Executives at Ameriprise Financial Inc. said that they believe the company's closed block of long-term care insurance (LTCI) business is in good shape, and that they would consider an LTCI risk transfer deal only if the price were right.
Ameriprise executives talked about the LTCI block today during a conference call with securities analysts. The company held the call to go over its third-quarter earnings.
James Cracchiolo, the company's chief executive officer, and Walter Berman, the chief financial officer, tried to talk about other topics.
Cracchiolo, for example, talked briefly about the company's life, health and annuity products. He noted, for example, that the company sells its life and health products only to Ameriprise clients, as part of a comprehensive solution set.
He said the company has been spending time on advancing big data initiatives, for both the asset-management operations and the distribution operations.
Berman pointed out that overall advisor productivity has increased at a combined annual rate of 8% over the past three years, to the equivalent of about $613,000 per year.
Securities analysts did ask about a variety of topics, such as the effects of increased stock market volatility, and the possible effects of a possible slowdown in asset growth.
But many of the analyst questions focused on the company's LTCI block.
Ameriprise sold LTCI from 1989 through 2002. Roughly 112,000 of the 267,000 policies the company sold are still in force, and 8,000 of the policyholders are collecting benefits, according to a company conference call slidedeck.