Genworth Reports Higher Subsidiary Capital Levels
The company says it disagrees with New York about how to account for LTCI rate increases.
Genworth Financial Inc. is reporting higher capital levels at its U.S. life insurance company subsidiaries.
The Richmond, Virginia-based company is a major player in the mortgage insurance market. It was a large issuer of life insurance, annuities and long-term care insurance (LTCI), and it still sells some LTCI coverage.
Resources
- A link to a copy of the Genworth new capital level announcement is available here.
- An article about Genworth’s 2019 capital level announcement is available here.
Here’s what Genworth said about the subsidiaries’ “risk-based capital” (RBC) ratios, or financial health numbers:
- Genworth Life Insurance Company (GLIC), the subsidiary that has written most of Genworth’s LTCI business and some other products, increased its RBC ratio to 213%, from 199% a year earlier.
- Genworth Life and Annuity Insurance Company (GLAIC), a subsidiary that controls GLIC and has focused mainly on writing life insurance and annuities, increased its RBC ratio to 438%, from 422%.
- Genworth Life Insurance Company of New York (GLICNY), a subsidiary that wrote business in New York state, increased its RBC ratio to 291%, from 223%.
The improvement at GLIC was due to “strong in-force rate action performance in long-term care insurance, favorable market impacts in annuities, and the consolidation and restructuring of three existing captive reinsurance entities,” according to Genworth.
GLAIC’s RBC ratio improved because of adjustments in calculations for what expenses, assets and product lapse rates will look like, Genworth says.
The Background
Genworth is in the process of trying to get the regulatory approvals needed for it to be acquired by China Oceanwide Holdings Ltd. of Beijing. The company faces concerns about capital levels partly because low interest rates and inaccurate assumptions about LTCI policyholder behavior have hurt the performance of the LTCI policies the company has issued.
Genworth, like all other U.S. life insurers, uses RBC ratios to summarize its capitalization levels.
The National Association of Insurance Commission developed the RBC ratio system to provide a rough indicator of how well an insurer is equipped to meet its insurance and annuity obligations.
New York State
Genworth says in the capitalization announcement that it has disagreed with New York state regulators about whether to include the effects of LTCI rate increases that have not been approved in GLICNY’s capital levels. Genworth says it has ended up including the effects of recently requested increases for some newer LTCI policies in its cash-flow testing results.
With the effects of the premium increases included, GLICNY could have done a little better than expected, but, because interest rates fell, GLICNY had to add $16 million to reserves, according to Genworth.
— Read Genworth Completes Sale of Stake in Canadian Unit, on ThinkAdvisor.
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