TIAA-CREF
Life Funds Summary Prospectus

Large-Cap Value Fund

MAY 1, 2021

Ticker: TLLVX

Before you invest, you may want to review the Fund’s prospectus, which contains more information about the Fund and its risks. You can find the Fund’s prospectus, reports to shareholders and other information about the Fund online at www.tiaa.org/tclf_pro. You can also get this information at no cost by calling 800-223-1200 or by sending an e-mail request to disclosure@tiaa.org. The Fund’s prospectus and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”), each dated May 1, 2021, as subsequently supplemented, and the sections of the Fund’s shareholder report dated December 31, 2020 from “Portfolio of Investments” through “Notes to Financial Statements,” are incorporated into this Summary Prospectus by reference and may be obtained free of charge at the website, phone number or e-mail address noted above.

Investment objective

The Fund seeks a favorable long-term total return, mainly through capital appreciation, primarily from equity securities of large domestic companies.

Fees and expenses

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. The expenses shown do not reflect any separate account fees or expenses deducted under the variable annuity contracts or variable life insurance policies using the Fund as an underlying investment option.

SHAREHOLDER FEES (fees paid directly from your investment)

Maximum sales charge imposed on purchases (percentage of offering price)	0%
Maximum deferred sales charge	0%
Maximum sales charge imposed on reinvested dividends and other distributions	0%
Redemption fee	0%
Exchange fee	0%

TIAA-CREF Life Funds ■ Large-Cap Value Fund■Summary Prospectus     1

ANNUAL FUND OPERATING EXPENSES (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

Management fees	0.45%
Other expenses	0.16%
Total annual Fund operating expenses	0.61%
Waivers and expense reimbursements1	(0.09)%
Total annual Fund operating expenses after fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement	0.52%

1 Under the Fund’s expense reimbursement arrangements, the Fund’s investment adviser, Teachers Advisors, LLC, has contractually agreed to reimburse the Fund for any Total annual Fund operating expenses (excluding interest, taxes, brokerage commissions or other transactional expenses, Acquired fund fees and expenses and extraordinary expenses) that exceed 0.52% of average daily net assets for shares of the Fund. These expense reimbursement arrangements will continue through at least April 30, 2022, unless changed with approval of the Board of Trustees.

Example

This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in shares of the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all your shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses, before fee waivers and/or expense reimbursements, remain the same. The example assumes that the Fund’s fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement arrangements will each remain in place for the duration noted in the table above. The example does not reflect the fees and expenses of any variable annuity contract or variable life insurance policy and the costs in the example would be higher if it did. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

1 year	$	53
3 years	$	186
5 years	$	331
10 years	$	754

Portfolio turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 30% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal investment strategies

Under normal circumstances, the Fund invests at least 80% of its assets in large-cap equity securities. The Fund invests primarily in equity securities of large domestic companies, as defined by the Fund’s benchmark index, the Russell

2     Summary Prospectus■TIAA-CREF Life Funds■ Large-Cap Value Fund

1000^®Value Index, that the Fund’s investment adviser, Teachers Advisors, LLC (“Advisors”), believes appear undervalued by the market based on an evaluation of their potential worth. For purposes of the Fund’s 80% investment policy, “large-cap” securities are securities of issuers with a capitalization equal to or greater than the top 80% of issuers by capitalization within the Russell 1000^®Index at the time of purchase. For purposes of the 80% investment policy, the term “assets” means net assets, plus the amount of any borrowings for investment purposes.

Advisors uses a variety of comparative valuation criteria to determine whether shares of a particular company might be undervalued, including analyses of historical valuations of the same security; valuations of comparable securities in the same sector or the overall market; various financial ratios such as stock price-to-book value, stock price-to-earnings, and dividend yield; and free cash flow generated by the company. Advisors generally focuses on companies with normalized earnings and high operating leverage, which may cause the Fund to be more volatile in down markets than other large-cap value funds that have more defensive-oriented investment strategies.

The Fund may invest up to 20% of its assets in foreign investments. The Fund may also purchase and sell futures, options, swaps and other equity derivatives to carry out the Fund’s investment strategies.

Principal investment risks

You could lose money over short or long periods by investing in this Fund. An investment in the Fund, due to the nature of the Fund’s portfolio holdings, typically is subject to the following principal investment risks:

·Market Risk—The risk that market prices of portfolio investments held by the Fund may fall rapidly or unpredictably due to a variety of factors, including changing economic, political or market conditions. Market risk may affect a single issuer, industry or sector of the economy, or it may affect the market as a whole. From time to time, the Fund may invest a significant portion of its assets in companies in one or more related sectors or industries, which would make the Fund more vulnerable to adverse developments affecting such sectors or industries.

·Issuer Risk (often called Financial Risk)—The risk that an issuer’s earnings prospects and overall financial position will deteriorate, causing a decline in the value of the issuer’s financial instruments over short or extended periods of time.

·Large-Cap Risk—The risk that large-capitalization companies are more mature and may grow more slowly than the economy as a whole and tend to go in and out of favor based on market and economic conditions.

·Mid-Cap Risk—The risk that the stocks of mid-capitalization companies often experience greater price volatility, lower trading volume and lower overall liquidity than the stocks of larger, more established companies.

TIAA-CREF Life Funds ■ Large-Cap Value Fund■Summary Prospectus     3

·Style Risk—The risk that use of a particular investing style (such as growth or valueinvesting) may fall out of favor in the marketplace for various periods of time and result in underperformance relative to the broader market sector or significant declines in the value of the Fund’s portfolio investments.

·Risks of Value Investing—Securities believed to be undervalued are subject to the risks that the issuer’s potential business prospects are not realized, its potential value is never recognized by the market or the securities were appropriately priced when acquired. As a result, value stocks can be overpriced when acquired and may not perform as anticipated.

·Active Management Risk—The risk that Advisors’ strategy, investment selection or trading execution may cause the Fund to underperform relative to the benchmark index or mutual funds with similar investment objectives.

·Foreign Investment Risk—Foreign markets can be more volatile than the U.S. market due to increased risks of adverse issuer, political, regulatory, currency, market or economic developments and can result in greater price volatility and perform differently from financial instruments of U.S. issuers. This risk may be heightened in emerging or developing markets. Foreign investments may also have lower liquidity and be more difficult to value than investments in U.S. issuers. Foreign investments may also be subject to risk of loss because of more or less foreign government regulation, less public information and less stringent investor protections and disclosure standards.

·Derivatives Risk—The risks associated with investing in derivatives may be different and greater than the risks associated with directly investing in the underlying securities and other instruments. The Fund may use futures, options, single name or index credit default swaps, or forwards, and the Fund may also use more complex derivatives such as swaps that might present liquidity, credit and counterparty risk. When investing in derivatives, the Fund may lose more than the principal amount invested.

Please see the non-summary portion of the Prospectus for more detailed information about the risks described above.

Past performance

The following chart and table help illustrate some of the risks of investing in the Fund by showing changes in the Fund’s performance from year to year. The bar chart shows the annual total returns of shares of the Fund during the preceding ten-year period. Below the bar chart are the best and worst returns for a calendar quarter during the same period. The performance table following the bar chart shows the Fund’s average annual total returns over the one-year, five-year, ten-year and since-inception periods (where applicable) ended December 31, 2020, and how those returns compare to those of the Fund’s benchmark index. Returns do not reflect fees and expenses of any variable annuity or variable life insurance contract and would be lower if they did.

4     Summary Prospectus■TIAA-CREF Life Funds■ Large-Cap Value Fund

The returns shown below reflect previous agreements by Advisors to waive, reimburse and/or compensate the Fund for certain fees, expenses and/or costs. Without these reductions and/or compensation, the returns of the Fund would have been lower. Past performance of the Fund is not necessarily an indication of how it will perform in the future. The benchmark index listed below is unmanaged, and you cannot invest directly in an index. The returns for the benchmark index reflect no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes.

For current performance information of the Fund, including performance to the most recent month-end, please visit www.tiaa.org. For information on the effect of compensation paid to the Fund on performance, see the Financial highlights for the Fund in the non-summary portion of the Prospectus.

ANNUAL TOTAL RETURNS (%)

Large-Cap Value Fund

Best quarter: 17.47%, for the quarter ended December 31, 2020. Worst quarter: -26.21%, for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.

AVERAGE ANNUAL TOTAL RETURNS

For the Periods Ended December 31, 2020

	Inception date	One year		Five years		Ten years
Large-Cap Value Fund	10/28/2002	4.01	%	8.92	%	9.19	%
Russell 1000® Value Index
(reflects no deductions for fees, expenses or taxes)		2.80	%	9.74	%	10.50	%
Current performance of the Fund’s shares may be higher or lower than that shown above.

After-tax returns have not been shown because they are not relevant since Fund shares currently are held only through insurance company separate accounts.
A	A

TIAA-CREF Life Funds ■ Large-Cap Value Fund■Summary Prospectus     5

Portfolio management

Investment Adviser. The Fund’s investment adviser is Teachers Advisors, LLC.

Portfolio Manager. The following person is primarily responsible for the management of the Fund on a day-to-day basis:

Name:	Charles Carr, CFA
Title:	Managing Director
Experience on Fund:	since 2018

Purchase and sale of Fund shares

Please contact the insurance company that issued your variable annuity or life insurance contract for more information on the purchase and sale of Fund shares.

Tax information

Because the only shareholders of the Fund are the insurance companies offering the contracts, no discussion is included here about the federal income tax consequences at the shareholder level. The federal income tax consequences for purchases of a variable annuity or life insurance contract are described in the prospectus for such contracts.

Payments to insurance companies and broker-dealers and other financial intermediary compensation

The Fund is only available as an underlying investment for the contracts. The Fund and its distributor (and their related companies) may make payments to the sponsoring insurance company (or its affiliates) and to broker-dealers and other financial intermediaries for distribution and/or other services. These payments may be a factor that the insurance company considers in including the Fund as an underlying investment option in the variable contract. Payments to broker-dealers and other financial intermediaries may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other financial intermediary to recommend a variable product and the Fund over another investment. Ask your financial adviser or visit the website of the insurance company or the financial intermediary for more information. The disclosure document for your variable contract may contain additional information about these payments.

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Printed on paper containing recycled fiber A12156 (5/21)

A12156 (5/21)