Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate: UPDATE 2-Swiss Life income drops as wealth units struggle

Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 2-Swiss Life income drops as wealth units struggle May 8th 2012, 10:20 Tue May 8, 2012 2:24am EDT * Q1 premium income down 4 pct from year earlier * German unit AWD sees sales fall 18 pct * Insurance wrapper income down 29 percent (Adds detail, background) ZURICH, May 8 (Reuters) - Insurer Swiss Life saw premium income fall in the first three months of 2012, with the segment for managing rich people's money down by nearly a third and its troubled German wealth management unit also suffering a decline in sales. Premium income for Switzerland's biggest dedicated life insurer amounted to 6.3 billion Swiss francs ($6.8 billion) in the first three months of the year, down 4 percent in Swiss franc terms. In Switzerland, the firm's largest market, premium income rose 2 percent, but this was not enough to offset a 10 percent drop in France, its No.2 market. The insurance international segment, which sells tax-efficient insurance policies to wealthy clients, saw income drop by 29 percent to 419 million francs. A few years ago the insurer saw good business in this segment due to an Italian tax amnesty, which has now expired, and initial strong growth has tapered off. The products, known as insurance wrappers, are life insurance policies into which the very wealthy place stocks, private equity holdings and other bankable assets, allowing them to lower their tax rate. Critics say they can be used as a tax dodging tool after Switzerland caved in to global pressure and softened bank secrecy. The insurer bought financial advisory unit AWD in 2008 from German investor Carsten Maschmeyer. AWD's sales tactics have been criticised in German media for being overly aggressive, and business has faced headwinds. These did not abate in the first quarter, with AWD posting an 18 percent fall in sales revenues to 111.1 million euros. Swiss Life has already taken a 47 euro provision for AWD, which faces legal probes in Germany and Austria into whether it may have improperly pushed financial products, an allegation AWD has denied. The parent company announced no new provisions on Tuesday and in its statement did not comment on the investigations. ($1 = 0.9207 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Catherine Bosley; Editing by Mark Potter) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions