Aviva achieves record sales

Aviva PLC of London today said that its full-year 2008 life insurance and pension sales hit a company record of 11.9 billion pounds ($17.2 billion) in the United Kingdom, up a modest 1% from the prior year. Total life and pension sales around the world grew 11%, hitting $52.4 billion. The most drastic regional growth was in North America, which had sales of $8.26 billion, up from $5.27 billion. Annuity sales jumped 63% in the United States during the full-year period, hitting $6.12 billion. The carrier attributed the increase in sales to improvements it made on guaranteed income withdrawal benefits and the introduction of a new bonus index deferred annuity. Stateside sales of life insurance products, which consist primarily of indexed and non-indexed universal life policies, rose to $899.4 million, from $890.7 million in the previous year. Finally, Aviva estimated its surplus regulatory capital at $1.56 billion as of Dec. 31.