The Man from Muncie
Dan Towriss assesses risk as his investment strategy
Every Monday, we publish a series called CAPITAL MOVES, a look into the off-track investments of individuals involved in the world of racing. Be sure to check out previous editions.
Dan Towriss built an insurance and financial-services platform that manages over $76 billion in assets by thinking in terms of probability. He’s now applying that same logic to Formula 1.
Some people are averse to risk. Dan Towriss sees risk as a variable, something to be quantified and priced. He was trained in that discipline. And he used it to build one of the most significant financial services companies in America.
Then he went after motorsport.
The Cadillac Formula 1 Team is the first new constructor to join the F1 grid since Haas in 2016. The man running it is an actuary from Muncie, Indiana, who attended Indiana University on a baseball scholarship before an elbow injury redirected his path to Ball State University, where he graduated cum laude in 1994 and found his calling in probability tables.
From Baseball to Ball State
Towriss grew up in Muncie, Indiana. He was a talented baseball player, good enough to earn a scholarship to Indiana University over Notre Dame. But a throwing-elbow injury during his freshman year ended that path. He returned home to Ball State and discovered actuarial science, the discipline of building mathematical models around uncertainty. He graduated in 1994 as a credentialed Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, and that framework has never left him.
His early career moved through several major insurance enterprises: Lincoln National Life in Fort Wayne, then Lincoln Re, ING Reinsurance, and AEGON, where he served as Chief Risk Officer. In 2009, he joined Guggenheim Partners, where he helped construct the firm’s insurance investment platform alongside Mark Walter, Guggenheim’s CEO.
When the chance arose to operate that platform independently, Towriss took it. In 2013, he founded what would become Group 1001, named for the “next” policyholder beyond the thousand the industry traditionally prioritized. To quote Shakespeare’s Juliet: “What’s in a name?” That name was a statement of philosophy before it was ever a brand.
Towriss built Group 1001 on the actuarial insight that insurance is fundamentally a data problem, and that most legacy carriers were solving it badly. Delaware Life, Gainbridge, Clear Spring Health, and Clear Spring Life: each brand under the Group 1001 umbrella was engineered around a specific underserved segment. Gainbridge was by far the most visible. A direct-to-consumer digital annuity platform, it removed traditional broker friction and let people engage with retirement products in a more transparent way.
Between the company’s 2017 rebranding and 2025, assets under management grew from approximately $37 billion to over $76 billion. Delaware Life has been named a Ward’s 50 Top Performer for six consecutive years. In January 2026, Delaware Life launched the industry’s first fixed indexed annuity with Bitcoin exposure via a BlackRock index, making it the first insurance carrier to offer an index that includes cryptocurrency.
The Phone Call
In 2017, a young IndyCar driver named Zach Veach was trying to fund a ride at the Indianapolis 500 with A.J. Foyt Racing. Running out of options, he asked his pastor, Aaron Brockett, for leads. Brockett had one: Dan Towriss.
Veach made the call. Towriss opened with, “Hey, kid, I don’t sponsor race cars and race car drivers, but go ahead and tell me your story.” By the following Monday, Towriss called back: “Hey, kid, you’re going to the show.”
Within months, Group 1001 had entered IndyCar. By 2019, Gainbridge became the presenting sponsor of the Indianapolis 500, the largest single-day spectator sporting event in the world, held in Towriss’ home state. Shortly after, Towriss acquired an ownership stake in Andretti Autosport, where Veach had competed.
The acquisition price was never publicly disclosed. What is confirmed is that Towriss is the controlling owner of Andretti Global and CEO of TWG Motorsports.
This is how Towriss operates. A cold call becomes a sponsorship. A sponsorship becomes equity. Equity becomes control. Each step, he assesses the risk, understands the upside, and moves before the market catches up.
By 2021, Gainbridge had secured naming rights for Gainbridge Fieldhouse, home of the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and the WNBA’s Indiana Fever. In February 2022, Gainbridge signed a multi-year founding partnership ahead of the inaugural Miami Grand Prix. By 2023, Towriss had formally joined the Andretti Global ownership group, and the Cadillac Formula 1 bid was announced in partnership with General Motors.
There’s Always A Way In
The F1 bid needs context. Here’s the short version for those who missed it.
Formula One Management (FOM), the commercial rights holder owned by Liberty Media, initially rejected the Andretti-Cadillac bid, even though the team had already received formal FIA approval. Existing constructors were openly resistant to splitting prize money with an eleventh team. Toto Wolff and Christian Horner were vocal in their opposition.
In late 2024, TWG Global, the holding company co-chaired by billionaire Mark Walter (who also controls the Los Angeles Dodgers and holds ownership stakes in the Los Angeles Lakers, the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, and Chelsea FC), took full operational control of Andretti Global. Michael Andretti stepped into an advisory role. The political dynamics shifted. It seemed the issue had been the “Andretti” name. “TWG” and “Cadillac” raised no objections.
Formula One approved the entry.
Towriss was named CEO of TWG Motorsports in early 2025. The team scaled quickly. It appointed Graeme Lowdon (former CEO of the Virgin and Marussia F1 teams) as team principal, assembled senior technical leadership with deep Formula 1 experience, and secured Ferrari power units on an interim basis while General Motors develops its own power unit program near Charlotte, North Carolina. The goal is to run a GM-built works engine by 2029.
Here’s a look at the math involved in playing in this sandbox:
The anti-dilution fee: $450 million. Cadillac is required to pay a $450 million anti-dilution fee to the existing ten teams, split equally at $45 million per team. Prior Concorde frameworks referenced a $200 million entry fee, but updated agreements raised it to $450 million. Teams had reportedly lobbied to push it as high as $600 million.
The $1 billion before a single lap. Motorsport broadcaster Will Buxton estimated on his Up to Speed podcast that Cadillac had already spent $1 billion before turning a wheel. That figure includes the anti-dilution fee, infrastructure across facilities in Silverstone, Indianapolis, Charlotte, and Warren, Michigan, plus staffing and development costs.
The annual cost cap: $215 million. For 2026, the F1 cost cap rises to $215 million. That’s the regulated ceiling for team spending per year, though high costs fall outside it: driver salaries, executive pay, marketing, travel.
The prize money upside. Forecasts suggest a $63 million prize fund allocation for Cadillac in 2026 before earning a single point. At that rate, it would take roughly 7.1 years to recoup the $450 million anti-dilution fee alone, unless they climb the constructors’ championship. For context, last-placed Sauber earned approximately $60 million in 2024 prize money.
Gainbridge and the Long Game in Women’s Sports
Long before Caitlin Clark became a cultural phenomenon, Gainbridge was already investing in women’s sport. The brand had signed International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee Billie Jean King and World Golf Hall of Fame inductee Annika Sörenstam. It also became the title sponsor of the Billie Jean King Cup, the largest annual international women’s team competition in sport, with over 130 nations competing.
In March 2024, while Clark was still finishing her collegiate career at Iowa, Gainbridge signed her as a brand ambassador. Gainbridge did not disclose the financial terms of the multi-year deal, though Clark’s total NIL partnership portfolio was estimated at around $3.1 million at the end of her collegiate career, aggregating all her deals. The announcement coincided with the launch of ParityFlex, an annuity product designed by women around women’s financial planning needs.
In 2025, Gainbridge became the first entitlement partner of a professional soccer league in the United States, signing on as title partner of the Gainbridge Super League, USL’s Division One women’s competition. The multi-year deal is reported to be a seven-figure agreement giving Gainbridge league-wide brand exposure across digital, broadcast, and in-stadium platforms.
Gainbridge’s broader commitment to women’s sports also includes $222,000 in grant funding through its 2025 Gainbridge Assists program (formerly Parity Week), awarded to 32 organizations and athletes across 21 states in partnership with Parity and the Women’s Sports Foundation.
Towriss likes placing capital where the market has low expectations: women’s sports, electric racing before credibility (via Andretti Formula E), and an American team in Formula 1 before there was a clear path to acceptance.
The Actuary From Muncie
The 2017 Zach Veach sponsorship may have looked impulsive. It turned out to be the first move in a seven-year sequence, from logo placement at the Indy 500 to ownership of a Formula 1 constructor.
What makes Towriss worth watching is the tension he carries: the conservatism of an actuary alongside the ambition of elite motorsport. Insurance taught him patience. Racing gave him a place to deploy it.
The probability of going from Muncie, Indiana, to the Formula 1 grid was always low. But the actuary had already done the math.
