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April 30, 2021 at 12:42 PM
What You Need to Know
- Long-term care insurance benefits costs and changes in reserves fell 11%, to $829 million.
- Claim terminations were still up, and new claims were still down.
- Increased mortality helped single-premium immediate annuity earnings.
COVID-19 helped make Genworth Financial Inc.’s life, annuity and long-term care insurance (LTCI) business look healthier in the first quarter.
The overall risk-based capital (RBC) ratio at the U.S. Life Insurance Segment increased to 255% of the company action level in the quarter, up from 194% of the company action level a year earlier, Genworth reported Thursday, in its latest earnings report.
An RBC ratio shows state insurance regulators how an insurer’s financial resources compare with the amount of insurance and annuity business on its books. Genworth’s RBC ratio means that the company has about 2.5 times more capital than it needs to avoid having to give regulators a corrective action plan.
The life business RBC ratio improved primarily because the death rate for people collecting LTCI benefits from Genworth increased. That led to an increase in the number of LTCI claim terminations.
“Although it is not the company’s current practice to track cause of death for LTC policyholders and claimants, the elevated terminations impacting the current and prior quarter were likely the result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the company said.
The Richmond-based company is still an active writer of mortgage insurance. It was once a major player in the U.S. life and annuity markets and one of the creators of the U.S. LTCI market.
The company has suffered over the past 15 years, and suspended most sales of life, annuity and LTCI products, because of the effects of low interest rates on all of those products and of pricing problems on the LTCI products.
The Earnings
Genworth as a whole is reporting $187 million in net income for the first quarter on $2 billion in revenue, compared with a net loss of $66 million on $1.8 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2020.
The company’s U.S. Life Insurance Segment posted $62 million in adjusted operating income on $1.6 billion in revenue, up from a $70 million operating loss on $1.5 billion in revenue.
Inside the life segment, LTCI unit recorded $95 million in adjusted operating income on $1.1 billion in revenue, up from $1 million in adjusted operating income on $1 billion in revenue.
