Buying Jefferson-Pilot Corp. would make Lincoln National Corp. one of the country's largest public life insurance companies, but an analyst said it would not make Lincoln a top 10 annuity provider in the bank channel.
Once the $7.5 billion deal closes, Lincoln would have the most universal-life sales in the industry, the Philadelphia company said Monday.
But Kenneth Kehrer, the president of Kenneth Kehrer Associates, a Princeton, N.J., firm that tracks banks' annuity sales, said Tuesday that the two insurers would not complement one another well, especially in the variable annuity business that Lincoln has been trying to overhaul.
His firm ranked Lincoln 18th in second-quarter variable annuity sales through banks, with $42 million; Jefferson-Pilot does not offer variables.
Jefferson-Pilot, of Greensboro, N.C., has been one of the major providers of index annuity products, a fast-growing variant of the fixed product, but Lincoln has not begun offering them, Mr. Kehrer said.
After buying Jefferson-Pilot, Lincoln would be the 15th-largest seller of fixed annuities through banks, he said. Lincoln ranked 22d in the second quarter, with $22 million of sales, and Jefferson-Pilot ranked 16th, with $67 million.
