Standard Insurance Company has appointed Tony McMasters (pictured) as regional vice president in retirement plans and James Schugel as national sales consultant, finals and deal strategy. The two hires expand The Standard's retirement plan sales team at the regional and national levels simultaneously.
McMasters will work with advisors, plan sponsors, and third-party administrators in eastern Pennsylvania. He brings more than 35 years of experience, including his most recent role as regional vice president at Voya Financial. His background spans retirement plan sales and benefits consulting.
McMasters earned a bachelor's degree in marketing from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and holds FINRA Series 6 and 63 licenses.
Schugel's role focuses on plans with $10 million or more in assets. He will support finalist presentations, online demonstrations, and product positioning throughout the sales process for advisors and clients in that market segment.
Before joining The Standard, Schugel served as senior product and solution consultant at Lincoln Financial. He has 11 years of financial services and retirement industry experience and earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from Saint Louis University. He holds FINRA Series 6 and 63 licenses, along with the Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor and Chartered Retirement Plans Specialist designations.
Derek Fuller, divisional vice president at The Standard, said McMasters' background would support the firm's advisor and plan sponsor partners. Jason Burlie, head of retirement plan sales, meanwhile, said Schugel's experience would strengthen the company's finalist strategy and advisor support resources.
For retirement plan advisors, these two hires are worth treating differently depending on the plans a given practice serves. Advisors in eastern Pennsylvania now have a new regional contact at The Standard worth introducing themselves to directly, particularly if they've had limited local support in the past. Advisors working competitive finalist processes for plans above the $10 million threshold have a new national resource in Schugel worth looping in earlier in an RFP, at the positioning stage rather than only once a finalist presentation is already being prepared, given his role is specifically built around supporting that stage of the sales process.
The appointments come as demand for retirement income products continues to rise. US annuity sales totaled $107.4 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up 1% year over year, per LIMRA's US Individual Annuity Sales Survey.
That figure followed a record 2025, when full-year sales reached $464.1 billion, the fourth consecutive annual record. LIMRA has tied the sustained run to demographic pressure, with more than four million Americans turning 65 annually and many lacking pension coverage.
It's worth noting that individual annuity sales and employer-sponsored retirement plan sales, the specific focus of both McMasters' and Schugel's new roles, are related but distinct markets; the LIMRA figures speak to broader retirement product demand rather than directly to workplace retirement plan volume, so the connection here is best read as general sector tailwind rather than a precise measure of demand for the specific plan segment these two hires are being brought in to grow.
