With M&A activity for life insurers or blocks of in-force business poised for a possible spike, acquirers of life businesses should consider factors that are peculiar to, or disproportionately affect, the life and annuity sector relative to other types of insurers such as property-casualty (p&c).
Such features specific to life companies include the following, which require a dedicated focus on due diligence and may also require appropriate tailoring of representations and warranties or other provisions in the purchase contract:
- A life insurer’s
competitive space differs from that of a p&c
counterpart. While a p&c carrier is largely competing against
other insurers, a life insurer is potentially competing against not
only peer insurers but also providers of investment products such
as banks, broker-dealers, investment managers, financial advisers,
mutual funds and private funds.
- Life insurance products are by their
nature more tax-sensitive than p&c products,
requiring special focus on tax compliance of the carrier’s
products.
- Variable life insurance and variable annuities are regulated both as securities at the federal level and as insurance at the state level, making compliance issues more acute than for many other types of insurers.
In addition, regulatory developments in recent years affecting life insurers warrant thoughtful attention in all phases of the acquisition. Subjects of these developments include the following:
- Captive reinsurers
have been used by life carriers for nearly two decades, especially
to finance the redundant reserves associated with certain types of
life products (notably, variable annuities, term life and universal
life with secondary guarantees (ULSG)). In recent years, the
National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and state
insurance departments have enacted reforms intended to simplify the
capital and reserving regimes associated with these products, and
thus obviate (or at least reduce) the need for such captives. These
reforms include:
- Principle-based
reserving. The three-year phase-in period ends on Jan. 1,
2020.
- Actuarial Guideline 48, which was
adopted by the NAIC as a model regulation in December 2016 and is
pending adoption in the various states. The Guideline specifies the
types and amounts of collateral that must be posted in order to
secure reinsurance obligations associated with term and
ULSG products.
- The NAIC’s Variable Annuity Framework, finalized in 2018 and in the process of being implemented by the states. The Framework is designed to motivate carriers that historically wrote variable annuities and ceded those to captives to recapture that business and bring it back onto the carriers' balance sheets.
- Principle-based
reserving. The three-year phase-in period ends on Jan. 1,
2020.
- States have begun to consider and
adopt “best interest” laws and
regulations that impose heightened standards on sellers of life
insurance products. These measures have been enacted largely in
response to a perception that federal efforts to impose a fiduciary
standard on sales of retirement products have slowed under the
Trump administration and, similarly, in response to the Securities
and Exchange Commission’s recent Regulation BI for
broker-dealers. The state measures being adopted apply more
squarely to life insurance products in general. Historically,
carriers and producers were required to observe
“suitability” requirements (that is,
to take measures to ensure that a product offered to a consumer was
suitable for that buyer). Under these new requirements, generally,
an insurance agent would have to act in the consumer’s
“best interest” — a more rigorous threshold. For
example:
- New York’s amended Regulation
187, which survived a judicial challenge in July and became
effective Aug. 1, is a prime example of this new generation of
producer regulations. New York’s version specifically
requires a New York-licensed insurer to establish a system of
supervision over its producers to achieve the insurer’s and
the producer’s compliance with the fiduciary-type
requirements.
- Nevada and Maryland have also taken steps on similar measures.
- New York’s amended Regulation
187, which survived a judicial challenge in July and became
effective Aug. 1, is a prime example of this new generation of
producer regulations. New York’s version specifically
requires a New York-licensed insurer to establish a system of
supervision over its producers to achieve the insurer’s and
the producer’s compliance with the fiduciary-type
requirements.
It can be expected that compliance with these rules for new business will be a key focus of New York and other state insurance regulators going forward. Acquirers will want to make sure they understand the reach of any such new requirements and the resulting compliance implications for their target.
- In another key New York development
of recent years, the New York Department of Financial Services
(DFS) now may require an acquirer of a New York-domiciled life
insurer to post a collateral trust if the
superintendent determines such a trust necessary for protection of
policyholders or shareholders. The trust would have to conform to
Regulation 114, New York’s detailed requirements for
reinsurance collateral trusts. The provision is mainly aimed at
acquirers that are private funds, and the
Superintendent may take into account such status in determining
whether a trust is required. Acquirers will want to consider this
risk in crafting the “burdensome condition” provision
of the purchase contract, among others.
- An emerging issue for life carriers concerns the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in underwriting. Carriers writing business in New York are subject to the DFS’s January 2019 guidance on the use of external sources in underwriting life insurance products, the first significant effort by a state insurance department to impose restrictions on and guidelines for the use of AI by life insurers. (For a fuller discussion of the DFS guidance, see our article in the August 2019 Funds Talk, here.) In addition, the NAIC is actively studying a range of issues resulting from the use of AI in insurance generally, suggesting that future regulation across the states on the use of “big data” is possible.
An acquirer should consider all these developments carefully in the context of a particular insurance target, not only from a valuation standpoint but also for purposes of representations and warranties in the purchase agreement such as those relating to actuarial reserving, reinsurance, investments, capital adequacy and regulatory and other compliance.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.