Swiss Re strengthens position in United States

The Swiss reinsurance company, Swiss Re, has announced it has entered an agreement to acquire two US life insurance companies for US$260 million.

The Swiss reinsurance company, Swiss Re, has announced it has entered an agreement to acquire two US life insurance companies for US$260 million. The deal is for the Southwestern Life Insurance Company and the Security Life and Trust Insurance Company of Dallas, Texas.

The Dallas companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of the PennCorp Financial Group. A Swiss Re communiqué said the Administrative Reinsurance acquisition would be implemented in a chapter 11 case to be started by PennCorp under the Bankruptcy Code and subject to the approval of the Bankruptcy Court.

Through Administrative Reinsurance, Swiss Re Life & Health America buys life insurance companies and closed books of business, while at the same time relieving client companies’ systems and administrative constraints.

It enables companies to release capital tied up in non-core business for re-allocation to mainstream products, new lines of business, or even funding corporate structure changes.

“The addition of the Dallas companies to our Administrative Reinsurance portfolio will increase total assets in this line of business alone to approximately US$8.5 billion and increase annual Administrative Reinsurance revenues to more than US$1.3 billion,” said Jacques E Dubois, chief executive of Swiss Re Life and Health America.

Swiss Re Life and Health America is the largest life and health reinsurer in North America with more than US$500 billion of life insurance in force. It provides traditional life reinsurance and Administrative Reinsurance to its clients.