Dai-Ichi to Acquire Great-West US Individual Life and Annuity Lines

Protective Life is making the new reinsurance deal with Great-West Lifeco’s Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company unit, which is based in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company and three affiliates — Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company of New York the U.S. branch of The Canada Life Assurance Company and the U.S. branch of The Great-West Life Assurance Company — intend to entrust Protective Life with:

• A bank-owned life insurance operation.
• A corporate-owned life insurance operation.
• An executive benefits operation.
• A single-premium life insurance operation.
• An individual annuity business.
• Portions of closed blocks of life and annuity business.

Protective Life would also administer a block of participating policies that would stay on Great-West Life & Annuity’s books.

Great-West Lifeco would keep:

• Great-West Life & Annuity’s Empower Retirement unit.
• Great-West Life & Annuity’s Great-West Investments unit.
• Great-West Lifeco’s individual life and annuity operations in Canada and in other parts of the world outside of the United States.

The Players’ Reasoning

Paul Mahon, Great-West Lifeco’s president, said in a statement that his company wants to focus on the retirement and asset management markets in the United States.

Richard Bielen, Protective Life’s president, said in a statement of his own that his company made the deal because it wants to get bigger.

“The life and annuity business has been a cornerstone of Protective throughout our history and will continue to be an area of future growth for the company,” Bielen said.

— Read Dai-Ichi’s Protective to Buy Genworth Term Life Insurance Blocks, on ThinkAdvisor.

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