| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NYSE: LNC S&P 500 Component |
| Industry | Insurance, Asset management |
| Founded | 1905 |
| Headquarters | Radnor, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Key people | Dennis R. Glass, President & CEO |
| Total assets | $141 billion (2009) |
| Total equity | $11.7 billion (2009) |
| Website | www.lincolnfinancial.com |
Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE: LNC) is a Fortune 200 American holding company, which operates multiple insurance and investment management businesses through subsidiary companies. Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for LNC and its subsidiary companies.
LNC was organized under the laws of the state of Indiana in 1968, and maintains its principal executive offices in Radnor, Pennsylvania.[1] The company traces its roots to its earliest predecessor founded in 1905.
In addition, LNC is the naming rights sponsor of Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, home field of the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League.
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LNC divides operations into four business segments: 1) Lincoln Retirement, 2) Life Insurance, 3) Investment Management, 4) Lincoln Financial Media. The principal Lincoln subsidiaries are
At December 31, 2009, LNC had consolidated assets of $141 billion and consolidated shareholders’ equity of $11.7 billion.
Lincoln traces its origin to June 12, 1905, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company. Perry Randall, a Fort Wayne attorney and entrepreneur, suggested the name "Lincoln," arguing that the name of Abraham Lincoln would powerfully convey a spirit of integrity. In August, 1905 Robert Todd Lincoln provided a photograph of his father, along with a letter authorizing the use of his father's likeness and name for company stationery and advertising.
In 1928, LNC president Arthur Hall hired Dr. Louis A. Warren, a Lincoln scholar, and in 1929, LNC acquired one of the largest collections of books about Abraham Lincoln in the United States. The Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne was the second largest Lincoln museum in the country. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois is now the world's largest museum dedicated to the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, after the closing of the Fort Wayne Lincoln Museum June 30, 2008.
Ian Rolland started with Lincoln in 1956, and became president of Lincoln National Life in 1977. When he retired in 1998, new president Jon A. Boscia moved LNC to Philadelphia and started using the Lincoln Financial Group name for marketing. Lincoln National Life, the largest subsidiary, and the Lincoln Museum remained in Fort Wayne.
Many of the jewels of Lincoln National Corporation have been shed in recent years. Lincoln Reinsurance was the first US reinsurance company; it was sold to Swiss Re in 2001. K&K Insurance Specialties was the first to insure events like NASCAR races; it was sold to AON in 1993. Safeco bought American States, a property/casualty insurance business because Lincoln was primarily in life/health. However, LNC even sold a block of disability income business to MetLife in 1999, as it narrowed its focus.
Lincoln moved its headquarters from Indiana to Philadelphia in 1999.[2] In Philadelphia Lincoln was headquartered in the West Tower of Centre Square in Center City.[3]
Lincoln Financial Group purchased the Administrative Management Group, Inc. based in Arlington Heights, Illinois in August 2002. Previously, AMG was a strategic partner of LFG for four years, providing recordkeeping services for the Lincoln Alliance product, a turnkey solution for "employer retirement and employee benefit programs, including investment choices, recordkeeping, plan design, compliance and employee retirement counseling and education."[4]
In 2007 the company moved 400 employees, including its top executives, to Radnor Township from Philadelphia.[2]
Following the acquisition of Jefferson-Pilot Corporation in March 2006, Lincoln Financial acquired group life, disability, and dental insurance divisions. Jefferson-Pilot Corporation was a Fortune 500 company based in Greensboro, North Carolina founded in 1968 from the merger of Jefferson Standard Insurance (founded 1907) and Pilot Life Insurance (founded 1903). The two companies' association actually dated to 1945, when Jefferson Standard bought majority control of Pilot Life.
Lincoln Financial also acquired Jefferson-Pilot's television and radio operations, which were renamed Lincoln Financial Media. The group owns 18 radio stations in Miami, Florida, San Diego, California, Denver, Colorado, and Atlanta, Georgia. It also owned WBTV, the CBS affiliate in Charlotte; WCSC-TV, the CBS affiliate in Charleston, South Carolina and WWBT, the NBC affiliate in Richmond, Virginia. In June 2007, the company publicly announced it would explore a sale of this division, and hired Merrill Lynch to assess its strategic options. It was announced on November 12 that Raycom Media purchased the three TV stations [1], including its sports production division, which was the co-holder to football and basketball games in the Atlantic Coast Conference with Raycom and sole rightsholders to the Southeastern Conference until 2009, when ESPNPlus and CBS Sports acquired the rights. The Raycom Sports brand was merged with LFS as of January 1, 2008.
Though billed as a merger of equals, the merged company carries the LNC name, operates from the LNC offices, with current LNC stockholders holding 61% of the stock, and current LNC directors controlling the new board. The insurance division is based in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Lincoln purchased Newton County Loan and Savings in order to restructure as a bank holding company and qualify for Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding.
In January 2009, Lincoln sold its Delaware Investments subsidiary to Macquarie Group. Delaware Investments was integrated into Macquarie's global asset management arm, Macquarie Funds Group effective January 5, 2010.[5]
New York Kramer Decision
After three years of contentious litigation in the federal and New York courts in a case receiving national attention, Lincoln finally agreed in April, 2011 to dismiss its lawsuit that sought to avoid paying a $10 million death benefit on a life insurance policy insuring the life of New York attorney Arthur Kramer, one of the founding partners of the New York City law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel. See Kramer v. Phoenix Life Insurance Company, 2010 N.Y. Slip Opinion 8376, 2010 N.Y. LEXIS 3281 (Ct. App., Nov. 17, 2010). Although Mr. Kramer's death in 2008 occurred over two years after the policy's issuance in 2005, Lincoln unsuccessfully sought to overturn longstanding precedent in New York that requires insurance companies doing business in New York to pay death benefits once a policy has been in force for two years even if an insurable interest violation may have occurred at the time of policy inception. See New England Mutual v. Caruso, 73 N.Y. 2d 74 (1989). The New York Court of Appeals in Kramer also rejected Lincoln's primary argument that an insurance policy that is voluntarily obtained by an insured for the purpose of re-selling the policy to investors and without a good faith intent of benefiting a person with an insurable interest somehow violated Section 3205(b)(1) of the New York State insurable interest statute and therefore was void. If Lincoln had been successful in these arguments, it would have been able to deny the payment of death benefits under hundreds of insurance policies Lincoln willingly issued to insureds who were looking to avail themselves of the life settlement market. After finding that there was "overwhelming textual and historical evidence that the New York Legislature intended to allow the immediate assignment of a policy by an insured to one lacking an insurable interest", the Kramer Court concluded that "it is not our role.....to engraft an intent or good faith requirement onto a statute that so manifestly permits an insured to immediately and freely assign such a policy." The Kramer decision was hailed throughout the country as a victory for the life settlement industry and as a blow to insurance companies seeking to avoid their obligations under life insurance policies.
California Teren Decision
Lincoln’s national campaign to rescind hundreds of life insurance policies it willingly issued during 2004-2008 to seniors looking to take advantage of the life settlement market suffered another disappointing setback on May 17, 2011 when the California Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s decision that had been issued in favor of Lincoln. The lower court had ruled in 2009 that $20 million of life insurance on the life of Jack Teren was issued in violation of California insurable interest law thereby permitting Lincoln to void the policies without having to return $1.6 million of premiums that an investor group had paid. Lincoln Life and Annuity Company v. Jonathan S. Berck (unpublished opinion). In an analysis that was similar to the New York Kramer decision discussed above, the appellate court held that the California insurable interest law in effect when the policy was issued permitted an insured to apply for life insurance with the intent of transferring the policy to a person with no insurable interest in the insured. The appellate court decision also cites extensively and with approval from another recent federal court case that Lincoln lost involving insurable interest and its ability to rescind policies. See Lincoln National v. Gordon Fishman, 638 F. Supp. 1170, (C.D. Cal. 2009). The Fishman court concluded that “[U]nfortunately for Lincoln, the law as it presently exists allows this kind of insurance arrangement to be valid". The decision is a financial blow for Lincoln since it had hoped to confiscate $1.6 million of premium payments that an investor group had paid on two $10 million insurance policies on Jack Teren that Lincoln had claimed was void at the outset. Lincoln was represented in the unsuccessful litigation in the Fishman, Teren and Kramer cases by Stephen Baker and Charles Vinicombe of the Philadelphia law firm, Drinker, Biddle and Reath.
New York Janis Decision
Stephen Baker and Charles Vinicombe also represented Lincoln in Drinker Biddle's unsuccessful attempt to validate Lincoln's practice in New York of suing for rescission of a life insurance policy and seeking to confiscate all premiums paid while at the same time continuing to bill and collect additional premiums during the course of the litigation for the insurance coverage it was disavowing. In entering a summary judgment motion against Lincoln, the New York Supreme Court held that the policyowner has made a prima facie case that Lincoln has waived its right to rescind the policy through its demand for and acceptance of premiums after it filed for rescission. The Court concluded that Lincoln's attempt to simultaneously accept premiums and assert its right to rescission are unenforceable. Messrs. Baker and Vinicombe rightly elected not to appeal this decision to New York's Appellate Division. See Lincoln Life and Annuity Co. of New York v. Jonathan Berck, as Trustee of the Rosamond Janis Insurance Trust, No. 17362/08 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., Westchester Cty. 2009).
Lincoln National is the owner of U.S. Patent 7,089,201, “Method and apparatus for providing retirement income benefits”. This patent covers methods for administering variable annuities. Lincoln's commercial products that are covered by this patent include their i4LIFE Advantage and 4LaterSM Advantage annuities.[6]
In September 2006, Lincoln filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Transamerica Life Insurance Company for allegedly infringing its insurance patent.[7] A similar lawsuit was filed against Jackson National Life in October 2007.[8]
On Feb. 19, 2009, a jury found the Lincoln patent valid and infringed by Transamerica et al. Damages were assessed at the "reasonable royalty rate" and Transamerica et al. were ordered to pay Lincoln $13 million, or 0.11% of the over $12 billion in assets they had under management by virtue of infringing the patent.[9]
Lincoln Financial Group is the grand sponsor of the National Forensic League and its National Speech and Debate Tournament.
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