Genworth Financial

Company history

A.G. McIlwaine was the company’s first president. Begun by two dozen Petersburg investors, the Life Insurance Company of Virginia offered its first policies to local customers before expanding to Richmond, Virginia. Under general agent F.W. Chamberlayne, the Richmond Department attracted a large number of new clients. Within the first decade, the client base expanded beyond the South.

As the Life Insurance Company of Virginia grew, the headquarters were moved to Richmond, Virginia. By the turn of the twentieth century, the company offered products through different divisions,. The “Ordinary Division” of the company offered whole life annuity options and related products, the “Intermediate Division” offered term life products, endowment policies, and limited payment policies, and an industrial division offered inexpensive products.

Colloquially known as “Life of Virginia”, the company expanded its portfolio in the 20th century. Beginning with its first annuities business written in 1928, the company grew to include different mortgage insurance, lifestyle protection, and long-term care products and options.

Over the past few decades, the company has undergone several major acquisitions, beginning in 1986 when Life of Virginia was acquired by Combined Insurance for $557 million, which became AON Corporation the following year. In 1995, almost a decade after the acquisition, GE Capital, the financial services unit of General Electric, announced its plan to buy most of AON Corporation’s life insurance business, including Life of Virginia.

Under GE Capital, Life of Virginia became a part of GE Financial Assurance Holdings, Inc., before becoming GE Capital Assurance Company. The company was incorporated as Genworth Financial, Inc. on October 23, 2003, formed out of several GE Capital insurance companies. On May 25, 2004, Genworth became a publicly traded company in the largest initial public offering (IPO) of 2004.

GE sold its remaining stake in the company in 2006 for an estimated $2.8 billion. In 2007, another GE Capital insurance company, First Colony Life Insurance Company, merged with Genworth Life and Annuity Assurance Company, one of the entities within Genworth Financial, Inc, also in 2007, Sun Life Financial bought the Employee Benefits Group (EBG) of Genworth Financial, putting Sun Life Financial on the top market for Employee Benefits programs. As of December 31, 2011, Genworth Financial, Inc. had more than 15 million customers in more than 25 countries.

In October of 2016, China Oceanwide Holdings Group agreed to buy Genworth Financial Inc. for $2.7 billion in US dollars.

Products and services

Genworth Financial offers a range of products and services, including long-term care insurance and mortgage insurance. In 2016, the company suspended sales of annuities and life insurance, putting the existing books of business in to runoff. In 2012, Genworth’s U.S. companies paid over $3.2 billion in benefits to life insurance, long-term care insurance, and annuity policyholders and beneficiaries.

The company provides individual long-term care insurance, group long-term care insurance for employers offering benefits to employees, and caregiver support services.

Prior to 2016, the company offered several annuities: fixed immediate annuities, traditional fixed deferred annuities, and fixed index annuities.

Life insurance was the company’s first product. As of December 2013, Genworth Life and Annuity Insurance Company and Genworth Life Insurance Company have over $728 billion in force. Prior to the suspension of sales in 2016, the firm offered term life insurance, whole life insurance, universal life insurance, and index universal life insurance.

Mortgage insurance

Genworth’s offers mortgage insurance, with benefits including homebuyer privileges, which provides rebates to items purchased for the home, and the homeowner assistance program, in which Genworth professionals work with homeowners and lenders to structure a feasible loan repayment program.

Awards

Genworth Financial won “Best of Show” in 2007 at the Insurance & Financial Communicators Association (I.F.C.A) for outstanding interactive advertisement for their 100+ stories microsite. The microsite, which used a variety of multimedia to communicate the experiences of Americans who are 100 years of age or older, also won other accolades in 2007, including “Best of Category”, two gold and one silver awards in the Horizon Interactive Awards, and a gold award in the Financial Communications Society (FCS) portfolio awards.

For three consecutive years (2012-2014), Genworth Financial received the DALBAR Life Insurance Service Award, making it the only life insurance firm to emerge as a leader in customer service. DALBAR identified characteristics that differentiated Genworth Financial from the rest of the life insurance industry, including their high degree of professionalism in dealing with policyholders, and their high attention to detail when answering clients’ questions. Genworth also won DALBAR’s annual Annuity Service Award, making them one of six companies that had “emerged as the titans of customer service in 2014".

Securities fraud lawsuits

On April 14, 2014, a class action lawsuit was commenced the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Genworth for "disseminating false and misleading statements to the investing public."

Another lawsuit was brought in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of investors. On March 14, 2016, the Alberta Investment Management Corporation and the Fresno County Employees' Retirement Association reached an agreement in principle to recover USD 219 million. The lawsuit alleged that Genworth and certain senior executives made false and misleading statements about Genworth's long-term care insurance business and the company's financial statements between October 30, 2013 and November 5, 2014.