It was Mercer's ability to work across a breadth of clients that helped it win insurance asset manager of the year.

Mercer put forward three case studies. The first was when a leading US insurer said it was looking to obtain higher yield without materially increasing credit or liquidity risk and wanted clearer fee transparency. To tackle this, Mercer designed a multi year private debt programme focused on direct lending and investment grade asset backed lending, finding opportunities across 20 managers and negotiating preferred fee terms using pooled and bespoke separate account structures.

Secondly, a multinational corporate captive approached Mercer and wanted to support growth, improve capital efficiency, and meet rating‑agency governance expectations during a planned expansion. In response, the company's captive specialists collaborated with investment governance and risk teams to redesign the captive's investment policy, develop bespoke ALM analyses, and implement a new governance cadence.

Lastly, a major insurer required a new path to net‑zero alignment across fixed income and private assets without jeopardising duration or capital targets. For this, Mercer built a phased decarbonisation roadmap combining engagement, strategic tilts to lower‑carbon issuers, and allocation to climate‑solution private assets.

The judges referred to Mercer providing measurable outcomes such as a 75–120 basis point net yield improvement after fees, and an estimated 20% reduction in surplus volatility.