On Thursday, May 1st, Aviva transitioned their life product portfolio to the new company, Accordia Life. This transition included multiple product changes; their portfolio consists of two individual indexed universal life products, a second-to-die indexed universal life product, a current assumption universal life product and term.
Advantage Builder IV and Life Stage UL were replaced by Life Provider and Life Assure, respectively. Lifetime Builder and Survivorship Builder remain available (same name, new paper) with minimal changes (no rate changes). Accordia Life doesnt have a participating product in the no-lapse guarantee market.
Accordia Life Provider replaced Advantage Builder IV for indexed universal life protection-oriented death benefit solves. Advantage Builder IV was best positioned within the NLG market, where it had competitive premiums and respectable cash accumulation. Life Provider does not offer a no-lapse guarantee rider; therefore, it cannot be used for no-lapse guarantee solve strategies. Life Provider was specifically built to be utilized as a protection-oriented death benefit product. When illustrated at the max rate solving for $1 CSV @ 121, premiums are lower than the Advantage Builder IV by about 9% and 16% for full-pay and short-pays, respectively. While this is a significant improvement from the old product, Life Provider rarely manages to break into the top half of the market. Cash values and targets tend to fall middle of the pack.
Accordia Life Assure provides a nice change to the portfolio, as the old Life Stage UL hadnt been touched in years. Life Stage UL was most competitive for younger-age, single-pay scenarios. In these cases, premiums frequently broke into the top quartile. With the release of Life Assure, premiums saw significant rate reductions for all non-tobacco risk classes ages 70 and under for single, short and full-pay payment structures. Now, Life Assure falls within the top quartile for non-tobacco risk classes, all payment structures for ages 60 and under. This product offers strong imbedded primary guarantees: ages 0-35 (30 years), 36-45 (25 years), 46-55 (20 years), 56-65 (15 years), 66-75 (10 years) and 76-85 (5 years). Cash values and targets mostly lie in the bottom half of the market. These changes make Life Assure a pretty strong product in the current assumption universal life market; however, there are several hot contenders that own this market (John Hancock, Pac Life & Penn Mutual), which will make it very difficult for Accordia Life to compete.
The unique Wellness for Life Rider continues to be available as a differentiator in the market place. Over time, this rider allows clients to build additional cash value within the policy via reductions in cost of insurance. It is available on Life Provider, Lifetime Builder and Life Assure. Also available is a Term offering of 10, 20 or 30 years and Annual Renewable Term.
Rates were updated on the website as of Tuesday, May 6th, 2014.