Comments about ‘Beneficial Financial Group cuts 150 of its 214 Utah jobs’

My heart goes out to these people and their families. I hope they will all see the open door as this one closes.

Does "discontinue writing new policies" mean that current term life policy holders will no longer be able to convert to whole life policies, as promised in their insurance contracts?

Good luck to all those who lost thier jobs! We unemployed are becoming less and less of a minority! There is always comfort in groups ;) Now if we could only start our own company.....

What a sad day. Beneficial Life was a name and business we could always take pride in. Good bye old friend.

The life insurance contract is just that, a contract, and the company cannot unilaterally change it. While I don't know for certain I would be very surprised if a term policy holder could not convert. The bigger question is why would they want to?

In my last submission I did not mean to disaparage whole life policies. I think they are a very good part of a complete financial package. My point was why would someone want a Beneficial whole life policy?

They probably didn't want to and couldn't Take any money from AIG, Goldman Sachs took it all. Nothing like killing a fat hog.

Wow, I just finished signing up with Benificial today.

Why would someone want a Beneficial whole life policy, or any Beneficial policy at this point? Because Beneficial, even with its downsizing, has the financial backing of Deseret Management and the LDS Church. It is probably more likely to honor its policies and obligations than some larger insurers who may go out of business entirely because of the economic environment. Hopefully , the company plans to address any issues in communications with existing policy holders. Thanks for responding!

Well that's even more people to compete with for finance jobs in the community. It's so competitive right now to find a job it's getting so ridicilous out there. It's getting to the point where it's not even worth trying to look.

This is my wife's company. I'm pretty anxious. She still hasn't completely learned the fate of her position.

Wow, I thought that Ben-Life, being part of the LDS inc, would be guided through the tough times by virtue of prophetic insight into future market conditions! I'm bummed!

All of the people with whom I ever associated at Beneficial told me that since Beneficial is owned by the Church, it would survive through the Millennium. Oops.

Beneficial has been sold. Bet on it. The LDS Church will not allow continued hemoraging of red ink. Deseret Management is a for profit organization and is run like one. Look at ZCMI, the sugar plantations in Hawaii and other business ventures. It will be the sale that keeps the policy holders whole. That will be how Deseret Management does it.

Did you even read the article? They have assets of 3.4 billion. No need to sell it. They can just stay in existence servicing existing policies until the last policy is fulfilled, and then turn over remaining assets to DMC.

I'm bummed too....I'm a recently contracted agent who invested $500-$600 of my own money to go to a new agent training class just three weeks ago. Someone in the upper crust of the company knew what was coming and should not have had 30-35 of us fly out to Salt Lake and know that we couldn't market the product anymore. Ridiculous!

I would NOT bet on the sale of Beneficial. Trust that the company will, in fact, honor current contracts and commitments -- including conversion of Term policies. I am grateful I own Beneficial Whole Life policies and that it is still backed by the LDS Church!

Ben-life has been competing just fine for 104 years. As a former agent, the TRUTH is this company was mismanaged and got very greedy by investing in sub-prime mortgages and other exotic investments that hurt the investment accounts. You could see this coming over the past few years as VP's and many other high profile people within the company left for better opportunities. Many other poor decisions that affected the agents also hurt as benificial lost some big producers and other top employess because of big ego's and downright poor oversight and management for a insurance company. It's really sad for all those affected by the closing of Beneficial Life

Any way you look at it, this is not good for employees, agents, AND policy holders. On Beneficial's web site, in "A Letter to You From the President" Kent Cannon cites strong 2008 sales and operating profits that helped "to further strengthen our capital and surplus." He then writes "we expect 2009 to be another strong year." WRONG! 2009 and beyond will be the weakest in terms of sales and operating profits. And, since the existence of sales and operating profits contribute to capital, I would assume that the lack of sales and profits will detract from capital. This is not good for policy holders, and is the reason rating agencies will downgrade Beneficial even further. I think Kent Cannon should take his letter down ASAP. I would be concerned if I were a policy holder. Unfortunately, there is nothing policy holders can do but hope and pray.

As someone familiar with Beneficial, I would say some of you are not paying attention and making incorrect assumptions. The company is better capitalized than essentially any other life insurance company out there. They also have the financial backing of the LDS church. The church wouldn't let these policies lapse. The company is closing as stated correctly in this article due the future risk exposure being to high for the potential profits. That is simple business. If you can guarantee a certain rate of return by investing in safe investments, then that is better than risking it on a small insurance company...