Allianz Life

Allianz Life was originally founded as North American Casualty in 1896. It was acquired by the German corporation Allianz in 1979, and in 1993 the company’s name was changed to Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America.

Today, Allianz Life manages over $100 billion in assets. The company is a subsidiary of the German financial services group Allianz SE, which is the world’s fifth-largest asset manager and third-largest insurance company.

According to their website, Allianz Life’s mission is “We secure your future,” and their vision is “Living your life with confidence.” The company’s main business line is providing retirement solutions such as annuities and life insurance for individuals.

Credit ratings, also called financial strength ratings, offer consumers insight into the financial stability of an annuity provider. These scores are issued by independent credit rating agencies.

If you’re interested in purchasing an annuity, it’s a good idea to investigate the ratings of the company you’re looking at before you buy. The higher the rating, the more you can trust that the insurance company can uphold its end of an annuity contract.

Allianz Life holds strong ratings from three of the most respected credit rating agencies in the country: AM Best, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s Global.

Allianz Life’s annuity offerings help customers fulfill their unique financial needs and retirement goals. The company sells two types of annuities: fixed index annuities and index variable annuities.

Fixed Index Annuities

The first type of annuity offered by Allianz Life is the fixed index annuity (FIA) product line. These insurance products accumulate interest on an initial lump sum before converting that lump sum into a stream of guaranteed income. This makes FIAs useful for customers who are hoping to build long-term savings.

The growth of an FIA is tied to the performance of one or more equity market indexes during the accumulation period of the annuity. But, if the market underperforms, the annuity won’t lose any value. This type of annuity usually does have a cap on how much you can earn, so the annuity won’t get the full benefit of an especially strong market year.

Allianz Life provides seven distinct FIA products.

Index Variable Annuities

In addition to fixed index annuities, Allianz Life also offers what they call index variable annuity (IVA) products. These products carry a bit more risk than the fixed index annuities because the value of the annuity is fully tied to market performance, rather than just the interest the annuity can earn.

However, index variable annuities can offer a greater potential for growth than fixed index annuities because the IVA’s earnings are not capped in the same way the FIA’s are. Because of this, IVA products are better suited to customers who can weather a higher level of risk in exchange for the potential to grow their savings even more.

With options for different market indexes the contract can be tied to, Allianz Life’s five types of IVA products allow annuity holders to customize the investments in their annuity’s portfolio.

In addition to selling annuity products, Allianz Life sells life insurance policies. On the company’s website, you can find instructional videos and articles as well as planning tools and calculators, all aimed at helping people understand the complex personal finance issues that come with retirement planning.

For those who wish to dive deeper into these topics, Allianz Life provides an online research library. Here, you’ll find historical white papers for consumer research studies commissioned by Allianz. The white papers discuss subjects such as the challenges of the current retirement landscape and strategies for successful retirement income.

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