access to our premium database, updated weekly, which houses the application processes for over 200+ banks/consulting/buyside firms! Gain an edge over everyone else by not having to spend countless hours tracking applications and deadlines.

Consulting:

Where We’re At:

• 41 SA 2025 applications have been released along with 42 FT 2025 apps. Hopefully, some interviews are rolling in! If that’s the case, make sure to hit us up if you need a coach.

SA 2025 released apps:

• EY: Consulting Analyst Intern (SA 2025)

FT 2025 released apps:

• Kaiser Associates: Associate Consultant (FT 2025)

• Booz Allen Hamilton: Graduate Management Consultant (FT 2025)

• EY: Consulting Analyst (FT 2025)

Apply ASAP if you’re interested!

Buyside:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: KKR announced its SA 2026 Webinar Series! Although not an application, this is certainly an indicator that they’re gearing up to release their SA 2026 app in due time.

• SA 2025: Stormfield Capital and Brightspire Capital opened their SA 2025 apps this week. This brings the total buyside count to ~144 opened applications.

New SA 2025 released apps:

• Stormfield Capital: RE debt (SA 2025)

• Brightspire Capital: RE debt (SA 2025)

The database is updated weekly and contains 200+ Investment Banking and Consulting internships/full-time positions along with:

• Interview tips for specific companies

• Interview prep material

• Applications and deadlines linked so that you can apply with one click

• Insider information about the application process

• Professionals to network with

• Buyside deadlines, interview prep, and people to network with for the sweatiest of students

We send the updated dataset every week with the latest banking and consulting job postings. We released our 67th update today.

Students we have been helping have already landed roles at Blackstone, Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, Citi, and Solomon.

To get access to the database and the weekly updates, you pay a one-time fee of $35 (Venmo: ThePulsePrep / Credit Card: (Premium Database 30% Sale ---Stripe.com) that grants you annual access to the updated database (You can enable purchase protection if concerned). If you don’t find our services helpful, we simply ask for feedback on an area we can improve upon and will refund your $35.

This is a small investment for a huge payout when you secure your dream offer!

Video of Premium Database——>The Pulse Database Video

Market Update:

Why Private Equity Loves Insurance

“Holy shit, we are really going to talk about insurance? BOORRRIINNGGG”

I used to think insurance was the most boring business on the planet. And reinsurance? That has to be twice as boring. But then I realized how entwined the private equity industry is with insurance.

Private equity LOVES insurance. And private equity is pretty cool — so insurance must be cool too. Just take a look at the graphic below for a snapshot of PE involvement in the insurance space.

You know who else loves insurance? Warren Buffet. The “Oracle of Omaha.”

So, why do cool people love insurance?

This is a loaded question, and the answer varies depending on your lens.

1. From a ‘deal-team’ perspective (ie working AT a PE firm): insurance companies are great because they’re are cash-flowing businesses that can be levered with little need for capital expenditure—INVESTING IN INSURANCE COMPANIES

2. From a firm-level perspective (ie working FOR a PE firm): insurance companies are great because they are long-term capital engines, they provide cost-effective capital, and you can generate substantial fees for managing insurance capital—-MANAGING INSURANCE COMPANIES

Investing in Insurance Companies:

As mentioned, investing in insurance companies can be incredibly yieldy. Take a look below at the 5-year return of Blackrock’s insurance ETF: IAK

Those are better returns than the S&P over the last 5 years (~80%). The insurance business model makes a lot of money because you receive cash today via monthly premiums and just need to honor a lump sum cash payment at the time of disaster (death, major health event, house burns down, etc). Time value of money works in your favor here.

In its simplest form, as long as everyone doesn’t encounter a crisis simultaneously, you’ll be able to a). earn a fee upon collection of those premiums and b). invest the remainder. If someone pays you $30 / month for a 10-year, $500K life insurance policy, all you’re on the hook for is $500K in the event that person dies over the 10-year period. Otherwise, you keep it. Btw, that’s the average monthly premium for a 40-year old (usually low chance of death in 10 years). For someone who is 70 (greater chance of death in 10 years), you can charge them a much larger premium, like ~$400 / month.

The economics shake out nicely—especially at scale. If you can always find more new, healthy people to insure then your risk of a liquidity strain upon a payout event drops substantially.

“Isn’t the idea of paying out irregular, large sums of money highly capital intensive? In essence, isn’t that similar to capex?”

Yes. However, unlike traditional capex like buying machinery, capital intensity within insurance doesn’t depreciate. It actually appreciates because you’re investing the monthly premiums as soon as you collect them (which is always in advance of the payout).

Ok, enough about investing in insurance. Let’s talk about managing an insurance business. BTW, none of this is investment advice or should be used for investment decisions (peep the disclosure at the bottom).

Managing Insurance:

Guys like Marc Rowan and Steve Schwarzman love managing pools of insurance capital to power their alternative investments because insurance capital is relatively cheap and is intended for long-term horizons (10, 20, 30+ years).

Traditional investors in PE or PC funds demand a lot. They demand large returns (8-15% hurdles) and they demand relatively quick returns (less than 10 years). This makes investing difficult because market timing becomes incredibly important to achieve success.

These investors are large asset managers, endowments, family offices, etc. They’re sophisticated and their goal is to make money by investing in alternative asset managers like Apollo and Blackstone. They’re also not afraid to redeem their investments early which can cause liquidity strains for the asset managers.

On the other hand, the primary concern for an insurance company is to not lose money.

If I have a life insurance policy my only concern is that upon death, my assigned beneficiary receives the death benefit I’m paying for. Nothing else. I would have to get financially crippled to redeem my life insurance policy early. Even if I do redeem my policy early, I only get the lump sum of my premiums paid back to me — I receive $0 of upside.

This principle substantially lowers the hurdle rate for insurance companies. For firms like Apollo, lower investor hurdles = lower cost of capital = more money for Apollo. A limitation here is that insurance companies are less willing to participate in riskier investments. Regulation also forces them to steer clear of allocating large sums of money to risky investments.

Nevertheless, insurance companies, such as Apollo-owned Athene, sit on hundreds of billions of assets. So, even 1-10% of those assets is enough to power an entire PE fund under the Apollo umbrella.

Btw, that’s just for the PE side of the business.

Private credit is deemed a safer asset class than private equity which allows insurance providers to allocate larger sums of money to PC.

So, insurance money can power PE funds, PC funds, and everything in-between under the umbrella of a large alternative asset manager like Apollo. Meanwhile, that same alternative asset manager clips management fees the entire length of the investment.

Insurance companies sit on mountains of assets to contribute to the AUM of large alternative asset managers. More AUM = more management fees. Simple as that.

Disclosure: Nothing written here is financial advice or should be used for investment decisions.

3 Things You Shouldn't Do When Recruiting for SA 2026 Roles

LinkedIn saw it first: 3 Things to Not Do

1. Buy a Modeling Course

No internship interview will require any modeling test for jobs at bulge bracket banks, elite boutiques, or any consulting firms.

No employer cares if you have a modeling certificate. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY WITH A MODELING COURSE

Your only concern should be networking and landing the job with typical behavioral and technical preparation.

2. Throw all of your eggs in one basket 

Recruiting for internships is a numbers game.

Firms like Goldman Sachs have ~2% acceptance rate for their summer internships--across the firm (this means the IB % acceptance rate is even less).

Do you think GS hasn't seen a candidate with a 4.0, target school background, 1-2 relevant finance work experiences, and head of X investment club on campus?

Applying early and often to every firm available is the best way to land a job.

Firms cast a wide net when recruiting (return offer rates are only ~50%), so you should cast a wide net too.

3. Rely on your Career Center for support

Career Centers are focused on one thing: ensuring you have a job of any kind within 6 months of graduating.

This is the statistic they're measured by and show to parents to convince them to drop a cool~$250K on your tuition.

Whether you get a job in investment banking or a job within the finance department of some Fortune 5,000 company, they don't really care. For them it's a "Career in Finance Earning Over $85K!"

Use them to scan your resume and attend information sessions hosted by various firms. Leave the timelines, applications, and finance prep to us.

Going Forward:

If you run a club, we want to connect with you to partner. Please shoot us an email @[email protected], would love to make your club the most prepared on campus.

Coaching Details:

• Pay for 3, get one FREE = $150. (Venmo @ThePulsePrep or Credit Card: (Coaching Bundle $150 for 4 Sessions)

• 1 hour session = $50. (Venmo @ThePulsePrep or Credit Card: ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com

• 30-minute session = $30. Venmo @ThePulsePrep or Credit Card: ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com

• Email us with your availability and we will be happy to schedule a session @[email protected] 

Students we coached for SA 2025 have received offers at Goldman, JP Morgan, Evercore, and many other firms. Roughly 95% of those coached received offers last year!

Please reach out to us with any questions about recruiting or if you’re interested in meeting the team! ([email protected])

We are happy to chat, review resumes, or help set up a coaching session

Check us out on LinkedIn (The Pulse) and Instagram (ThePulse) too!

Proudly Produced,

The Pulse

“The Pulse” #67