New N.Y. Life President Happy About Mutual Charter

Many life insurers have argued in recent years that they needed to demutualize to obtain capital from Wall Street, but New York Life has plenty of capital to finance its operations and growth, Sievert says.

Maintaining a mutual charter also gives New York Life the ability to sell participating whole life insurance policies, or policies that offer policyholders a chance to participate in the company's profits, at a time when many major, newly demutualized competitors are unable to do so, Sievert says.

A few years ago, Wall Street analysts might have skewered a life insurer that stood by dowdy old fixed annuities. But now the fact that New York Life kept its fixed annuities on the shelf is helping the company attract consumers looking for stability, Sievert says.

New York Life is also continuing to emphasize efforts to go after "cultural markets," such as Asian Indians, Chinese Americans and African-Americans, and Sievert reports the company is now pursuing the bank-owned and corporate-owned life insurance markets.

Some life insurers have complained in recent quarters about wild swings in COLI and BOLI sales, but New York Life believes its new campaign to enter the COLI/BOLI market represents an expansion opportunity for its agents, Sievert says.