Lance Glinn:

Welcome into another episode of the Inside the ICE House podcast. Today we are joined by Jay Jackson. He is the chairman and CEO of Abacus Global Management. Jay, thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House.

Jay Jackson:

Yeah, man. I'm super happy to be here. This is an exciting day.

Lance Glinn:

Yeah, it is an exciting day. And I want to start our conversation, really big picture. And Abacus obviously transferred recently its listing to the New York Stock Exchange and now trades under their ticker symbol ABX. So, first and foremost, just what made the NYSE the right strategic home for the company moving forward?

Jay Jackson:

Sure. I think the NYSE's long history in brand globally aligned with a lot of our own branding and growth. When we first went public two and a half years ago, so 10 quarters ago effectively, and it's funny, I talked to other CEOs. We no longer measure your lives in annual years.

Lance Glinn:

No quarters.

Jay Jackson:

Birthdays don't matter. Yeah, your whole world is every 90 days, and when we were considering that move, it was in line with as Abacus was growing as a company, as we were looking at as our future growth from small cap to midcap to large cap, it was who was a great partner to do that with. And we have a global presence ourself. We have offices overseas. We have a very large Luxembourg presence. And the New York Stock Exchange as a brand and as a symbol is something that people have a lot of trust in globally. And we felt like it was the right time to launch not only the kind of continued growth of Abacus growing into a true asset manager, alternative asset manager and data-driven business globally, and then partnering with the New York Stock Exchange to do so.

Lance Glinn:

You talk about that global presence. When you think about Abacus's long-term future, I'm talking 5, 10 years down the line, or I guess 20 to 40 quarters down the line, we're looking at quarters. What role does the NYSE listing play in that growth? How does it help set the company up for its next chapter?

Jay Jackson:

Yeah, I think when people are looking for places to invest their capital, they need a trusted source of information. And they come to us for trusted source of information when it comes to investments. And specifically, we use lifespan and longevity-based investments. We can talk a lot about that later.

Lance Glinn:

Absolutely.

Jay Jackson:

But in reference to the New York Stock Exchange, they're looking for the same thing. And the businesses and companies that are listed here are businesses and companies that they've known and trusted and can almost see, feel, and touch-

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

... even though it's technically they're executing a trade. And that tangible association, that emotional attachment into a business is super important as you're growing into that next stage of your business. And the New York Stock Exchange really, really, I think, exemplifies that.

Lance Glinn:

And so you penned a shareholder letter recently, which we're going to talk more about later in our conversation, but I do just want to touch on something in it real quick, just right up front. With the listing transfer, you obviously, as I said before, changed your ticker symbol from ABL to ABX. And in that letter you wrote, "While ABL served us well, ABX better represents who we've become." So, over the past years leading up to this listing transfer, what has Abacus become?

Jay Jackson:

Sure. To know what we've become is important to have just a brief thought process of where we were and what we've built our core business on, which we're not leaving. First and foremost, we're an origination company. We're in a highly regulated asset class with this massive mode around our business, but our engagement is directly with the public, through both financial advisors and with them directly on an education process related to the value of someone's insurance policy. Effectively, we aggregate and acquire these insurance contracts, put them in tranches, and we'd either resell them back to the insurance company or even back to large institutional investors that we all know some of these investors listed right here on the New York Stock Exchange are our clients.

I think the big transformation for us was a lot of people thought we were a life insurance business. We're not. We don't issue life insurance. We are the actual group that helps originate, create wealth, and now we are an alternative asset manager. So when you think about ABL or Abacus Life, to remove that connotation where people think, "Oh, this is a life insurance business." When we're not, we're an investment business. And then it was natural to then say, "Well, Abacus Global Management, we have a global presence. We run offshore capital." And then changing the symbol to ABX was just a better reflection of our actual business.

Lance Glinn:

And so you said the company had this perception about it that had to change. And you mentioned removing the L, Abacus Life going to ABX, Abacus Global Management. How hard was it to change that perception?

Jay Jackson:

Yeah, but perception is like anything else. It's education over time.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And as people become accustomed to one idea, I think you have to do things quarter by quarter. We started this process really well over 18 months ago. And in that process to change perception, you also have to have execution. You've got to deliver on results. So we went from an asset manager that had less than 100 million in AUM to 3.5 billion today.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Jay Jackson:

Think about that growth in just a year and a half.

Lance Glinn:

I'm sure we could do a whole podcast of the journey of that alone, right?

Jay Jackson:

Yeah. And we're on a path to 10, 20, 50 billion.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And all of that incremental growth that we have is built on the premise that we started educating people a little bit more about what we do and how we do it. And it didn't happen overnight, but now when you execute on what you do, it changes everything. And that's why it's been successful.

Lance Glinn:

I want to look back at 2025 a little bit. It was a pivotal year for Abacus in many ways, especially as momentum built around what you call this Abacus Flywheel, right? Bringing together the company's four verticals, this life solutions, asset group, ABL tech and wealth advisors, bring them all together. What shifted in 2025? What happened over the past year that really allowed this sort of unity to click and bring everything together?

Jay Jackson:

Well, and within that unity came massive growth. Because if you look at us just through Q3, we haven't put Q4 out, but through Q3, we're talking about triple digit.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Jay Jackson:

124% top and bottom line growth, it rivals NVIDIA. And as a small cap stock that trades as a single digit multiple, look for ideas like that that happens to have a dividend yield, right?

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

What was the catalyst for some of those things? Most importantly, it always comes down to the client, always. And what we said was, "Let's start capturing the life cycle of our client. First, a client comes to us and says, geez, I don't know what the actual market net present value of my contract is today. I'm about to lapse it. I'm about to let it go. I'm 75 years old." By the way, that happens 90% of the time. Most policies never pay because people just let them go.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

They serve their purpose. We come in and say, "Wait a minute, it's got a current value. Just like your home it's a true asset." And then we just paid that client and we pay out 200 plus million dollars per year to people all across the United States. So nearly a quarter of a billion dollars we pay out. Why wouldn't we offer them financial solutions?

Well, what's the key to that financial solutions? Think about our four verticals. All of them work together. Our technology, our asset management, we're going into personal wealth. What is the tech, by the way? And this will tie into other things, but the data we have, think about that. Health data, lifespan data, mortality data, it's the kind of things that Google would be blushing over.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

How do I get that? We're applying that to financial services. No one's done that before. I'll leave you this. What's one of the number one fears of people in retirement? Number one?

Lance Glinn:

I would say living too long and outliving their retirement.

Jay Jackson:

Right. Running out of money. Okay. Well, wouldn't it be helpful when you're doing your planning to understand how long you're going to actually be in retirement? That's the foundation of the data that we're providing to our clients. And what we did in our verticals was start to put that data out and apply it not just to our investments, but back to the individual.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And that's what's led to our growth.

Lance Glinn:

And you talk about this data and we talk about data and technology a lot on this podcast. AI obviously seems to work its way into every single conversation. Would you say that, the sheer data that you guys have, that's one of the biggest differentiators that separates Abacus from competitors?

Jay Jackson:

Oh, for sure. And we're the only publicly traded company in our business. So, if you want to invest in this industry where we're putting out uncorrelated yields and effectively we're putting you at the same table as some of the largest investment managers in the world by investing through our funds because they want this asset too, uncorrelated double-digit yield that effectively is mortality driven. That is a huge win. But then when you think about the data, yes, that totally separates us. And we're generating revenue off that data. Lots of companies have data, but they can't figure out how to monetize it. What we do is that we take that data, package it, and we actually sell it back to groups like the largest pension funds in the country. What type of data are we selling to them?

Lifespan and longevity data is really important when you think about a pension fund trying to estimate what their future needs are to meet those payments. Let's go a step further. What was one of the big talking points in the prior election cycle? It was about that Social Security has been paying people $1.8 billion or more that have passed away. We think that number's closer to 3 billion, by the way. And the reason why is, unfortunately, our government has been very inefficient in building out the infrastructure to know when and how mortalities happen in the United States. They don't know. It's crazy, but they don't know.

What we did is our last five years prior to us even being public was built the road, built the paths so that we could actually learn in almost instant, meaning that within the first 48 hours when a mortality happened in the United States with 99% accuracy, it takes the government nine months at a 30% accuracy.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Jay Jackson:

We take that data every single day, package it and resell it to pension funds. And soon, I believe the federal government and other state and federal agencies. And the reason why is we help them save millions and soon to be billions of dollars in overpayments. That's how valuable that tech is. But now you take that technology and you apply it to things like financial services and you say, "Hey, Mr. Jones, you've just retired. You want to ensure you don't run out of money. Here's how you should be allocated."

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

We have target date funds for getting us to retirement, but we have nothing once we're there.

Lance Glinn:

Once we're there. Yep.

Jay Jackson:

And to not have that data, I think is what's going to fundamentally transform what happens in financial planning. And that's what Abacus is doing. And I think that's when people start to look at our business, they see those verticals, but it all started at our core. It all started at the beginning of just saying, "Hey, we need to have better data around our client."

Lance Glinn:

And there's such a focus now on obviously government spending as there always obviously should be. And so I think Abacus's data being able to potentially help the government save, like you said, millions, maybe billions of dollars in the long run, I think will certainly go a long way.

I want to focus a little bit more on the Flywheel. Abacus obviously controls the entire value chain of that Flywheel from origination to asset management to technology distribution, et cetera. How does that end-to-end integration really give you that competitive advantage?

Jay Jackson:

Sure. When you have end-to-end integration of assets, let's think about how that reduces your capital costs and your platform costs. What it really means is that those efficiencies lead to excellent margins. I mentioned earlier how great our revenue growth was year-over-year, up over 100% top and bottom line. That's wild. We grew at 80% on our adjusted net income over that time period too. What it really means though, look at the margin of the business. Our margins have increased. We were running at about a 50% EBITDA margin coming in through end of '24, and through Q3, we were at 60.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Jay Jackson:

So when you start to think about that vertical integration, if you're a public company CEO, you need to make sure you better understand what's the importance of that. What does it really mean to shareholders? Because honestly, if you build integration and you don't get a net benefit from that, who cares?

Lance Glinn:

No, you're right.

Jay Jackson:

Unless you've got massive growth, you just did something to do something and that's why they fail.

Lance Glinn:

Sure. It was just for the sake of it.

Jay Jackson:

Just for the sake of it, it's an optic. Who cares? But if you go in and you actually improve your margins, grow your revenue because of integration, well, now you've got a business long term that when you go out three, five years, that's where you find the 3, 4, 5 x multiples and that's where we sit.

Lance Glinn:

And so you talk about how it obviously impacts shareholders and how it significantly impacts shareholders, frankly. But what about internally? Is there an internal component of how this integration impacts the average employee at Abacus?

Jay Jackson:

Sure. And I think the way to think about it is that nearly 80% of all of our employees are shareholders.

Lance Glinn:

Yeah. That's important.

Jay Jackson:

Every day I walk into the office and I see not just employees, I see fellow-

Lance Glinn:

Partners.

Jay Jackson:

... partners, owners, and they care. So, when you think about integration, a lot of these ideas come from them. The most successful businesses out there are built on the ideas and premises, not of the senior management team, but of the people.

Lance Glinn:

They feel empowered.

Jay Jackson:

Not only empowered. I mean, look, they're making sure we're not spending too much on the restaurant, right?

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

"Hey, what's going on?"

Lance Glinn:

They haven't added... Screw me isn't necessarily the right word, but they're keeping their eye out to make sure that everything is going in the right direction as well.

Jay Jackson:

Everything matters. And even employees that maybe not be at high performance levels, they're holding themselves and the people around them accountable, and that's what makes it all work. It has a huge impact. So making sure that they're shareholders and alongside of us in this journey, that's when you think about integration and operations, because you're right, if you don't have buy-in at the employee level, integration is just kind of a keyword that you lob around and hope works out.

Lance Glinn:

Sure. It's a buzzword. That's all it is.

Jay Jackson:

It's just a buzzword, but it's not a buzzword if you have execution-

Lance Glinn:

Absolutely.

Jay Jackson:

... and belief and culture, and that's probably one of the biggest things that we have.

Lance Glinn:

I do want to shift the conversation quickly for a couple questions just to your own journey and how it's really shaped your leadership at Abacus. You've guided the company through growth while obviously instilling traits that have driven its performance as we've seen over the last couple of quarters. So, when you look back, both across your corporate experience before Abacus, during Abacus, as well as your life outside of the office, what influences helped you develop the, this is how I want to lead mentality, your real philosophy?

Jay Jackson:

I'm glad you asked about that. I grew up, and there's a lot of stories with people from modest beginnings, Slept on the floor, no heat in our house up in the mountains. Many times you'd wake up in the morning, you could see your breath. And one of the biggest challenges was just getting up. You've got to get up, you've got to make a fire, you've got to get warmth, and you got to figure out how you're going to get through the day. Now that I say, certainly had a massive influence. My dad raised us all in that cabin. And I lost my dad this summer. He's a great guy, 40-year fireman.

And I actually put out a number of articles about this, about effectively what it means to show up, because that's really what it's about. And I think that was probably the biggest influence. Because if you think about people who serve their community, like my father, who was a fireman, he couldn't have a bad day.

Lance Glinn:

Where was he a fireman?

Jay Jackson:

Central California.

Lance Glinn:

Central California?

Jay Jackson:

And what ultimately happened was is that if he did have a bad day coming into work, he had to put all that aside because he was walking into a situation where it was that person's worst day.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And he had to kick a door in, run into a fire. He had to make sure that it was his best day of performance against somebody's worst and terrifying situation. So, I learned a great deal from that, that no matter what, you show up because you don't know what you're walking into, and it could be an employee, it could be somebody that you're in the grocery store line with, or maybe somebody cut you off in traffic. You don't know what their day is. And you've got to show up and you got to show up in a way that's beneficial to others. And I think that how we incorporated that within Abacus is the baseline for our culture.

We show up. We show up every day. And the people that show up every day, I don't need to be the absolute smartest in the room. I don't need them to say, "Hey, I'm going to run faster than somebody else." I need them to be there. I need them to commit. I need them to buy into the premise that we're all here working together. And I think that's what shaped me. It shaped me in everything I did. I mean, outside of all the other success where you're just really grinding and working hard and you learn all those aspects, but I think the most important thing was showing up. And no matter what, don't be late, show up on time, be there no matter what.

And in any type of problem you face, it doesn't seem quite as severe in this job as my dad running into a burning building.

Lance Glinn:

Of course.

Jay Jackson:

It's all perspective. And so I think I take everything in stride when there's things that are thrown at you, you put your head down, you go to work, you push through and you show up. And I think investors really respect that. And so I think as just a life lesson in general, it's had a huge impact on the way that our company and culture was built and formed and certainly a big influence on me.

Lance Glinn:

Oh, sorry about the loss of your father back then during the summer.

Jay Jackson:

Yeah. I tell everybody, we're in the longevity and lifespan business and we deal with mortality. And one of the greatest gifts I've ever received is working with people who are in the latter stages of their lives. You know why?

Lance Glinn:

It just gives them perspective.

Jay Jackson:

Perspective. And you know what they always tell me? I might do a phone call with them or we might do telemed, and we're working through financial services-

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

... and generational gifting and all those things. And they always tell you the same thing, always. They tell you what really matters. They'll tell you things like, "Go home and hug your kids, call your family, reach out to that friend." Effectively, the greatest gift I've been given is how to slow time down.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

Know that sounds crazy, but I really have been given this gift of time machine because we all rush through life. But as you get into the latter parts of your life, you realize that, "I want this time back." Time is my most valuable asset. And how do you slow it down? You just appreciate the moments you're in. And if you can appreciate that moment you're in, show up for that moment every single moment so that you remember it, ultimately what ends up happening is time moves a lot slower. What a gift, right?

Lance Glinn:

Yeah. And look, I can resonate to a certain extent. I have a 10-month-old daughter myself, and look, I want to slow down time. I'm in that phase where it's like, I'm excited to see what she becomes-

Jay Jackson:

Sure.

Lance Glinn:

But I also don't want her to get any older. I want her to stay at 10 months.

Jay Jackson:

And that's how you do it, right? You stay in that moment, and it doesn't have to be 20 minutes in the moment, but when you have that connection with her and you're looking at her eyes, man, live in it, be in it for a minute.

Lance Glinn:

And so thought leadership I think is often about anticipating opportunities before competitors, being first to whatever it is. And sometimes to a certain extent, even before clients, you want to anticipate what their needs may be in the long run. How do you personally stay ahead of their career? What guides the way you identify where an industry is headed and help position Abacus to lead rather than to follow?

Jay Jackson:

Yeah. It's really interesting. You'll hear a lot of, I think, very similar quotes and thoughts around seeing around the corner and what you do. I like to take our core businesses and our verticals that we have and you start there. Once you've established those, you're saying, "Okay, my mindset is, what do I get to and what does three and five years look like?" That's kind of the standard process. I do it a little bit differently. I say to myself, "What does the next 30 days look like? What does the next 90 days look like?"

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

Because I can execute on that, certainly you have a bigger idea on what happens in the next three and five years, and that's important. But unless you're hyper focused and super committed to what's going to happen tomorrow, right?

Lance Glinn:

Yeah.

Jay Jackson:

... honestly, three years out, you're not going to hit it. And so I think that when we're setting our mindsets of seeing around the corner and what's coming next and industry trends, you've got to know what's right in front of you right now.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And then you apply that. Because it's amazing to me, I look at the things that we're not doing well right now, or I feel like we could be doing a lot better. And if I don't address those in this moment, three years is going to look like a century.

Lance Glinn:

Sure. No, it makes a lot of sense. What is three years from now, like you said, you don't address the issues right now. And three years from now we can try to predict as much as we want, but who knows what the next three months are going to be like.

Jay Jackson:

That's right. Let's be great today. Let's be absolutely great today. Now when it comes to technology, it's always about in that moment, "What are we not doing great today? "Oh, got it. We want to enhance and make this process easier. How do I do that? Okay, well now how do we incorporate AI?" Because that's what three years is going to look like. It's all about reducing friction and making the transaction easier and simpler and better to understand for consumers. And if you can solve that, like what we do with the lifespan data and financial planning, just make things really easy, that's what trends are.

Lance Glinn:

Yep, absolutely. Jay, we referenced your shareholder letter a few times already in our conversation, but I want to now spotlight it directly over the next couple questions. You highlighted and we talked about earlier, strong Q3 results, 10 consecutive quarters of beating earnings expectations. So, first and foremost, just on that alone, what do you see as the drivers behind that performance? And then what will it take to obviously keep that momentum going and hopefully make it 20 consecutive quarters one day?

Jay Jackson:

Yeah, for sure. What's amazing about that 10 quarter number, that's every quarter we've been public we've beat expectations. Six of those were by 30% or more. What I get most excited about is look at the margin, the margin went up over that same time period. And so when I think about the key drivers, what we're doing is we're continuing to focus on what we do now and how do we improve that process, right? Certainly being public health, being lowering your cost of capital, building more efficiencies, but now it's, "Okay, this was the process that existed for many years. Let's look at this process differently and how could we make it better?"

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

Can we make this more digital? Can we move into things like tokenization? Tokenization of insurance assets is a huge thing, but if you don't start it now, you'll never get there in two years.

And so when I think about the key drivers and what's happened over the last three years, part of that was also driven by recognizing the value of saying this is the life cycle of our client. Putting that integration and capturing the other revenue sources that we were just simply leaving behind, our client trusts us. They want to work with us in other areas, providing them additional ways that they can work with us and additional product lines, it made a massive difference. I didn't have to go and say, "I'm going to go buy a new product line." We established the product line and then said, "Okay, do we build it or buy it?" And there's a blend.

Lance Glinn:

Sure. And so you also mentioned earlier in our conversation and in the shareholder letter too that nearly 80% of employees are shareholders of Abacus. And in 2025, we spoke with Pete Stavros of KKR about employee ownership and the positive impact they can really have on a company. From your perspective, and we touched on this a little bit earlier in the conversation, but just to unpack it a little bit more, but from your perspective, how does having such a high level of employee ownership really influence Abacus' culture, decision making, and just overall performance?

We talked about how these employees now have a closer eye on everything that goes on because they're owners, but really a packet for us, how does it really impact the culture at your company?

Jay Jackson:

Sure. It creates a culture of teamwork. This feeling of not just accountability, but no one gets left behind. We're all in this together and an attack on one is attack on all kind of thing.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And by the way, Pete at KKR is terrific.

Lance Glinn:

He's great. It was a great conversation.

Jay Jackson:

Yeah. We do a lot of work with KKR, so nothing but the greatest things to say about them.

Lance Glinn:

Absolutely.

Jay Jackson:

And he's right. Having that kind of buy-in as people view themselves differently, there's a different emotional attachment.

I'll add this, we have very little turnover. Our turnover is less than 3% for all of our employees.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Jay Jackson:

And we go a step further too, is that certainly being equity shareholders is super important, but everybody feels like they're building something together towards a common goal. So, when we stayed out, "Here's our four verticals, here's what we're trying to accomplish for this year," everybody's on board and everybody's contributing within their section.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And I think that that's what makes equity so valuable.

Lance Glinn:

So your letter also outlined some pretty ambitious long-term goals, including raising recurring revenue from up to 15% today to 70% over time. It's a big jump to say the least. We both know obviously predictability matters to investors and to shareholders, but why is this shift and this goal so strategically important for Abacus' future?

Jay Jackson:

This is the secret of picking up the lifecycle of our client and that's why it's so achievable. The client exists. This would be less achievable if we said, "Oh, we've got to go get a new client in this brand new business line and it's outside of what we currently do."

Lance Glinn:

If it was completely new.

Jay Jackson:

It's not. All we're doing is picking up all the dollars that we're currently leaving behind for someone else. And so we've seen a huge shift already. So what was fascinating about going from 15 to 70, we went from zero to 15 in about six months.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Jay Jackson:

And so you can see how this shift is really coming because the initial target was, and we had our life solutions business, which is where we were acquiring the contracts and trading out of them. And then our asset management business was such a small percentage, about 1%. When we read at our investor day last June, we thought, "Okay, well, we're 2 to 3% now. We would love to see this." We announced this 70% and people kind of rolled their eyes. Our target and asset management as a percent of revenue was 30. Here we are four months later through Q3, and I can't talk about Q4 yet, but we feel good about it. Is it through Q3, we were already at 15, half of our goal in just that one vertical?

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

So for us, this is all very attainable. As we look out over the next three to five years, we believe we're going to hit that. And it's just a matter of aligning the products with the consumer that we already have. We have the most valuable piece done. We own the most valuable piece, which is the relationship with the client and with the [inaudible 00:26:37]

Lance Glinn:

You would say that's the hard part. The hard part's done.

Jay Jackson:

That's the hard part. Now we just have to actually put in the instruments so that they can invest in it. So it feels ambitious from those outside looking in. It was also this though. When we first went public, people thought it was really ambitious when I said that we're going to triple revenue, that I go, "Hey, look, I think we can grow EBITDA from 30 to over a hundred over the next three years." And we did. And we're certainly tracking towards that. And then over the next three years, why would it be crazy for me to say I'm going to double it? We've already done it.

Lance Glinn:

If you've already shown it, if you have the proof of concept.

Jay Jackson:

We have it and we have the client. Now it's just a matter of putting the products in place.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

So for us, it is as ambitious as it sounds, it also is very realistic because we've already done it. We have a track record that we can do this and we'll do it again.

Lance Glinn:

Jay, in 2025, you acquired AccuQuote, which as you noted in your shareholder letter, "Directly strengthens the Abacus Flywheel," as we discussed earlier. What gaps has AccuQuote filled within the business model and how has it helped Abacus Global continue the momentum from quarters past to now quarters in the present and future?

Jay Jackson:

It's one of the first steps to offering a different product than we were currently offering within that vertical. It's the first kind of leap step into financial planning. And what I mean by that is that we run television commercials all throughout the country, probably 80 per week on a variety of different channels, CNBC. I always get stopped and people will be like-

Lance Glinn:

"Oh, I've seen you on TV."

Jay Jackson:

Yeah. Well, so they're like, "Hey man, get out of my gym. I'm sick of seeing you every morning."

Lance Glinn:

I see enough of you already.

Jay Jackson:

Yeah, come on. And they're like, "Cool sweater." I wear, it's like a blend between Mr. Rogers and Ted Lasso, right?

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

But it's very appealing. People like it.

Lance Glinn:

Do you ever get the, "Oh, so that's what you look like in person."

Jay Jackson:

Worse. They're like, "You look so much better on TV." That's hurtful. I'm always like, "Come on, man, that's unnecessary." But on that note, when we think about AccuQuote, we receive 8 to 12,000 inquiries per month.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And a majority of those don't qualify to potentially move towards either the sale of their policy to policy and have the right kind of contract. And so that origination business generates all these excess leads. It was the first step to say, wait a minute, we need to capitalize on that. We have an active audience who reached out to us that is looking for guidance and assistance in relationship to their current insurance policy. Why wouldn't we offer them a solution?

And so AccuQuote's got nearly a 40, 50 year track record of working with people. They've underwritten hundreds of millions of contracts. So, for us it was a natural solution as a tech-driven platform where somebody could very easily come on there, either update or upgrade their current policy that they're with.

What separates AccuQuote from everyone else out there. There's other companies like Ethos and all these other things that are just saying, "Oh, hey, put in this data into your cell phone and we'll kick you out a policy." My issue with that is that 99% of all life insurance is sold because people really don't understand it's an emotional decision.

Lance Glinn:

Of course.

Jay Jackson:

What made AccuQuote unique is that they have an agent on every call for you. So you can have someone to speak to who's a professional who can offer you proper advice to help you determine what's the right contract for you.

Lance Glinn:

It's that human touch.

Jay Jackson:

That's right. And there is a blend here, and I think running solely to all automated systems is a mistake. I think that you have to have a blend on complex financial products. And I think that leaving out the agent is a problem. And when we looked at this business, we said, "Gosh, this is great. We're providing best of both worlds. We're giving what we believe is a population set that needs counsel and advice when they need it most."

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

And, "Here's the type of contract. And let's get you the right pricing, not just from some one-off computer system that's going to tell you whether this is the right price or not. Let's make sure you're getting the best negotiated price for that cost."

Lance Glinn:

And I think that's a question amongst industries, not just in the industry that you're in. It's what's that balance, especially in the age of AI that we live in today. What's that balance between the technology and the human touch?

Jay Jackson:

Sure.

Lance Glinn:

And I think, look, when I call a company on the phone, whatever the company may be, whatever I need, it's a pain to get an agent.

Jay Jackson:

It's hard. [inaudible 00:30:50] Listen, try to change your airline ticket. Tell me how many times you haven't screamed at that phone, "Pound!" Or whatever. "I'm fine today!"

Lance Glinn:

"Agent, agent, agent."

Jay Jackson:

"Agent, agent." Could you imagine if you're trying to do a financial product? You can't. You need somebody to be able to say, "Hey, look, this is the direction we're going here." And that's what made AccuQuote so great. And for us to be able to provide that service to people who are already calling in under the Abacus brand made perfect sense. And just this year, AccuQuote has literally sold thousands of policies.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Jay Jackson:

Thousands. And helped people better identify what that financial need is through the assistance and help of a very large set of agents and advisors all throughout the country. And I think that's that blend where, hey, maybe initially from a screening perspective or you can do a quick quote and get a general concept, it's like, "You know what? I want to talk to somebody. Why would I? I'm buying a million dollar contract or half a million dollar contract. I want to make sure there's somebody here that's real."

Lance Glinn:

Absolutely. You close the shareholder letter by saying, "The foundation is set, the Flywheel is turning." So looking to the future a little bit now, with that in place, with the foundation set, with the flywheel turning, when you look ahead at the rest of 2026, because we're recording now in mid-January, what does success look like for Abacus over the next 11 or so months?

Jay Jackson:

We have a couple of what I would call our gaps still on our Flywheel. The Flywheel is moving great and we're capturing now resources that we never did before from not just providing liquidity in someone's policy, but potentially selling those who don't qualify a new policy.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

Asset management went from effectively 100 million to three and a half billion. That's on a track to go even much higher than that. We've got our technology group who are now monitoring over three million lives and selling that data back and generating revenue. And when I think about '26, what's going to measure that success is the financial planning piece. I think we have been very, very selective as to who we're going to work with there. And it's a build it or buy it. I think we're looking at some great firms that share the same culture and mindset we do.

And as we look into '26, filling out that piece of our Flywheel is incredibly important to us because from my perspective, financial and estate planning, I wouldn't say is broken, but my gosh, is a massive opportunity, a massive opportunity to educate people just as we highlighted.

Lance Glinn:

Sure.

Jay Jackson:

If your number one fear is running out of money in retirement or estate planning, wouldn't it make sense to know better how long you're going to be in retirement and applying that data to better understanding how people should allocate it?

Lance Glinn:

To act on it.

Jay Jackson:

Yeah. I'll tell you what is broken. 60/40 is broken. And we're going to provide solutions to do that. And we could not be more excited about some of the things I think we're going to announce in '26 that's going to have a major impact on financial services.

Lance Glinn:

So we began our conversation obviously talking about Abacus's recent listings transferred to the NYSE, the ticker changed from ABL to ABX as well. And looking ahead, if you now project three to five years down the line, how do you see the firm evolving over that time as it builds on the success that it's already achieved in the first couple years of being public and then moving forward?

Jay Jackson:

Oh, I mean, whether we're in the S&P or the Dow, no, I think from our perspective as we go out three and five years, when we talk about our verticals and our Flywheel and our integration, we're looking at a scenario where the result of what we're doing is going to see three and five multiples on top of where we are related to revenue and growth. And because of that, that's going to make us one of the elite and premier financial services and alternative asset managers, literally in the United States. And hopefully we'll go back to this podcast and we'll laugh about it, Lance and be like, "Hey man, you said this and what I think is I think I undershot." So we'll have a big chuckle about it then, but that's the way we see things.

We think that incorporating longevity, lifespan, health span data, all of that dataset into how people utilize their financial plan, that's what's going to dictate the future. And when we get out three and five years and implementing the data with AI and other pieces, I think it's going to be a very exciting time.

Lance Glinn:

Well, Jay, I look forward to that conversation three to five years from now when we look back at this conversation and see all the great things that have happened for Abacus over that time. Thank you so much for joining us Inside The ICE House.

Jay Jackson:

Always. Look forward to being back.

Speaker 3:

That's our conversation for this week. Remember to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen and follow us on X at ICEHousePodcast. From the New York Stock Exchange, we'll talk to you again next week Inside The ICE House.

Information contained in this podcast was obtained in part from publicly available sources and not independently verified. Neither ICE nor its affiliates make any representations or warranties expressed or implied as to the accuracy or completeness of the information and do not sponsor, approve, or endorse any of the content herein, all of which is presented solely for informational and educational purposes. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or a recommendation of any security or trading practice. Some portions of the proceeding conversation may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity.