Pacific Life Strengthens New Channel With FIA Launch

Pacific Index Dimensions, a new fixed index annuity launched earlier this month by Pacific Life, is the company’s new FIA designed specifically for distribution by Pacific Life’s Producer Alliance Program, a distribution channel launched three years ago.

Adding the Producer Alliance Program channel has made Pacific Life’s products available to a broader range of retail financial professionals who benefit from a higher level of service to help sell the company’s fixed annuity products, Pacific Life said.

Index Dimensions is available only to independent insurance agents and agencies that contract with Pacific Life through the Producer Alliance Program.

Pacific Life distributes products through independent broker/dealers, national and regional wirehouses, financial institutions and structured settlement brokers.

Wink’s Sales & Market Report ranked Pacific Life as the nation’s 16th largest seller of index annuities last year with sales of $826.7 million, down 27.3 percent from 2013.

Wink’s data show that index annuity sales among the top-40 sellers of index annuities in the U.S. reached $46.8 billion last year, an increase of 21 percent over 2013.

Since the launch of the Producer Alliance Program, agents have sent the company feedback related to product design, according to Christine Tucker, vice president of marketing in the Retirement Solutions Division of Pacific Life.

“Pacific Index Dimensions was developed largely based on this feedback,” she wrote in an email to InsuranceNewsNet.

Design elements of Index Dimensions include index-linked crediting options based on the Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Morgan Stanley Capital International EAFE index, a choice of a seven-year or 10-year withdrawal charge schedule, and interest crediting alternatives to capped interest and fixed interest-rate crediting methods.

Tucker also said that an optional guaranteed withdrawal benefit is also available for 0.75 percent of the annuity’s protected payment base, deducted annually, for both the single life and joint life options.

“Pacific Index Dimensions offers the features that agents are looking for when a fixed index annuity is the appropriate solution to meet their client’s need,” she added.

She said that Pacific Index Dimensions is most appropriate for “conservative clients with accumulation needs or conservative pre-retirees or retirees with guaranteed lifetime income needs.”

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Writer Cyril Tuohy has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. Cyril may be reached at cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com.

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Cyril Tuohy is a writer based in Pennsylvania. He has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. He can be reached at cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com.