Pacific Life

Pacific Life Insurance Company
Mutual insurance
Industry Insurance; life investment products
Founded 1868
Founder Leland Stanford
Headquarters Newport Beach, California, United States
Key people
 James T. Morris (Chairman;President;CEO)
Parent Pacific Mutual
Website www.pacificlife.com

Pacific Life Insurance Company is an American insurance company providing life insurance products, annuities, and mutual funds, and offers a variety of investment products and services to individuals, businesses, and pension plans. Pacific Life also counts more than half of the 100 largest U.S. companies as clients. They currently have over 15,600 agents licensed to sell insurance, just in the state of California.

History

Pacific Mutual Life was founded in 1868 by former California Governor Leland Stanford in Sacramento, California. Stanford also was the first policy holder of the company. After Stanford died and his university (Stanford University) was strapped for money, his wife used the money from the policy to pay for professors. Starting in 1885, Pacific Mutual Life began issuing accident insurance, which was an innovative move for a life insurance company at the time. In 1906, Pacific Mutual Life merged with Conservative Life, a Los Angeles-based life insurance company. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Pacific Mutual Life's board of directors moved the company to Los Angeles. Since 2005, the company is based in Omaha, Nebraska.

During the Great Depression, the company was hit with hard times and in 1936 in an effort to save both the policy holders and the company the insurance commissioner, Samuel L. Carpenter, encouraged the policy holders to become part owners of the company through mutualization. In 1955, Pacific Mutual Life became the first company west of the Mississippi River to use the brand new technology of Univac I. At Pacific Mutual Life's one-hundredth birthday the company celebrated with keynote speaker Ronald Reagan. In 1971, the company started Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO). The company moved its headquarters to their current Newport Beach, California location in 1972 when management decided that Newport Beach would provide a higher standard of living for their families. In 1997, the company dropped mutual from its name, changing it to Pacific Life Insurance Company. This reflects the company structure's change from a mutual ownership to a mutual holding company structure. Also in 1997, the company adopted the humpback whale as symbol of the company because of the whale's persistence, performance, and strength.[1]

On May 30, 2007, Pacific Asset Management was created. Pacific Asset Management offers advisory services and institutional fixed income management. Pacific Asset Management focuses on credit oriented fixed income. Pacific Asset Management's investment team manages bank loans, high yield corporate bonds, investment grade bonds and money market securities. Pacific Asset Management provides their clients the ability to invest with an entrepreneurial, boutique investment group focused on fundamental credit analysis and supported by the scale and infrastructure of Pacific Life. Pacific Asset Management currently manage registered investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940 as well as separate accounts.

The Pacific Life Foundation was established in 1984 and is headquartered in Newport Beach, CA. At year-end 2011, the Foundation's trust principal was approximately $63.5 million. In 2011, $5.5 million was contributed to over 400 agencies in the areas of health and human services; civic, community, and environment; education; and arts and culture[2] and $5.6 million is committed through 2012.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "About Pacific Life, Our Brand Icon: The Humpback Whale". Pacific Life. 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions about the Foundation's Funding". 2012. Retrieved 19 November 2012.
  3. ↑ "Pacific Life Foundation Announces $2.4 Million in Grants to Nearly 200 Nonprofit Agencies in Southern California During Annual Grants Reception". NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.: Business Wire. January 24, 2012. Retrieved 19 November 2012.
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