Transamerica Operation to Be Relocated : Jobs: The company cites the cost of living in Los Angeles in its decision to move part of its life insurance division to the Southeast or Midwest.

Citing the high cost of doing business in Los Angeles, Transamerica Life Cos. said it will relocate its life insurance division’s administrative operations--and about 650 jobs--from Los Angeles to an undetermined city in the Midwest or Southeast.

The company, a unit of San Francisco-based Transamerica Corp., said it intends to offer a job to any affected employee who is willing to move.

The division expects to decide on a new location this spring and to begin shifting the operation as early as the fall.

“Despite the life insurance division’s five-year effort to employ the latest technology and implement major expense reductions, costs are still too high,” company Chairman David R. Carpenter said in a statement Thursday.

He noted that more than 2,000 Transamerica Life employees will remain in the company’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters.

Jim Roszak, president of the life insurance division, said in an interview that Los Angeles’ high cost of living forces the company to “pay much higher salaries and provide much greater benefits” than do its competitors in smaller cities.

“We are about 20% to 25% higher in operating costs compared to companies located away from large metropolitan areas,” Roszak said.

Transamerica Life identified the Midwest and Southeast as its target locations because of such factors as “reasonable climate, good work environment and the kind of cost-of-living structure that we can live with,” Roszak said.