Instant Term Populizer To Buy New York Life Insurer

August 11, 2005 at 08:00 PM
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Inviva Inc. has agreed to acquire Utica National Life Insurance Company from Utica Mutual Insurance Company.[@@]

Inviva, Louisville, Ky., is best known as the company that invented the "instant term" life insurance sales system, by combining lightly underwritten short-term coverage with more carefully underwritten long-term coverage.

Utica National Life, also known as UticaLIFE, was founded as General Reinsurance Life Corp., Greenwich, Conn., in 1961. Utica National, an established property-casualty insurer, acquired General Reinsurance Life in 1978 and converted it into a vehicle for helping Utica National property-casualty agents sell life insurance.

Utica National Life is licensed to write life insurance in 24 states and generated $19 million in net premium income in 2004, according to Utica National, New Hartford, N.Y. Most of the life company's revenue came from New York state.

Utica National Life has 5,000 fixed annuities on its books and 40,000 life insurance policies. Most of the life policies are universal life policies, according to Utica National.

Inviva also will be getting $250 million in invested assets and about $2 million to $4 million in annual operating income.

Inviva and Utica National are not discussing the price of the Utica National Life deal, but the companies say they expect to complete the deal by the end of the year.

Acquiring the Utica National Life business should be a good demonstration of the ability of Inviva's automated systems to integrate acquired blocks of business quickly and inexpensively, Inviva says.

Utica National Chief Executive J. Douglas Robinson says his company is making the deal so that it can devote more attention to its property-casualty operations.

"UticaLIFE just was not able to achieve the scale of operation that would allow it to stand alone," Robinson says.

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