Pacific Mutual Name Change Reflects New Status

Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Co. said Tuesday that it has changed its name to complete its conversion into a new corporate structure that permits the public to buy a stake in the largest California-based life insurer.

Now called Pacific Life Insurance Co., the 130-year-old company is still owned entirely, for now, by its policyholders through two holding companies. But as early as next year, executives could seek to sell as much as 49% of the stock publicly in one of the holding companies.

“What we’ve done so far is only structural,” company spokesman Bob Haskell said. “We won’t be selling any stock this year.”

The state Department of Insurance consented to the conversion in July, making Pacific Life only the third mutual insurer in the nation to form such a structure.

To win the agency’s consent, Pacific Life had to allay fears about the sharing of profits between the public and the policyholders and about regulatory oversight of the public companies.

Pacific Life, the nation’s 22nd-largest life insurer, and its subsidiaries manage more than $150 billion in assets for thousands of corporations and millions of individuals.