Life insurance assets from Swiss Re in U.S. may soon be for sale

life insurance news

The company has announced that it is considering a retreat from the market in the United States.

Sources familiar with Swiss Re Ltd. have revealed that it is thinking about putting its Aurora National Life Assurance Co. up for sale as it is drawing back from the American health and life insurance marketplace.

This second largest reinsurer in the world is now taking efforts to seek out buyers for the assets.

Swiss Re is working alongside Barclays PLC in order to be able to locate buyers for Aurora National as well as other life insurance assets in the United States, according to two individuals who requested that they not be identified as this is not yet an announcement that has been officially made public.

life insurance newsThe sale of the life insurance assets are expected to raise over $400 million for Swiss Re.

The deal would also include approximately $5 billion in assets, including life insurance policies and annuities that are corporate owned and otherwise. When asked for comment, both the Swiss Re spokesperson, Mark Bonthrone, and a spokesperson in New York for Barclays, Brandon Ashcraft, declined.

A J. Safra Sarasin, analyst based in Zurich, Patrick Hasenboehler, said that “The management is actively working on sharpening the business portfolio.” He added that “We would welcome a potential transaction as it would speed up the process of improving the overall profitability and help to allocate more capital to the core non-life reinsurance business.” Hasenboehler has a buy rating on the company’s shares. The shares have already risen by 16 percent this year

Aurora National is based in Hartford, Connecticut, and by June 2012, it had more than $3 billion in assets and had serviced over 88,000 annuity and life insurance policies. This, according to the data on its website. That insurer and the other assets were an element of the SRLC America Holding Corp., which was sold by Swiss Re in 2012 and was purchased by Prudential Plc., an insurer based in London.

SRLC was the holding company for the American division of the Admin Re business from Swiss Re. It purchased health and life insurance companies that had stopped writing new policies.

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