Allianz Life Hires Vanessa Ramirez as Senior Director, Government Relations

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz Life) named Vanessa Ramirez as the new senior director of Government Relations in the Legal department where she is responsible for directing public policy advocacy initiatives for the company. She also leads cross-company coordination of government relations activities while reviewing proposed federal, state and insurance department legislation and rule making initiatives. Ramirez reports to Allianz Life General Counsel Gretchen Cepek.

“I am excited to have Vanessa join our experienced Government Relations team at Allianz Life. She brings deep insurance industry knowledge to this important leadership role,” said Cepek. “Vanessa’s leadership will help us continue strengthening the relationships we have built with regulators and legislators at the state and federal levels.”

Prior to joining Allianz Life, Ramirez worked for The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. in Hartford, Conn. where she served as government affairs counsel. She was responsible for legislative and regulatory advocacy in eight states, including Minnesota and supported the company's life insurance, annuity, and property and casualty insurance businesses. Ramirez oversaw political compliance initiatives across the company, including pre-approving political contributions and serving as Counsel to the company’s political action committees.

Ramirez also served as an attorney for the state of Connecticut for five years, where she worked in various areas, including the Department of Public Works, the Office of Governor M. Jodi Rell, and the Department of Consumer Protection. Ramirez began her career as an associate in the business law unit at the law firm of Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, P.C. in Hartford.

Ramirez holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn. She earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

New York Life Agents Produce Record Sales in 2012

New York Life, America’s largest mutual life insurance company, enjoyed another year of record sales through its primary distribution channel of 12,250 agents across the United States in 2012.

The company’s insurance sales continued to grow, with individual recurring premium life insurance sales through agents up 4% over 2011. Life insurance policies sold through agents also rose 4% in 2012, indicating strong interest in protection products, with 45% of the company’s new life insurance policies produced by agents serving the cultural markets. New York Life’s cultural markets include African-American, Chinese, Hispanic, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese.

Agents also sold $4.7 billion of annuities of all types in 2012, a 9% increase from 2011. Sales of guaranteed lifetime income annuities through agents, including the new deferred income annuity, jumped 20% over 2011, reaching a record $1.6 billion. New York Life’s annuity product suite offers consumers who are years away from retirement and those near or starting retirement the guaranteed income and financial flexibility they seek.

Sales of mutual funds through agents soared 34% over the prior year, to $807 million. The company’s solid mutual fund sales are being driven by consistent investment performance from the company’s investment boutiques in both income oriented and capital appreciation funds, which remain in high demand from customers. Barron’s once again recognized New York Life’s mutual fund complex, MainStay Funds, for delivering long-term results – naming MainStay the #1 fund family for the 10-year period in its annual ranking of mutual fund families. This is the fourth consecutive year that MainStay ranked in the top three for the 10-year period.

Mark Pfaff, executive vice president and head of New York Life’s Agency Operations, credited the outstanding results to the company’s elite field force. “What these sales figures signify is that consumers see the value of advice in these complicated times. It’s equally important for consumers to choose a company with which they can entrust their money and their futures. Our sales growth through the economic recession and beyond has crystallized the value of engaging with a New York Life agent. Our agents are recognized as the most educated and knowledgeable in the industry, and our life insurance products are backed by a company with a 168-year history of delivering on its promises and one with the highest possible financial strength ratings – a reliable combination in these uncertain times.”

In 2012, New York Life led new agent membership in the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) in the United States for a remarkable 58th consecutive year. Membership in MDRT is a distinguishing life insurance career milestone for those demonstrating superior professional knowledge, experience and client service.

New York Life Insurance Company, a Fortune 100 company founded in 1845, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States* and one of the largest life insurers in the world. New York Life has the highest possible financial strength ratings currently awarded to any life insurer from all four of the major credit rating agencies: A.M. Best (A++), Fitch (AAA), Moody’s Investors Service (Aaa), Standard & Poor’s (AA+).** Headquartered in New York City, New York Life’s family of companies offers life insurance, retirement income, investments and long-term care insurance. New York Life Investments
provides institutional asset management and retirement plan services. Other New York Life affiliates provide an array of securities products and services, as well as retail mutual funds. Please visit New York Life’s website at www.newyorklife.com for more information.

Source: Third Party Ratings Report as of 2/1/13. The financial strength and ratings do not apply to the Investment Divisions of any Variable Universal Life insurance and mutual funds because they are subject to market risks and will fluctuate in value.

New York Life Investments is a service mark used by New York Life Investment Management Holdings LLC and its subsidiary, New York Life Investment Management LLC.

Exclusive: Roche joins Life Tech auction; KKR, H&F team up - sources

Roche Holding AG and a buyout group comprising KKR & Co LP and Hellman & Friedman LLC have joined the bidding for Life Technologies Corp, a genetic testing company coveted for its advanced diagnostics and steady cash flow, according to people familiar with the matter.

Roche's interest in Life Tech, a biomedical laboratory equipment maker with an $11 billion market value, signals the Swiss drugmaker's continued interest in gene sequencing a year after its $6.8 billion hostile offer for Illumina Inc failed over price.

The potential bidders are joining what is turning out to be a competitive auction, as cheap financing and growing confidence in the U.S. economy prompt more companies and private equity firms to contemplate deals costing more than $10 billion.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, Danaher Corp and a buyout consortium of Blackstone Group LP, Carlyle Group LP, TPG Capital LP and Singapore's state investor, Temasek Holdings, are among the parties weighing bids, Reuters previously reported.

Healthcare companies have been attracted to Life Tech by the scale and synergies that a tie-up could bring while private equity firms have found the Carlsbad, California-based company's reliable cash flow appealing, people familiar with the matter said.

Bids are due in early April, said the people, who asked not to be named because details of the auction are not public.

Life Tech shares, which were down 1 percent before the news, ended up 1 percent at $63.58 on Tuesday. They are up more than 30 percent since the start of the year on hopes that the company's exploration of strategic alternatives will lead to a sale.

Representatives for KKR, Hellman & Friedman and Life Tech declined to comment. Roche said it does not comment on market speculation.

Analysts see a good fit between the laboratory equipment and scientific instrument businesses of Thermo Fisher and Life Technologies, with the exception of Life Tech's genetic sequencing, which Thermo Fisher could choose to divest after a deal.

Industrial and healthcare conglomerate Danaher, which has a life sciences and diagnostics division, agreed to buy Life Tech's stake in a mass spectrometry joint venture with MDS Analytical Technologies for $450 million in cash in 2009.

Private equity firms have tried to compete in the auction by teaming up, a move that helps them reduce the size of their individual equity commitment but does not improve their returns.

The so-called club deals have become less popular in recent years over concerns about corporate governance in acquired companies and a backlash from some fund investors who see little point in having exposure to a company through more than one buyout fund.

People close to the Life Tech sale process said buyout firms could struggle to achieve internal rates of return of 15 percent or more on the deal based on the leverage Life Technologies could take on to capture a sufficient portion of the financing market in a transaction.

Standard Life Investments' Global Absolute Return Strategies Now Offered to Accredited Investors in Canada

A track record for delivering long-term positive absolute returns with lower volatility than a traditional long-term global equity portfolio.

Global asset manager Standard Life Investments and Standard Life Mutual Funds announced today that they will offer the award-winning Standard Life Investments Global Absolute Returns Strategies (GARS) Private Pooled Fund to Canadian investors who qualify as accredited investors. These investors may be able to benefit from the global expertise of the Standard Life Investments multi-asset investing team in this area and have the opportunity to achieve long-term positive absolute returns with lower volatility than a traditional long-term global equity portfolio.

Roger Renaud , President of Standard Life Investments Inc. in Montreal said: "The absolute return strategy aims to produce consistent, positive investment returns in all market conditions while managing risk levels. What makes GARS truly unique is that it is global and has access to a wide variety of asset classes in a wide array of markets. GARS has been highly successful and has provided investors in the U.K. and worldwide with competitive returns and managed risk. That same opportunity is now available to Canadian investors who qualify as accredited investors."

Standard Life Investments originally launched GARS in the U.K. in 2006 as an innovative solution for Standard Life Group's own staff pension plan. The success was compelling enough to capture the attention of institutional investors in Europe , Asia, Australia , the U.S., and Canada . GARS is now one of the world's largest absolute return funds, with more than $30 billion under management.

During the financial crisis of 2008, while global equity markets fell over 17.4%, the GARS fund in the U.K. fell by only 3.7%. Since the inception of the fund, it has produced a gross annualized return of 8.6% with a volatility of only 5.9%. Over the same period global equities, denoted by the MSCI World Index, returned 5.3% per year with a volatility of 15.4%1.

GARS seeks to deliver consistent, positive returns for investors in all market conditions. To do so, the 27-strong GARS multi-asset team invests in a wide variety of assets such as bonds, real estate and currencies2.  They can also use advanced investment strategies that are not always available to traditional funds, including the use of derivatives to manage risk.

Euan Munro, Global Head of Multi-Asset Investing and Fixed Income at Standard Life Investments said: "The volatility of global equity markets in recent years creates uncertainty among investors about their ability to maintain the long-term value of their portfolios. GARS offers accredited investors the opportunity to reduce the volatility of their portfolios and give the potential of consistent, positive returns. The Standard Life Investments GARS Private Pooled Fund will benefit from the knowledge and experience of our multi-asset investment team, world leaders in absolute return strategies."

Since it was launched in 2006, GARS has won wide recognition in the U.K. asset management industry, including most recently: the Platinum award at the U.K. Portfolio Advisor Fund Awards in 2013; the Absolute Return category at the Investment Week Fund Manager of the Year Awards in 2012; and the Alternative Investment Category at the 100 Club Awards from Investment Advisor in the U.K, also in 2012.

Is your life insurance part piggy bank?

There are two basic types of life insurance: term plans, which provide coverage for a set number of years and usually offer a payout only if the policyholder dies during the term; and permanent policies such as whole, universal and variable life, which can provide a death benefit for as long as you live and also offer a savings component. While permanent plans are generally more expensive than term plans, a major perk is that often you can borrow from the savings reserve or cash it in. It's not always easy to tell if you can treat your policy as a piggy bank. These highlighted keywords and phrases in the sample policy below are giveaways that you can pull money from your life insurance.

Hover over the term to see its definition.

Cash value
Cash value: This is the formal term for the reserve that builds up in a permanent life insurance policy. The premiums are split two ways: Part of your money covers the actual cost of insurance, and part gets invested and accumulates value, tax-deferred, the longer you hold it. The cash value of a policy is determined by how long you've held the policy and how well the policy's investments are performing, says Keith Friedman, founder of FBO Strategies LLC, an insurance and estate planning firm in Stamford, Conn.

Rate of accumulation
Rate of accumulation: Also called "rate of return," it's how fast your policy builds its cash value. Many policies come with guaranteed interest rates, meaning your policy will accrue value steadily for as long as you pay the premiums. Some variable and universal life policies tie their rates of accumulation to the plan's investments, says Damon Bates, a vice president at MassMutual insurance. Policyholders may earn more or less depending on how those investments perform.

Policy dividend
Policy dividend: It's a refund of a portion of your life insurance premiums that's paid when the insurance company's investments have had a good year. This potential spreading of the wealth is a feature of many policies, which might be borrowed from or cashed in.

Surrender value
Surrender value: Before letting policyholders cash out, insurance companies deduct outstanding loans and may charge substantial surrender penalties. "Surrender value would be the amount of net cash value that you could cash in or surrender your policy for" after taking into account the various costs, says Bates. Surrender values are oftentimes significantly lower than the policy's true cash value.

Surrender value
Loan value: This is the maximum amount that can be borrowed from a life insurance plan. Loan values can vary, depending on the type of policy, how long it has been in force and whether the policyholder has kept up with premiums, says Friedman. "Most carriers only allow you to borrow a percentage (of the policy's cash value or surrender value), usually up to 80 percent," he adds.

Russian scientists may have found new life under Antarctic ice

Russian scientists believe they have discovered new life forms sealed off for millions of years in a subglacial lake deep under the Antarctic ice, the RIA news agency reported on Thursday.

After more than a decade of stop-and-go drilling, Russia pierced through Antarctica's frozen crust last year and took back samples of water from a vast lake that has lain untouched for at least 14 million year.

Scientists say the icy darkness of Lake Vostok, under some 12,139 feet of ice, may provide a glimpse of the planet before the Ice Age and clues to life on other planets.

"After excluding all known contaminants, bacterial DNA was found that does not match any known species in world databases," Sergei Bulat of the St Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute told RIA.

"If it (the bacteria) had been found on Mars, then without a doubt we would have said there is life on Mars - but this is DNA from Earth," he said. "We are calling this life form unidentified or unclassified."

Scientists from the United States and Britain are close on Moscow's heels to probe what life may exist in one of the most extreme environments on Earth.
This year, a U.S. expedition said they had seen living cells under a microscope in field samples taken from the shallower subglacial Lake Whillans, but more study is needed to determine what kinds of bacteria they are and how they live.

A British effort to reach a third body, Lake Ellsworth, was called off in December because of problems drilling.

What life is found in the icy depths may provide the best answer yet to whether life can exist in the extreme conditions on Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa.

The Russian discovery came from analyzing water that froze onto the end of the drill bit used to bore through to Vostok - the largest of a network of hundreds of lakes under the ice cap that acts like a blanket trapping the Earth's geothermal heat.

Bulat and other members of Russia's Antarctic mission could not be reached for comment to Reuters on Thursday.

But Bulat told RIA that scientists are waiting for more samples from the lake to confirm their discovery.

Because of the technology used to keep from polluting the pristine lake, Russia will only obtain clean water samples - uncontaminated by drilling fluid - for analysis later this year.

To answer concerns kerosene and anti-freeze from the borehole would seep into the lake, Russian engineers withdrew the drill to allow the water to percolate up into the borehole and freeze there, only returning this year to collect it.
But Bulat said the unknown microbes were found after separating out species of bacteria that are known to exist in the drilling fluid.

"When we tried to identify the DNA, it did not coincide with any of known species. It's degree of similarity was less than 86 percent," Bulat told RIA.
"That is practically zero when working with DNA. A level of 90 percent tells us the organism is unknown."

Frozen samples from deeper in the borehole collected during this year's Antarctic summer season in February are now being carried back by boat and are due in St Petersburg in May.

"If we again identify the same group of organism in that pure sample of water, then we can confidently say we have found new life on Earth," Bulat said.

Sun Life Grows Dental Biz

In an effort to grow its dental business, the life insurer Sun Life Financial Inc. (SLF) has announced it will provide its customer facility on the United Concordia Alliance network. The network has replaced the Advantage Plus Network. The service will be provided by Employee Benefits Group unit of Sun Life Financial.

The United Concordia Alliance network will thereby provide its customers with 27% more dental provider access points than the old network.

Sun Life already has an active presence in the dental insurance markets. It sells dental preferred provider organization (PPO) plans in all states in the U.S., with coverage for employees and dependents.

The plan is packaged in such a way that customers can tailor make it according to their requirements regarding deductibles, benefit waiting periods, coinsurance levels, and plan maximums. Extra benefits offered by the plan are built-in routine care, orthodontia for children and adults, and an annual maximum rollover benefit.

The company will have a braod penetration in the dental insurance markets, given that United Concordia network has 96,000 providers at more than 246,000 access points throughout the U.S.

Other players in the same industry providing dental plans are MetLife Inc. (MET), Humana Inc. (HUM) and CIGNA Corp. (CI).

During the recently reported fourth quarter earnings the company witnessed a strong growth in its Employee Benefits Group business, on the back of increased sales.

Sun Life is a leading Canadian life insurance company, with an active presence in the U.S. Over the long term we believe the company will be able to generate superior returns for its investors given a proactive approach to managing and mitigating fundamental issues.