Tiaa cref.com

It provides different types of financial investments and insurance for people working in the medical field, education, and research.

In 1918, it was introduced to replace the free pensions offered by the Carnegie Foundation. Later, CREF was founded in 1952 as College Retirement Equities Fund and in 2016, as a part of the rebranding, the name was shortened to TIAA.

The basic design allows investors to get lifetime income at retirement rather than tax-favored wealth vehicles. Earlier, it was a non-profit organization that did not manage short-term earnings like insurance companies, and the fees were generally half of the industry standards.

Till 1997, it worked as a tax-exempt non-profit firm but in 2010, it became a profit-oriented firm that managed funds,  investment savings, loans, and other accounts and started taxable subsidiaries, while, all the profits are disbursed to the policyholder.  

Currently, it handles $1 tn in various accounts of over 15K institutions that involve capital asset classes, farmland, and the US tax-except options.