Jackson National Life Insurance Co. in Lansing, Mich., a unit of Prudential PLC of London, followed its best sales year with its second-best in 2008, though sales and deposits fell 3%, to $14 billion.
Sales of traditional fixed annuities rose 179%, and sales of institutional products rose 18%. Stronger sales in these sectors offset a 29% drop in sales of variable annuities.
"Recently, there has been a flight to quality in the U.S. life insurance market," Clark Manning, Jackson's president and chief executive officer, said in a press release last week.
Jackson had nearly $4 billion of regulatory adjusted capital as of Dec. 31, nearly nine times the regulatory requirement. Its statutory capital ratio was nearly 9%.
Retail sales and deposits fell 7%, to $11.8 billion, and annuity net flows fell 2%.
Life insurance sales rose 13%, to $58 million. Curian Capital, Jackson's separately managed accounts unit, had deposits decline 15.4%, to $1.1 billion. Curian's assets under management fell 25.7%, to $2.6 billion.
