Prudential 2002 Annual Report Download - page 12

10 Growing and Protecting Your W ealth
more than life insurance. We
believe platforms—such as
401(k) and 403(b) plans and
wrap programs—are increasingly
becoming the preferred means
by which customers access
investment management prod-
ucts. As a result, we extended the
reach of our managed account
platform late in 2002 through an
agreement with ING Advisors
Network. Under the agreement,
our managed account platform—
which provides access to our
more than 60 professional money
managers, plus research-screened
individually managed accounts
and mutual funds—may be sold
by ING’s more than 10,000 regis-
tered representatives.
In all, more than 30 percent of
our investment business is now
derived through third parties. In
an industry where distribution is
quickly overtaking manufacturing
as the key driver of business, we
believe our competitive products and strong brand put
us in a uniquely favorable position to sell our products
and services to more customers in more ways.
Introducing a more
competitive product lineup
Product leadership is hard to achieve—and equally
hard to hold on to—in an industry where great ideas
can be copied freely and quickly. Yet product leader-
ship is another vital driver of growth.
In 2002, we worked hard to make our product
lineup a point of distinction for our clients and
distributors. We launched compelling new products
and revamped existing ones to offer customers more
of what the market demands: value, flexibility, choice
and objectivity.
We introduced or repriced about 30 insurance and
annuity products—the most extensive product devel-
opment we’ve ever done in such a short period of
time. This will translate into improved margins and
has already improved our market share in many
product categories. We jumped from 34th to 15th in
universal life sales and we moved from 11th to ninth
in term life.
Our gains in term life were
driven partly by premium reduc-
tions in our Term Essential®and
Term EliteSM products, both of
which have been top sellers for
us since we introduced them in
2000. In a market that has
shown a healthy appetite for
term life insurance protection,
we’ve made our coverage more
economical than ever.
On the permanent life side, we
made a number of important
changes. We enhanced our
flagship variable universal
life product, PruLife Custom
Premier,SM with a more affordable
death benefit guarantee. We
added 20 new funds to our
Variable Universal Life and
Survivorship Preferred products.
We enhanced our Universal Life
product offerings to respond
to consumer desires for greater
premium flexibility, cost effi-
ciency and death benefit
guarantees inside a permanent life contract. In addi-
tion, we liberalized our underwriting guidelines for
individuals with certain diseases. Add it all up, and
we’re stronger now in permanent life insurance than we
have been in recent years.
In 2002, our annuity lineup also got a makeover.
We improved the balance between fixed and variable
annuities, introduced the flexible Strategic Partners
FlexElite Annuity, and added new funds and features
to our Strategic Partners Annuity One product.
We also made changes to our mutual fund families
in order to bring investors and financial professionals
the broadest range of options and the highest quality
of asset management. We will offer two fund families:
Jennison/Dryden and Strategic Partners.
Jennison/Dryden funds are the “in-house” funds—
those that are sub-advised by our own investment
teams, including Jennison, our highly regarded invest-
ment subsidiary. These funds build on our strengths in
fundamental equity analysis, credit quality research
and quantitative analysis.
Strategic Partners, first introduced in 2000, is a family
of research-driven, sub-advised mutual funds. They’re
designed to offer leading names in asset management,
“Third-party sales
have become
the fastest growing
of all of our
distribution channels.”