The Company, a Delaware general business corporation, is the parent holding company
for a group of insurance and non-insurance companies that collectively operate
throughout North America, the United Kingdom, and, to a limited extent, in certain
other countries around the world. The Company's principal operating subsidiaries
in the United States are Unum Life Insurance Company of America (Unum America),
Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company (Accident), The Paul Revere Life
Insurance Company (Paul Revere Life), and Colonial Life & Accident Insurance
Company (Colonial), and in the United Kingdom, Unum Limited. The Company, through
its subsidiaries, is the largest provider of group and individual income protection
insurance in North America and the United Kingdom. It also provides a complementary
portfolio of other insurance products, including long-term care insurance, life
insurance, employer- and employee-paid group benefits, and related services.
The Company offers a comprehensive portfolio of income protection products
and services. These coverage choices, available in the income protection, life
and accident, and Colonial market segments, seek to meet the diverse needs of
the marketplace. The Company seeks to achieve a competitive advantage by offering
group, individual, and voluntary workplace products that can combine with other
coverages to provide integrated product solutions for customers.
The Company's broad portfolio also includes individual income protection products
that help protect individual customers and their families from the financial
effects of accidents or illnesses. The products feature choices suited to different
ages, incomes, family needs, and lifestyles. Long-term care insurance is also
offered as a lifestyle protection solution product.
The Company has field sales personnel who specialize in (1) employer-provided
plans for employees and (2) supplemental benefit plans that include multi-life
income protection and long-term care product offerings and products sold to
groups of employees through payroll deduction at the workplace. These field
sales personnel partner with Company representatives from claims, customer service,
and underwriting who work in conjunction with independent brokers and consultants
to present coverage solutions to potential customers and to manage existing
customer accounts.
The Company's organization and range of offerings are designed to help employers
better manage lost time from the workplace and improve productivity.
Integrated Claims Management with a Clinical Focus: The Company has made considerable
investments in clinical resources and created a specialty process for handling
long-duration claims based on the type of injury or illness. This process is
designed to promote return-to-work and absence management.
Return-to-Work (RTW) Program Planning: The Company offers a combination of
web-based resources and access to RTW planners to provide employers opportunities
to improve their workplace productivity by strategically designing and formalizing
RTW programs. Some customers using the Company's customized RTW program have
experienced a significant reduction in lost work days and medical costs.
Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Absence Management: Offering administration
and compliance for complex FMLA and state leave regulations, the Company's FMLA
services unit can help employers improve absence management.
Integrated Disability Management: By combining the Company's early intervention,
rehabilitation, and cost containment resources with the worker's compensation
provider a customer chooses, employers are offered the benefit of integrated
reporting and disability case management.
Comparative Reporting and Analysis: With web-based access to the Company's
disability database, group customers can compare their claim results with those
of peer companies to allow analysis of trends in their claim experience with
others in their industry. This provides them with a tool to focus on changes
in plan design or internal corporate policies needed to promote return-to-work.
The Company's reporting segments include the following five businesses: Income
Protection segment, Life and Accident segment, Colonial segment, Other segment,
and Corporate segment. The Income Protection segment includes insurance for
loss of income due to either sickness or injury or the loss of two or more 'activities
of daily living', disability management services, and customized disability
programs. Included within this segment are group long-term and short-term income
protection insurance, individual income protection insurance, and group and
individual long-term care insurance, as well as various disability management
services and programs. The products are marketed primarily to employers and
multi-life employee groups by the Company's sales force, working in conjunction
with independent brokers and consultants.
The Life and Accident segment includes insurance for life, accidental death
and dismemberment, cancer, and critical illness marketed primarily to employers
and multi-life employee groups by the Company's sales force through independent
brokers and consultants. The Colonial segment includes insurance for life, income
protection, accident and sickness, cancer, and critical illness issued by the
Company's subsidiary Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company and marketed
primarily to employees through an agency field sales force. The Other segment
includes products that the Company no longer actively markets, with the exception
of certain individual income protection products.
Competition
There is intense competition among insurance companies for the types of products
sold by the Company. There were over 1,800 legal reserve life insurance companies
in the United States, many offering one or more insurance products similar to
those marketed by the Company. In the individual and group income protection
markets, the Company competes in the United States with a limited number of
major companies and regionally with other companies offering specialty products.
The Company's principal competitors for its other products, including group
life and long-term care as well as its product offerings sold to groups of employees
through payroll deduction, include the largest insurance companies in the United
States.
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