Transamerica Life Insurance Co to Cut Jobs

Transamerica Life Insurance Co. is a name that many of you are not likely to be too familiar with, unless you happen to have a policy with them.  Even if you do that does not mean that you are very familiar with the inner workings of the company. So today, before we talk about the job cuts that the company is making, lets begin by taking a look at how the company has chosen to describe itself, “The way we see it, we don’t just crunch numbers and manage investments. We make things. 14.2 million customers⁽¹⁾ count on us to help them make the things that matter. Things like peace of mind, steady incomes and fulfilling retirements. We’ve always stood behind a simple idea: we do what we say we’re going to do. We’ve done so for over 100 years, and we’ll keep delivering on our promises – so we can keep making the things that make Tomorrow better…”

Sadly the company is getting ready to make a mass layoff action happen, as they cut back on just under 100 workers. The company will be letting go of 96 workers at its St. Petersburg office in order to cut back on its expenses. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.” The only good news about a mass layoff action is the fact that the workers must be given several weeks of notice before they are cut from the payrolls. In this case the company is going to be getting rid of the workers sometime between January and April of next year, which is a sizable gap for the workers who will have to prepare to be without a job in the near future.

Interestingly enough in the company’s most recent release they choose not to highlight the job cuts to come, or how they will impact the company’s bottom line. Instead they have chosen to talk about a plan put into place to speed up the process of getting a policy to their customers, “Transamerica Life Insurance Company now offers two accelerated underwriting programs that enable qualifying applicants to receive up to $1 million in coverage. Under the Transamerica Opportunity Program (TOP) and Transamerica Opportunity Program Plus (TOP Plus), individuals who’ve been fully underwritten for term insurance within the past five years may be eligible for a TransTerm^SM 10-, 15-, 20-, 25- or 30-year policy without a new medical exam. And to top it all off, all TOP policies are fully commissionable.”

Update: Other insurance companies are recruiting new employees, visit this page for more details.