As a component of its investment strategy and to reduce its exposure to interest rate risk, the Company utilizes interest rate swap agreements. Interest rate swap agreements are agreements to exchange with a counterparty interest rate payments of differing character (e.g., fixed-rate payments exchanged for floating-rate payments) based on an underlying principal balance (notional principal) to hedge against interest rate changes. The Company also utilizes equity and interest derivatives to hedge against stock market exposure inherent in the guaranteed minimum living and death benefit features of the Company's variable annuities.
The Group Protection Segment had pre-tax income of $4.5 million and $0.3 million for the twelve-month periods ended December 31, 2006 and 2005, respectively.
Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (U.S.) (the "Company") and its subsidiaries are primarily engaged in the sale of individual and group variable life insurance, individual universal life insurance, individual and group fixed and variable annuities, funding agreements, group life, group disability, and group stop loss insurance. These products are distributed through individual insurance agents, financial planners, insurance brokers and broker-dealers to both the tax qualified and non-tax-qualified markets. The Company is authorized to transact business in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In addition, the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Sun Life Insurance and Annuity Company of New York ("SLNY"), is authorized to transact business in the State of New York.
The Company is a stock life insurance company incorporated under the laws of Delaware. The Company is a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of the Parent. The Company is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada - U.S. Operations Holdings, Inc. ("SLC - U.S. Ops Holdings") and is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Sun Life Financial Inc. ("SLF"), a reporting company under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. SLF and its subsidiaries are collectively referred to herein as "Sun Life Financial."
Although realization of DAC is not assured, the Company believes it is more likely than not that all of these costs will be realized. The amount of DAC considered realizable, however, could be reduced in the near term if the estimates of gross profits or total revenues discussed above are reduced.
During 2004, the Company sold commercial mortgage loans in securitization transactions. The mortgages were primarily sold to qualified special purpose entities that were established for the purpose of purchasing the assets and issuing trust certificates. In these transactions, the Company retained investment tranches, which are considered available-for-sale securities, in addition to servicing rights. The securitizations are structured so that investors have no recourse to the Company’s other assets for failure of debtors to pay when due. The value of the Company’s retained interests are subject to credit and interest rate risk on the transferred financial assets. The Company recognized pre-tax gains of $3.0 million for its 2004 securitization transaction. The Company did not sell any commercial mortgage loans in securitization transactions in 2005 or 2006.
The Company has agreements with SLOC and several unrelated companies, which provide for reinsurance of portions of the net-amount-at-risk under certain individual variable universal life, individual private placement variable universal life, bank owned life insurance ("BOLI"), and corporate owned life insurance ("COLI") policies. These amounts are reinsured on either a monthly renewable or a yearly renewable term basis. Fee income was reduced by $37.8 million, $33.3 million and $28.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2006, 2005 and 2004, respectively, to account for these agreements.
Weighted average assumptions used to determine net periodic benefit cost were as follows:
Due to the over funded status of the retirement plan and the agent pension plan, the Company will not be making contributions to the plan in 2007. The Company will be making a contribution of $1.1 million to the UBF plan in 2007.
The following roll-forward summarizes the reserve for the GMDB’s and GMIB’s at December 31, 2006:
The Corporate Segment includes the unallocated capital of the Company, its debt financing, certain consolidated investments in VIEs, and items not otherwise attributable to the other segments.
Pursuant to Delaware's statute, the maximum amount of dividends and other distributions that a domestic insurer may pay in any twelve-month period without prior approval of the Delaware Commissioner of Insurance is limited to the greater of (i) ten percent of its statutory surplus as of the preceding December 31, or (ii) the individual company's statutory net gain from operations for the preceding calendar year. Any dividends to be paid by an insurer from a source other than statutory surplus, whether or not in excess of the aforementioned threshold, would also require the prior approval of the Delaware Commissioner of Insurance. The Company is permitted to pay dividends up to a maximum of $171.2 million in 2007 without prior approval from the Delaware Commissioner of Insurance.