Wealth management

The number of employers offering health savings accounts could more than quadruple next year, according to a survey by Mellon Financial Corp.'s human resources and investor solutions unit that was released Thursday.

Regions Insurance Group, a subsidiary of Regions Financial Corp. in Birmingham, Ala., said it has bought the customer accounts of Galbreath Insurance Agency in Memphis through its Rebsamen Insurance Inc. unit.

Insurance companies and asset managers should enhance online tools on education, suitability, and sales training to support variable annuity sales, according to a study released Wednesday by kasina, a financial services consulting firm in New York.

Legislation to make 529 college savings plans permanently tax-free could draw more assets and investors to the product, but analysts said they doubt a bill introduced this week will create a rush of college savings plan sponsors.

Americans expect to live longer in retirement than their parents did, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Association for Variable Annuities.

Legislation was introduced Tuesday to make permanent the tax-free treatment of qualified withdrawals from 529 college savings plans.

When Manulife Financial Corp. bought John Hancock Financial Services Inc., industry experts were skeptical whether the deal would give the Toronto insurer what it really wanted - penetration in the bank channel.

Industry studies have shown a resurgence in variable life product sales, and the U.S. subsidiary of the Dutch insurance and banking giant ING Group NV said Monday that it had responded with a revamping of the fund lineup for its variable universal life insurance subaccounts.

VantisLife Insurance Co. has announced that 1st Mariner Bank in Baltimore will start selling the VantisLife product line.

Eaton Vance, known mostly for its retail mutual funds, is laying the groundwork for a push into the crowded institutional investor market, company executives say.

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., which started a Japanese operation less than four and a half years ago, said Friday that it has sold $17.3 billion of variable and fixed annuities there, or more than two trillion yen worth.

A.M. Best Co. said Friday that it has affirmed the A-plus financial strength ratings of the primary life insurance entities of Aegon’s U.S. operations and revised their rating outlooks to stable from negative.

Leaning heavily on its banking parent and focusing on its own backyard, the mutual fund subsidiary of UnionBanCal Corp. was able to nearly double its managed assets in the late 1990s, but the fund unit’s head says it must expand distribution nationally to double assets again by 2008.

Genworth Financial Inc. said Thursday that it had gotten a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking documents relating to “certain loss mitigation insurance products.”

Banks' mutual funds underperformed the industry in terms of first-quarter asset and flow trends in equity, fixed-income, and money market portfolios, according to a report by Goldman Sachs' global investment research unit.

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. says it wants to aggressively expand its mutual fund family — so much so that it is devoting its entire $20 million advertising budget to the product this year.

Eaton Vance Corp., a Boston investment management company, said Wednesday that it has hired Lisa Jones to head the institutional business at Eaton Vance Management.

Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. said Tuesday that it had hired Don Donnally Jr. and David Greenman from Smith Barney to be managing directors in its private-client services division.