Aviva Insurance Company Review
Aviva Life Insurance Company is the American branch of the Aviva Group plc – the largest insurance company in Great Britain. The insurer, which was formed by the merger of the Norwich Union and CGU plc insurance companies in 2000, entered the US market in 2006 by purchasing the AmerUS Group.
Even though the name Aviva is fairly new, it was adopted in 2002; the company is one of the oldest insurers in the world. The corporation's oldest subsidiary, the Contributors for Insuring Houses (later the Hand in Hand Fire Office), was formed in Tom's Coffee House in London in 1696. The company that eventually became today's Aviva, the Norwich Union, was formed in Norwich, England, in 1797.
Currently, Aviva is the sixth largest insurance company in the world with 53 million customers in 28 countries. In the UK, it offers a wide variety of products including homeowner's, health, auto and business insurance. The corporation has two operations in the United States, a life insurance company and an Investor's Unit. It is a publicly traded company that is listed on London's FTSE and the New York Stock Exchange.
Aviva has been moving to standardize its international operations by having most of them adopt the same brand name. The name was chosen because it is easy to pronounce and remember. As of April 2011 all of the company's units except RAC and Delta Lloyd had adopted the new brand name.
Aviva Life Insurance Company
The Aviva Life Insurance Company has 954,019 customers and 27,601 agents in the United States. The company was formerly the AmerUS Group based in Des Moines, Iowa.
It currently offers three kinds of life insurance: term, universal and fixed universal. The term life policies provide only a death benefit. The universal life policies provide a tax-deferred investment and a waiver premium rider that enables holders to take money out of the policy or borrow against it. The funds in the indexed universal life policies are partially invested in a stock portfolio to provide for a higher rate of return.
Aviva Annuities
Only two kinds of annuities are currently offered: traditional-fixed and fixed-indexed annuities. Although the company's website does not mention it the traditional-fixed annuity appears to be a deferred plan.
The traditional-fixed product gives holders the ability to withdraw up to 10% of the value of the plan a year without paying a penalty. Persons who haven't withdrawn funds in the last contract year can withdraw up to 20% of the plan's value without paying a penalty. The plan also pays a death benefit in the form of a lump sum to beneficiaries.
The fixed-indexed annuity can be purchased as an immediate or a deferred plan. Buyers have the option of choosing between several interest crediting options. Details of these and the stock indexes used to create this investment are not listed on Aviva's website. Indexed plan purchasers have the option of withdrawing up to 10% of their funds without paying a fee each year.
All of the firm's annuity holders have a number of payment options available. These include systematic electronic withdrawals, checkbook access, guaranteed payout and a Life Time pay option for indexed annuity purchasers. There is also a feature that enables investors to customize their plans. A Premium Bonus is mentioned in the annuity information but details of it are not provided.
Financial Ratings for Aviva
The company currently gets good but not great ratings from the big four financial analysis companies. The ratings indicate it is strong but not as financially secure as some other insurers. Unfortunately only ratings from three of the major ratings outfits are available for the company at the present time.
A.M. Best gives Aviva an A or excellent rating which means it is able to meet its insurance obligations at the present time. This is not an indication of the company's ability to meet obligations in the future. This is the third highest rating that A.M. Best gives so the company could do better in this analysis firm's opinion.
Standard & Poor's or S&P has given Aviva an A rating or fairly strong rating. This indicates that there is a small possibility that the company could be affected by economic conditions. It should be noted that Aviva is more vulnerable to economic conditions in Europe and the UK than other large insurers. This vulnerability could account for the low rating.
Moody's has given Aviva an A1 rating, which means the company has a high degree of financial security but not the highest degree of security. The insurer could do better because Moody's does provide higher ratings.
It should be noted that ratings for Aviva are not available from one of the large financial analysis firms: Fitch. This is not necessarily an indication of financial weakness, but it could be a sign that some financial data is missing.