The company began its closing process by selling off its Lincoln Benefit Life for $600M to Resolution Life Holdings Inc. This move was an indication of its shift away from annuity agencies and life insurance. The earning 3rd quarter statement from Allstate shows $310M for the shareholders, which comes to 66% common diluted share. It is a dismal performance from $723M in Q3 2012 with approximately $1.5 per common diluted share. The company attributes this to the losses of approximately $475M in after-tax scenario during the sale of Lincoln Life.
The improvements in annuity returns during the quarter came from limited high partnership income. However, the long-term outlooks continue to remain challenged owing to continual low rates of interest. The same low rates of interest do not show a negative impact when it comes to annuity fixed sales. Q3 sales category shows $22.6B in total, which is a 31% up from the previous quarter and 35.2% higher than a-year-old statistics.
President of ING US hopes that the future alliance with Allstate will help to diversify the distribution network of the company. It will also give them access to the clients and representatives of the company present all over the nation. Consumer access enjoyed by Allstate may prove to be an asset to ING US in the coming times. They hope that it will help them to become THE Retirement Company in America.
The Q3 figures for ING shows them as occupying the 20th position among the top 20 annuity fixed sellers. Throughout the 3rd quarter, their sales figures show $894M. Alliance between Allstate and ING is nothing new because they earlier went for a distribution partnership where ING gave concessions due to gross dealers to Allstate. However, it does not take responsibility for the servicing annuities sold by Allstate.
ING is all for an image makeover as shown by its decision of rebranding to Voya Financial, a process still in progress currently. The strategic alliance with Allstate to strengthen its product distribution system is another step in the same direction.
