(Bloomberg) – Insurers linked to some of Wall Street's biggest firms have run into trouble over unhappy customers.

Athene Holding Ltd. and Global Atlantic Financial Group Ltd. have come under scrutiny by regulators in New York and Texas. The companies are part of a recent rush of financial firms getting into the market for life insurance and annuities that's seen policy sales grow 9% in the last three years to $836 billion.

Newcomers to the market

The insurers are relative newcomers to the market. Athene started operating in 2009 and went public in 2016 after being nurtured by Apollo Global Management LLC. Global Atlantic was formed as Goldman Sachs Reinsurance Group in 2004, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. still owns a stake. That compares with the 150-year history of competitor MetLife Inc. and 143 years for rival Prudential Financial Inc.

Money-management companies have been lured to the insurance industry by the steady streams of cash they can then invest. The customer-service issues are a lesson to firms that haven't been singled out by regulators, including Blackstone Group LP and Paul Singer's Elliott Management Corp., that the basic business of insurance has as many pitfalls as trading in complex markets.

'It's hard'

“There are a lot of moving pieces that go into being a carrier,” said Samantha Chow, a senior analyst with Boston-based market researcher Aite Group. “It's hard. There are a lot of brick walls to knock through to get there and be good at it.”