Insurance News

Newport Beach’s Pacific Life Insurance Co.

Parent company Pacific Mutual Holding Co. is the county’s largest privately held company with yearly revenue of $5.2 billion.

The 141-year-old company offers life insurance policies and investments for individuals and companies, counting more than half of the 100 largest U.S. companies as customers.

It also leases jets through its Aviation Capital Group subsidiary.

Like all insurers, Pacific Life invests heavily in stocks and bonds to earn money on cash it holds to pay out to policyholders and investors.

A rebound in the stock market through the third quarter helped push Pacific Life’s assets up to about $93 billion, from about $84 billion at the beginning of the year.

Pacific Life’s assets make up about 85% of its parent company’s total assets.

But after losing about $13 billion in investments from 2007 to 2008, some company watchers have developed guarded views about Pacific Life.

Last year’s near collapse of American International Group Inc. also cast a pall over all insurers.

Credit rating company Moody’s Corp. in New York has held an A1 or “good” rating of Pacific Life’s financial strength and ability to pay policyholders.

But it has a negative outlook on Pacific Life in light of the stock market’s turbulence in the past year.

Moody’s also is negative on Pacific Life’s ability to make good on guaranteed returns it has made to investors in its variable annuity retirement investment accounts.

“The market is a little better looking, but everyone is having a challenging time,” said Arthur Fliegelman, a senior credit officer at Moody’s.

Another concern: Pacific Life’s investments in bonds based on home mortgages.

The bonds have received a number of downgrades from analysts who worry borrowers may stop making payments on the underlying loans.

Pacific Life reported $81 million in losses from mortgage bonds in the second quarter, its most recent breakdown of its investments.

The loss represented a small part of the company’s $6.2 billion in mortgage bond investments.

About a quarter of its bonds are considered “non-investment grade,” or junk status, by credit rating agencies.

Pacific Life also has about $1 billion worth of commercial mortgage bonds, of which 1% are considered junk status.

Last year, Pacific Life’s parent had adjusted net income of $209 million, down 68% from 2007.

For the six months through June, net income rebounded with a 31% rise from a year earlier to $445 million.

Pacific Life’s business of selling life insurance policies and annuities has been growing in a stagnant market.

In August, a unit of Thomson Reuters Corp. reported that Pacific Life saw a 19.5% yearly rise to $24.6 billion in life insurance policies issued from 2007 to 2008, even as the industry saw a 1.2% decline to $1.8 trillion.

Pacific Life ranks as the No. 23 life insurer in the nation, according to the report.

For the 12 months through September, Pacific Life ranked third in sales of fixed annuities at $1.4 billion, according to Evanston, Ill.-based market tracker Beacon Research Publications Inc.

It was the first time Pacific Life ranked among the top 10.

Industry sales of fixed annuities were down 21% for the period to $22 billion.

In the second quarter, Pacific Life ranked 14th in sales of variable annuities at $837 million with about 2.7% of the market, according to Chicago-based research company Morningstar Inc.

Industry sales of variable annuities for the 12 months through June were down 24% from a year earlier to $31.2 billion.

Earlier this year, Pacific Life raised $1 billion through sales of 30-year bonds that came with a 9.25% yearly interest rate.

The sale was deemed a success with more investors wanting to buy than it had bonds for, according to the company.

The last time Pacific Life sold bonds was in 2003, when it sold $600 million at 6.6% for 30 years.

“It is prudent to operate with a conservative level of capital during these uncertain times,” Chief Executive James Morris said.

Timeline

Pacific Life began making its holdings public last year to appease investors’ concerns about New York-based AIG, which was bailed out by the government after trouble with credit default swaps.

Pacific Life never got into credit swaps, which were issued to buyers as insurance from companies defaulting on bonds.

Pacific Life also has focused on lowering costs, moving some of its conferences closer to its Newport Beach headquarters.

Accidental Death Benefit Insurance News

Accidental Death Benefit Insurance (ADBI)

What is accidental death insurance?

There are individual life insurance policies providing only accidental death insurance coverage. An accidental death benefit is life insurance, but it only pays out in the event of accidental death (plane crash, car crash, etc.) It does not pay out in the event of sickness-death like heart disease or cancer.

Accidental death caused by war, aviation except as a passenger on a regularly scheduled airline, and illegal activities is generally excluded.

Time and age limits are usually applicable to accidental death coverage, for example, the insured must die within 90 days of the accident and be age 60 or less.

You can apply online for accidental death benefit insurance protection and leave your loved ones up to $1,000,000 in benefits.

Did you know accidental death is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States? (per the National Safety Council, Injury Facts, 2007 edition).

Since most deaths in the US are sickness based (the top 3 killers are Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke - all sickness deaths), this is usually very cheap life insurance. You may be able to purchase a large accidental death benefit for a very small amount of money.

 

Mutual of Omaha Accidental Death Insurance Plan

Mutual of Omaha was founded in 1909, and is rated "A+" (Superior) by AM Best for financial strength - that's the second highest of 16 rating levels.

• Get up to $1,000,000 in Coverage Starting from 83 cents a Day
• 60 Day Risk Free Review (30 days in NY)
• Apply Online – No Health Questions

How it works - This type of insurance helps you ensure your family will be well protected in the event of your death due to an accidental injury. Accidental life insurance no exam policies were created to give you peace of mind by:

• Supplementing any current life insurance you have
• Providing low cost life insurance against any accidental death.

Although you can’t plan on unexpected accidents, you can prepare by providing accidental death coverage for your family.

What is Accidental Death Insurance?

Accidental death benefit insurance is an insurance policy that pays out benefits to your beneficiary in the event of accidental death of the insured.

In addition, one can also obtain a policy which is a combination accidental death and dismemberment insurance which provides protection should either of these terrible accidents occur.

Having a policy of this type is a way to protect you and your family from financial problems should anything happen to you.

The Facts about Accidental Death

Statistics provided by the National Safety Council in their 2004 edition state that someone dies every five minutes due to a fatal accident in the United States.

This is the primary reason accidental death life insurance would come in handy for your family. Accidental death policies provide protection and financial security for your family members and loved ones should something happen to you.

Benefits of Accidental Death Benefit Insurance

One benefit of the accidental death policy is that it provides financial security for family members and loved ones left behind. Although we often don’t consider the chance of death resulting from an accident, the fact is it happens every five minutes.

Planning for the unexpected is a responsibility you have, to provide for your family.

Another benefit to obtaining this type of life insurance policy is that many accidental death insurance policies are very affordable.

In fact, some policies can be started for just 83 cents per day.

The valuable benefits of accident death coverage can help to lessen the financial burden of an already stressful time for those you leave behind. That’s why it’s important to take a few minutes now to apply for your policy.

Insurance News

There was the biggest-ever deal. The biggest shareholder challenge in recent memory. And some of the biggest natural catastrophe losses to go along with them. 2011 will be remembered for many big events, but perhaps the most important for p&c insurers was their gaining the ear of government on the biggest issue affecting the biggest segment of the industry. With the Ontario auto insurance market making up roughly a quarter of all Canadian p&c premiums, losses of more than $1.5bn for the segment in 2010 left insurers with a big hole to fill as this year began. Although not yet profitable, there were signs that this market segment may be turning the corner.     And while public perception has continued to challenge insurers with concerns expressed in the mainstream media about overall profits — however meagre they may be — the auto insurers now have government data to back up their claims about fraudulent claims in Ontario.     “Is it reasonable that accidents are down while claims (costs) have increased?,” IBC Ontario vp Ralph Palumbo asked earlier this month after the province’s auditor general noted a 150% increase in claims costs from 2005 to 2010 while the number of injury claims rose only 30%. “It just doesn’t add up.”

 The biggest p&c deal ever was struck in May as the country’s largest insurer, Intact Financial, became larger with its $2.6bn takeover of AXA — then Canada’s sixth-largest p&c group. The merger gives Intact roughly 17% of the entire p&c market in Canada.  Despite the loss of a major market, most brokers took some comfort in the increased Canadian content of the nation’s No. 1 p&c insurer. And then, of course, there was the move to demutualize Economical, which undoubtedly would have been the biggest story of the year if it had turned out differently. A bid by a dissident group of voting policyholders to replace the company’s board of directors amid a move to tap the insurer’s assets was stopped at a special meeting in Kitchener in May. While defeated in its bid for control of the board, the dissident shareholders nevertheless helped spur action for federal rules — expected next year — for mutual p&c companies to change their structure.

Canadian Life Insurance

Canadian Life Insurance News

Term Insurance starts off lower in cost and increases as the insured gets older. The term length can vary depending on the policy. As a rule of thumb, the longer the term, the higher the initial premium, but the shorter the term, the lower the initial premium. Most term life policies in Canada are renewable and convertible, which means the insured can renew the coverage without a medical examination, albeit at a much higher premium. It also means that it's possible to convert the coverage to a permanent plan without a medical examination. Term rates can vary significantly from company to company, and many companies offer preferred rates, which can lower the insured’s premium by as much as 30 per cent if they happen to be in very good health and has excellent family health history.

Cargo Ship with 25 People aboard off India-Pirates Hijack

                                Insurance News 

The Bangladesh-flagged M.V. Jahan Moni appears to have been hijacked Sunday off the Indian coast as it was heading from Singapore to Europe, said Rear Adm. Bazlur Rahman, chief of the Bangladesh Shipping Department.

This is a difficult situation. We are trying to do whatever we can, Rahman told The Associated Press by phone.

The 25 Bangladeshis on the cargo ship include the wife of one crewman, said Capt. Habibur Rahman, principal officer of the government’s Mercantile Marine department.

Satellite images showed the ship heading toward Somalia, he said. It had loaded 41,000 tons of nickel ore from Indonesia to reach Greece via Singapore.

Somali pirates currently hold 22 ships and 521 crew, according to the European Union Naval Force. Hostages and ships have been held for months and released only for multimillion-dollar ransoms.

Somalia has been mired in anarchy since 1991, enabling piracy to thrive off its Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden coasts. A multinational force patrols the seas, but the vast distances and pirates’ ability to attack further offshore mean hijackings have continued.