Allianz Life

Annuities Offered By Allianz Life

With their headquarters in Munich, Germany, Allianz SE is the investment company for an international fiscal tower of insurance, banking and wealth management. Its operations expand to over 70 countries and utilize over 182,000 people. In 2008, Allianz SE earned 92.5 billion DM in revenue (over $140 billion) and 7.43 billion DM in operating income. The Fortune Global 500 ranked Allianz SE 22nd amid the world’s largest companies. Allianz SE is the second-largest global financial-services association in the planet, after Bank of America. In its core commerce, insurance, the corporation also ranks second-largest in the world.

Allianz Global Investors, with over 900 billion DM under administration, is among the top five asset-management companies in the world. Allianz ancillary companies include leading organizations in the bond, equity, hedge fund and real estate divisions.

A historical review of Allianz

Allianz was established in Berlin in 1890. It almost immediately became the principal insurance corporation in Germany and established a branch headquarters in London at the turn of the century. Two world wars truncated its growth, but after World War II, the company moved to Munich and began an operation of international expansion. Allianz expanded into France in the 1950s, Italy in the 1960s and Great Britain, Netherlands, Spain, Brazil and the U.S. in the 1970s. Following the Cold War, came Eastern Europe, followed by Asia, China and South Korea.

Annuities offered by Allianz

Allianz annuities comprise a fixed annuity product, four indexed-annuity products, and four variable annuity products. In recent years, an Allianz fixed-annuity has been amid the principal sellers in the market. Allianz annuities are issued by the Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, whose history dates back to 1896.  The company is rated for financial strength by three of the leading ratings agencies. It is rated A (3rd-highest of 16 ratings) by A.M. Best; AA (3rd-highest of 21 ratings) by Standard & Poor’s; and A2 (6th-highest of 21 ratings) by Moody’s.

Advice to the annuity novices

Purchasing an annuity is a huge decision. Internet research is a good quality start, but cautious investors ought to discuss every one of their options and risks with an independent financial consultant. Ask for a no-obligation consolation, along with a report of current rates on brand-name annuities.



Current information on Allianz

Allianz’ rank as the leading German banking and insurance agency brought it into contact with the Nazi Party throughout the years 1933-1945. As an affiliate of the International Commission on Holocaust Era Claims, Allianz became known for its truthful assessment of the historical evidence and its punctual compensation of all valid claims. In 2001, then-CEO Henning Schulte-Noelle headed research to dig up the reality about Allianz and the Third Reich. Gerald Feldman of the University of California at Berkeley exposed it in a book published in 2006. The book discovered that Allianz insured both citizens and property at Auschwitz, which required company staff to review the premises and find out the reasons to which the camp was put. Allianz’ inability to honor contracts with Jewish policyholders – a failure that at times involved diverting profit payments from beneficiaries to the German government – was also revealed. The company also provided insurance for valuables taken from victims at the death camps. These revelations have intermittently led to protests in opposition to the company by Jewish organizations and groups dedicated to protecting the remembrance of the Holocaust.

Through a period of worldwide mayhem in finance and insurance, many companies have undergone downgrades in ratings of fiscal power. So far, Allianz has evaded this trend; recent ratings agency reports have confirmed the company’s ratings despite the 2.44 billion DM loss they suffered in 2008. The ratings agencies cited the company’s sturdy underlying fundamentals and varied revenue base as the reason for their unchanged appraisal.

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