Rising Dollar Hits U.K. Carrier

In addition to market volatility, a “significant strengthening of the U.S. dollar [has] led to a further increase in the costs associated with the guaranteed benefits on these variable annuity contracts,” Old Mutual says.

“Old Mutual is a great company with fantastic potential but also a number of challenges, which I look forward to tackling,” Roberts says in a statement about his new post.

To limit exposure, Old Mutual’s U.S. operations will be withdrawing products, using new currency hedging strategies, trying to improve fund mapping to reduce basis risk, and looking into the possibility of taking “corporate actions” to reduce the amount of risk associated with in-force policies, the company says.

Old Mutual operations outside of the United States have been meeting company expectations, the company says.