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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2008

OR

For the transition period from              to             

Commission file number 001-32195

GENWORTH FINANCIAL, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

(804) 281-6000

(Registrants telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act

Securities registered pursuant to section 12(g) of the Act:

5.25% Series A Cumulative Preferred Stock, Liquidation Preference $50 per share

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  x    No   ¨

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ¨    No  x

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports) and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  x    No  ¨

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  x

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See definition of “accelerated filer and large accelerated filer” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

Large accelerated filer  x    Accelerated filer  ¨    Non-accelerated filer  ¨    Smaller reporting company  ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ¨    No  x

As of February 13, 2009, 433,160,323 shares of Class A Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share were outstanding.

The aggregate market value of the common equity (based on the closing price of the Class A Common Stock on The New York Stock Exchange) held by non-affiliates of the registrant on June 30, 2008, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $7.7 billion. All 10% and greater stockholders, executive officers and directors of the registrant have been deemed, solely for the purpose of the foregoing calculation, to be “affiliates” of the registrant.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Certain portions of the registrant’s definitive proxy statement pursuant to Regulation 14A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 in connection with the 2009 annual meeting of the registrant’s stockholders are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K, including Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, contains certain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” “will,” or words of similar meaning and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the outlook for our future business and financial performance. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially due to global political, economic, business, competitive, market, regulatory and other factors and risks, including the items identified under “Item 1A—Risk Factors.”

We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

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PART I

In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, unless the context otherwise requires, “Genworth,” “we,” “us” and “our” refer to Genworth Financial, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

Overview

Genworth Financial, Inc. is a leading financial security company dedicated to providing insurance, wealth management, investment and financial solutions to more than 15 million customers, with a presence in more than 25 countries. Genworth was incorporated in Delaware in 2003 in preparation for an initial public offering of Genworth common stock, which was completed on May 28, 2004 (“IPO”). We are headquartered in Richmond, Virginia and have approximately 6,000 employees.

As a financial security company, we are dedicated to helping meet the homeownership, life security, wealth management and retirement security needs of our customers. We enable homeownership in the U.S. and internationally through the use of our mortgage insurance products that allow people to purchase homes with low down payments while protecting lenders against the risk of default. Through our homeownership education and assistance programs, we also help people keep their homes when they experience financial difficulties. We help individuals accumulate and build wealth for financial security in the U.S. with our wealth management products that include financial planning services and managed accounts. Our life security offerings support and protect people during unexpected events. These life security products and services include our payment protection coverages in Europe, Canada and Mexico; and in the U.S., term and universal life insurance, as well as care coordination and wellness services. We help people achieve financial goals and independence by providing retirement security offerings. In the U.S., retirement security products include various types of annuity and guaranteed retirement income products, as well as individual and group long-term care insurance and Medicare supplement insurance. Across all of our businesses, we differentiate through product innovation and by providing valued services such as education and training, wellness programs, support services and technology linked to our insurance, investment and financial products that address both consumer and distributor needs. In doing so, we strive to be easy to do business with and help our business partners grow more effectively.

Our key products and related services are targeted at markets that are benefiting from significant demographic, legislative and market trends, including the aging population across the countries in which we operate, and the growing reality that responsibility for building financial security now resides primarily with the individual. We distribute our products and services through diversified channels that include financial intermediaries, advisors, independent distributors, affinity groups and dedicated sales specialists.

As of December 31, 2008, we had the following operating segments:

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We also have Corporate and Other activities which include debt financing expenses that are incurred at our holding company level, unallocated corporate income and expenses, eliminations of inter-segment transactions and the results of non-core businesses that are managed outside of our operating segments. This includes the results of an originator of reverse mortgage loans acquired in the fourth quarter of 2007 and our group life and health insurance business that we sold on May 31, 2007. For the year ended December 31, 2008, Corporate and Other activities had a loss from continuing operations and a net operating loss of $192 million and $135 million, respectively.

On a consolidated basis, we had $8.9 billion of total stockholders’ equity and $107.4 billion of total assets as of December 31, 2008. For the year ended December 31, 2008, our revenues were $9.9 billion and we had a net loss of $572 million.

As of February 27, 2009, our principal U.S. life insurance companies had financial strength ratings of “A” (Strong) from Standard and Poor’s (“S&P”), “A1” (Good) from Moody’s Investors Service (“Moody’s”), “A” (Excellent) from A.M. Best and “A-” (Strong) from FitchRatings (“Fitch”). Our rated U.S. mortgage insurance companies had financial strength ratings of “A+” (Strong) from S&P and “Baa2” (Adequate) from Moody’s. Our Canadian mortgage insurance company was rated “AA” (Superior) from Dominion Bond Rating Service (“DBRS”) and “AA” (Very Strong) from S&P and our Australian mortgage insurance company was rated “AA-” (Very Strong) from S&P and “A1” (Good) from Moody’s.

In December 2008, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire InterBank, fsb, a thrift headquartered in Maple Grove, Minnesota. The completion of the proposed acquisition is subject to the approval of the Office of Thrift Supervision (“OTS”), Genworth receiving approval to participate in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Capital Purchase Program (“CPP”) under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”), as well as the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.

In December 2008, we also announced several actions being taken to advance our strategic goals in response to the current economic downturn. These actions included the elimination of approximately 1,000 jobs globally. We recorded a pre-tax charge of approximately $38 million in the fourth quarter of 2008 for severance, outplacement and other costs associated with the plan for workforce reduction and other restructuring actions. The plan is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2009.

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Positioning for the Future

Given the recent period of severe global economic turmoil, we have narrowed the focus of our business to concentrate on products and markets where we have the greatest franchise position or potential. This focused approach is designed to help us achieve growth and create stockholder value through pursuit of the following key initiatives:

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Growth Strategies

Our objectives are to increase revenues and operating income, as well as enhance returns on equity. Our plans to do this are based on the following strategies in each of our segments:

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Retirement and Protection

Through our Retirement and Protection segment, we market various forms of wealth management, retirement income, institutional, life insurance and long-term care insurance products and services. The following table sets forth financial information regarding our Retirement and Protection segment as of or for the periods indicated. For additional selected financial information and operating performance measures regarding our Retirement and Protection segment as of or for these periods, see “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Retirement and Protection.”

Wealth management

We offer asset management products and services to near affluent and affluent individual investors. We provide and tailor client advice, asset allocation, open-architecture products and prepackaged support, services and technology to the independent advisor channel. We achieved double-digit sales growth over the last three years in this business and expanded our presence in the managed account service provider market, also known as the turnkey asset management platform market, through the acquisition of AssetMark Investment Services, Inc. (“AssetMark”). On August 1, 2008, Genworth Financial Asset Management, Inc. (“GFAM”) merged into AssetMark with AssetMark being the surviving entity. AssetMark subsequently changed its name to Genworth Financial Wealth Management, Inc. on August 1, 2008. The combined resources of GFAM and AssetMark allow us to expand our position as a leading provider in this market. As of December 31, 2008, we were ranked second based on the fourth quarter 2008 Managed Account Research published by Cerulli Associates (“Cerulli Research”) with more than 100,000 accounts and $15.4 billion of assets under management.

Products

Our clients are referred to us through financial advisers, and we work with these financial advisers to develop portfolios consisting of individual securities, mutual funds, exchange traded funds and variable annuities designed to meet each client’s particular investment objectives. Generally, our clients for these products and

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services have accumulated significant capital, and our principal asset management strategy is to help protect their assets while taking advantage of opportunities for capital appreciation. Advisory clients are offered the custodial services of our trust company, Genworth Financial Trust Company.

Through our open-architecture platform, we offer to financial advisors one of the most comprehensive fee-based investment management platforms in the industry, access to custodians, client relationship management tools and business development programs, to enable these retail financial advisors to offer institutional caliber services to their clients. We also serve as investment advisor to the AssetMark Funds which are mutual funds offered to clients of financial advisors.

Additionally, through our affiliated retail broker/dealers, we offer annuity and insurance products, including our proprietary products, as well as third-party mutual funds and other investment products.

Distribution

We distribute these products and services through independent investment advisory professionals and financial professionals affiliated with our retail broker/dealers. The underlying mutual funds are distributed via a direct sales force.

Competition

We compete primarily in the managed account service provider market. The market is highly competitive, and is differentiated by service, convenience, product offerings and price. The ten largest companies in the wealth management market comprise approximately 91% of assets under management based on Cerulli Research.

Retirement income

We are focused on helping individuals create dependable income streams for life or for a specified period of time and helping them save and invest to achieve financial goals. We pursue this goal in both individual retail and group markets. We believe our product designs, asset allocation requirements, hedging discipline and use of reinsurance reduce some of the risks to insurers that generally accompany traditional products with GMDBs, GMWBs and certain types of guaranteed annuitization benefits. We are targeting people who are focused on building a personal portable retirement plan or are moving from the accumulation to the distribution phase of their retirement planning.

Fee-based retail products

Variable annuities and variable life insurance

We offer variable annuities that provide customers with a variety of investment options. In addition, some of our variable annuities permit customers to allocate assets to a guaranteed interest account managed within our general account. The contractholder bears the entire risk associated with the performance of investments in the separate account.

Variable annuities generally provide us fees including mortality and expense risk charges and, in some cases, administrative charges. The fees equal a percentage of the contractholder’s policy account value and typically range from 0.75% to 3.50% per annum depending on the features and options within a contract.

Our variable annuity contracts generally provide a basic GMDB which provides a minimum account value to be paid upon the annuitant’s death. Contractholders may also have the option to purchase riders that provide enhanced death benefits. Assuming every annuitant died on December 31, 2008, as of that date, contracts with death benefit features not covered by reinsurance had an account value of $5,812 million and a related death benefit exposure of $1,706 million net amount at risk.

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Our Income Distribution Series of variable annuity products provide the contractholder with a guaranteed minimum income stream that they cannot outlive, along with an opportunity to participate in market appreciation.

As a solution to the trend of employers moving away from traditional defined benefit retirement plans to defined contribution plans such as 401(k) plans, we have introduced to the qualified plan market a group variable annuity with guaranteed retirement income and features. This product is designed to offer participants the ability to secure guaranteed retirement income with growth potential during the accumulation phase while maintaining liquidity; and during the distribution phase, to provide guaranteed annual income with upside growth potential with varying degrees of liquidity with respect to underlying assets.

We discontinued selling variable life insurance policies on May 1, 2008; however, we continue to service existing policies.

Institutional Asset Management Services

Until December 31, 2006, we managed a pool of municipal GICs issued by affiliates of General Electric Company (“GE”). As of January 1, 2007, we provided transition and consulting services to the GE affiliates for their municipal GICs through December 15, 2008.

Distribution

We distribute our variable annuity products through banks, national brokerage firms and independent broker/dealers. We also distribute our group variable annuity product through broker/dealers and through defined contribution plan record keepers. We continue to work with additional record keepers to adopt this product on their platforms.

Competition

There are numerous competitors in this market within all major distribution channels that we sell through. Our Income Distribution Series of products enable consumers to opt for lifetime guaranteed income beginning immediately or on a deferred basis. We have been an early mover in this market space and believe we are well positioned.

Spread-based retail products

Fixed annuities

We offer fixed single premium deferred annuities which require a single premium payment at time of issue and provide an accumulation period and an annuity payout period. During the accumulation period, we credit the account value of the annuity with interest earned at a crediting rate guaranteed for no less than one year at issue, but which may be guaranteed for up to six years, and thereafter is subject to annual crediting rate resets at our discretion, based upon competitive factors and prevailing market rates, subject to statutory minimums. Our fixed annuity contracts are supported by the claims paying ability of the issuing insurance company, and the accrual of interest during the accumulation period is generally on a tax-deferred basis to the owner. The majority of our fixed annuity contractholders retain their contracts for five to ten years.

Single premium immediate annuities

In exchange for a single premium, immediate annuities provide a fixed amount of income for either a defined number of years, the annuitant’s lifetime, or the longer of the defined number of years or the annuitant’s lifetime.

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Structured settlements

Structured settlement annuity contracts provide an alternative to a lump sum settlement, generally in a personal injury lawsuit or workers compensation claim, and typically are purchased by property and casualty insurance companies for the benefit of an injured claimant. The structured settlements provide scheduled payments over a fixed period or, in the case of a life-contingent structured settlement, for the life of the claimant with a guaranteed minimum period of payments. In the third quarter of 2006, we discontinued sales of our structured settlement annuities while continuing to service our retained and reinsured blocks of business.

Distribution

We distribute our spread-based retail products through banks, national brokerage firms and independent broker/dealers.

Competition

We compete with a large number of life insurance companies in the single premium immediate annuity marketplace. We continue to see long-term growth prospects for single premium immediate annuities based both on demographics and government policy trends that favor a greater role for private solutions in meeting long-term retirement needs. We believe long-term experience with mortality and longevity, combined with disciplined risk management, provide competitive advantages in how we segment and price our products.

We have bank distribution relationships that we believe allow us to maintain the distribution “shelf space” needed to remain competitive in the fixed annuity marketplace. Sales of fixed annuities are strongly linked to current interest rates, which affect the relative competitiveness of alternative products, such as certificates of deposit and money market funds. We have experienced fluctuations in sales levels for this product and expect these fluctuations to continue in the future.

Institutional

Our institutional products include funding agreements, FABNs and GICs, which are deposit-type products that pay a guaranteed return to the contractholder on specified dates. These products are purchased by qualified and non-qualified plans that desire the features and guarantees inherent in these instruments. We sell these specialized products to institutional customers for use in retirement plans, money market funds and other investment purposes. We have two FABN programs: a registered program offered both to institutional and retail investors and a global medium term notes (“GMTN”) program primarily offered to non-U.S. investors.

We may experience significant fluctuations in new deposits as we may issue new business when market conditions are favorable and may issue no new business when market conditions are not favorable. We do not anticipate writing new institutional business in the current market environment.

Products

Funding agreements are purchased by institutional accredited investors for various kinds of non-qualified accounts. Purchasers of funding agreements include money market funds, bank common trust funds and other corporate and trust accounts and private investors, including Genworth Global Funding Trust and Genworth Life Institutional Funding Trust as part of our FABN programs. GICs are purchased by Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) qualified plans, including pension and 401(k) plans.

Our funding agreements and FABNs generally credit interest on deposits at a floating rate tied to an external market index and are typically issued for terms of one to seven years. Substantially all of our GICs allow for the

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payment of benefits at contract value to ERISA plan participants prior to contract maturity in the event of death, disability, retirement or change in investment election. We carefully underwrite these risks before issuing a GIC to a plan and historically have been able to effectively manage our exposure to these benefit payments. Our GICs have a fixed maturity generally ranging from two to six years.

We typically manage our institutional products on a floating rate basis and invest the proceeds in floating rate assets. When we issue products that credit interest on a fixed rate basis, we may enter into counterparty “swap” arrangements where we exchange our fixed rate interest payment for a floating rate that is tied to an index in order to correlate the floating rate assets.

Distribution

Our FABNs are distributed through investment banks and broker/dealers. We place our funding agreements directly and through specialized brokers. GICs are sold both directly and through investment managers.

Competition

These institutional markets are highly correlated to the global credit environment and have recently seen a sharp decline in issuance. When the markets are open and active, we compete with other insurance companies or issuers of other fixed income instruments.

Life insurance

Our life insurance business markets and sells products that provide a personal financial safety net for individuals and their families. These products provide protection against financial hardship after the death of an insured and may also offer a savings element that can be used to help accumulate funds to meet future financial needs. According to the American Council of Life Insurers, face value of new life insurance coverage sold in the U.S. totaled $3.1 trillion in 2007, and total life insurance coverage in the U.S. was $19.5 trillion as of December 31, 2007.

Products

Our principal life insurance products are term life and universal life. We also have a runoff block of whole life insurance. Term life insurance products provide coverage with guaranteed level premiums for a specified period of time and generally have little or no buildup of cash value. We have been a leading provider of term life insurance for more than two decades, and are a leader in marketing term life insurance through brokerage general agencies (“BGAs”) in the U.S.

Universal life insurance products are designed to provide permanent protection for the life of the insured and may include a buildup of cash value that can be used to meet particular financial needs during the policyholder’s lifetime.

Underwriting and pricing

Underwriting and pricing are significant drivers of profitability in our life insurance business, and we have established rigorous underwriting and pricing practices. We have generally reinsured risks in excess of $5 million per life. From time-to-time, we may reinsure any risk depending on the pricing terms of available reinsurance. We set pricing assumptions for expected claims, lapses, investment returns, expenses and customer demographics based on our experience and other factors.

We price our insurance policies based primarily upon our historical experience. We target individuals in preferred risk categories, which include healthier individuals who generally have family histories that do not

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present increased mortality risk. We also have significant expertise in evaluating people with health problems and offer appropriately priced coverage based on stringent underwriting criteria.

Distribution

We offer life insurance products through an extensive network of independent BGAs throughout the U.S. and through affluent market producer groups, financial intermediaries and insurance marketing organizations. We believe there are opportunities to expand our sales through each of these and other distribution channels.

Competition

Competition in our life insurance business comes from many sources, including many traditional insurance companies as well as non-traditional providers, such as banks and private equity markets. The life insurance market is highly fragmented. Competitors have multiple access points to the market through BGAs, financial institutions, career sales agents, multi-line exclusive agents, e-retail and other life insurance distributors. We operate primarily in the BGA channel and have built out our capabilities in other channels. We believe our competitive advantage in the term life insurance market comes from our long history serving this market, our service excellence, underwriting expertise and pricing on our smaller face amounts as our average policy size is less than $400,000. We have built out our universal life insurance product suite to take advantage of increased distributor interest and consumer demand.

Long-term care insurance

We established ourselves as a pioneer in long-term care insurance over 30 years ago. We are a leading provider in the industry. Our experience helps us plan for disciplined growth built on a foundation of strong risk management, product innovation and a diversified distribution strategy.

In July 2007, AARP selected us as its provider to offer new long-term care insurance products to its approximately 40 million members, and we entered into a five-year exclusive endorsement agreement with AARP in 2007. This relationship will provide access to two new distribution channels, telephone and internet sales, with direct access to customers.

During 2007 and 2008, we filed for state regulatory approvals for a premium rate increase of between 8% and 12% on most of our block of older issued long-term care insurance policies and are currently in the process of implementing this rate increase. The rate increase has now been approved in 43 states. This block represents approximately $670 million, or 35%, of our total annual long-term care insurance premium in-force.

Products

Our individual and group long-term care insurance products provide defined levels of protection against the high and escalating costs of long-term care provided in the insured’s home or in assisted living or nursing facilities. Insureds become eligible for certain covered benefits if they become incapable of performing certain activities of daily living or become cognitively impaired. In contrast to health insurance, long-term care insurance provides coverage for skilled and custodial care provided outside of a hospital or health-related facility. The typical claim has a duration of approximately one to four years.

We also offer linked-benefits products for customers who traditionally self-funded long-term care expenses. One linked-benefits product combines universal life insurance with long-term care insurance coverage in a single policy. The policy provides coverage for cash value, death benefits and long-term care benefits. We also offer a linked-benefits product that combines a single premium deferred annuity with long-term care insurance coverage.

We expanded our Medicare supplement insurance product in a majority of states and have seen growth in these new states. To further expand our senior supplementary product capabilities, we acquired Continental Life

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Insurance Company of Brentwood, Tennessee (“Continental Life”) in 2006. This acquisition more than doubled our existing annualized Medicare supplement premiums in-force and provides a potential platform for expanding in other senior supplementary products. Since 2007, American Continental Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Continental Life, has expanded its offering of competitively priced Medicare supplement insurance product in 27 states where it was previously not licensed.

Underwriting and pricing

We employ extensive medical underwriting policies to assess and quantify risks before we issue our long-term care insurance policies, similar to, but separate from, those we use in underwriting life insurance products.

We have accumulated extensive pricing and claims experience, and believe we have the largest actuarial database in the industry. The overall profitability of our long-term care insurance business depends on the accuracy of our pricing assumptions for claims experience, morbidity and mortality experience, lapse rates and investment yields. Our actuarial database provides us with substantial data that has helped us develop sophisticated pricing methodologies for our newer policies. We tailor pricing based on segmented risk categories, including marital status, medical history and other factors. Profitability on older policies issued without the full benefit of this experience and pricing methodology has been lower than initially assumed in pricing of those blocks. We continually monitor trends and developments and update assumptions that may affect the risk, pricing and profitability of our long-term care insurance products and adjust our new product pricing and other terms, as appropriate. We also work with a Medical Advisory Board, comprised of independent experts from the medical technology and public policy fields, that provides insights on emerging morbidity and medical trends, enabling us to be more proactive in our risk segmentation, pricing and product development strategies.

Distribution

We have a broad and diverse distribution network for our products. We distribute our products through diversified sales channels consisting of appointed independent producers, financial intermediaries and dedicated sales specialists. We have made significant investments in our servicing and support for both independent and dedicated sales specialists and we believe our product features, distribution support and services are leading the industry.

Competition

Competition in the long-term care insurance industry is primarily limited to the top ten insurance companies. Our products compete by providing consumers with an array of long-term care planning solutions available from a single company. There is a product and price point available within the reach of a wide spectrum of the population who are concerned about mitigating the costs of a future long-term care need or leveraging their self-insurance dollars. We believe our significant historical experience and risk disciplines provide us with a competitive advantage in the form of sound product pricing and company stability.

International

In our International segment, we currently offer mortgage and lifestyle protection insurance and have a presence in over 25 countries.

Through our international mortgage insurance business, we are a leading provider of mortgage insurance in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and multiple European countries. We expanded our international operations throughout the 1990s and, today, we believe we are the largest overall provider of mortgage insurance outside of the U.S.

Private mortgage insurance enables borrowers to buy homes with low-down-payment mortgages, which are usually defined as loans with a down payment of less than 20% of the home’s value. Low-down-payment

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mortgages are also referred to as high loan-to-value mortgages. Mortgage insurance protects lenders against loss in the event of a borrower’s default. It also generally aids financial institutions in managing their capital by reducing the capital required for low-down-payment mortgages. If a borrower defaults on mortgage payments, private mortgage insurance reduces and may eliminate losses to the insured institution. Private mortgage insurance may also facilitate the sale of mortgage loans in the secondary mortgage market.

Our lifestyle protection insurance helps consumers meet payment obligations on outstanding financial commitments, such as mortgages, personal loans or credit cards, in the event of a misfortune such as illness, accident, involuntary unemployment, temporary incapacity, permanent disability or death.

The following table sets forth financial information regarding our International segment as of or for the periods indicated. Additional selected financial information and operating performance metrics regarding our International segment as of or for these periods are included under “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—International.”

International mortgage insurance

We have significant mortgage insurance operations in Canada and Australia, two of the largest markets for mortgage insurance products outside of the U.S., as well as smaller operations in New Zealand and the developing markets in Europe and Mexico.

The mortgage loan markets in Canada and Australia are well developed, and mortgage insurance plays an important role in each of these markets. However, these markets vary significantly and are influenced by different cultural, economic and regulatory conditions.

We believe the following factors have contributed to the growth of mortgage insurance demand in these countries:

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Based upon our experience in the mature markets, we believe a favorable regulatory framework is important to the development of high loan-to-value lending and the use of products such as mortgage insurance to protect against default risk or to obtain capital relief. As a result, we have advocated governmental and policymaking agencies throughout our markets to adopt legislative and regulatory policies supporting increased homeownership and the use of private mortgage insurance. We have significant expertise in mature markets, and we leverage this experience in developing selected markets to encourage regulatory authorities to implement incentives to use private mortgage insurance as an important element of their housing finance systems.

We believe the revisions to a set of regulatory rules and procedures governing global bank capital standards that were introduced by the Basel Committee of the Bank for International Settlements, known as Basel II, also may encourage further growth of international mortgage insurance. Basel II has been designed to reward banks that have developed effective risk management systems by allowing them to hold less capital than banks with less effective systems. While Basel II was finalized and issued in June 2004, its adoption by individual countries internationally and in the U.S. is ongoing. Therefore, we cannot predict the mortgage insurance benefits that ultimately will be provided to lenders, or how any such benefits may affect the opportunities for the growth of mortgage insurance.

Mortgage insurance in our International segment is predominantly single premium and provides 100% coverage. Under single premium policies, the premium is usually included as part of the aggregate loan amount and paid to us as the mortgage insurer. We record the proceeds to unearned premium reserves, invest those proceeds and recognize the premiums over time in accordance with the expected pattern of risk emergence.

Canada

We entered the Canadian mortgage insurance market in 1995 with our acquisition of certain assets and employees from the Mortgage Insurance Corporation of Canada, and we now operate in every province and territory. We are currently the leading private mortgage insurer in the Canadian market. The ten largest mortgage originators in Canada provide the majority of the financing for residential mortgage financing in that country. Our five largest lender relationships in Canada provided the majority of our flow new insurance written in 2008.

Products

We offer primary flow insurance and portfolio credit enhancement insurance. Regulations in Canada require the use of mortgage insurance for all mortgage loans extended by federally incorporated banks, trust companies and insurers, where the loan-to-value ratio exceeds 80%.

We also provide portfolio credit enhancement insurance to lenders that have originated loans with loan-to-value ratios of less than or equal to 80%. These policies provide lenders with immediate capital relief from applicable bank regulatory capital requirements and facilitate the securitization of mortgages in the Canadian market. In both primary flow insurance and portfolio policies, our mortgage insurance in Canada provides insurance coverage for the entire unpaid loan balance, including interest, selling costs and expenses, following the sale of the underlying property.

Government guarantee

We have an agreement with the Canadian government under which it guarantees the benefits payable under a mortgage insurance policy, less 10% of the original principal amount of an insured loan, in the event that we

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fail to make claim payments with respect to that loan because of insolvency. We pay the Canadian government a risk premium for this guarantee and make other payments to a reserve fund in respect of the government’s obligation. Because banks are not required to maintain regulatory capital on an asset backed by a sovereign guarantee, our 90% sovereign guarantee permits lenders purchasing our mortgage insurance to reduce their regulatory capital charges for credit risks on mortgages by 90%.

The Canadian Department of Finance has informed us that they intend to review the guarantee agreement we have with the Canadian government. While the Department of Finance originally targeted completion of the review by the end of 2008, we continue to be engaged in ongoing discussions with Department of Finance officials on this matter and no new target completion date has been announced. Although we believe the Canadian government will preserve the guarantee in order to maintain competition in the Canadian mortgage industry, we cannot be sure what, if any, changes will be made to the terms of the guarantee.

Competition

Our primary mortgage insurance competitor in Canada is the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (“CMHC”) which is owned by the Canadian government, although other competitors have entered the Canadian market. CMHC’s mortgage insurance provides lenders with 100% capital relief from bank regulatory requirements. We compete with CMHC primarily based upon our reputation for high quality customer service, quick decision-making on insurance applications, strong underwriting expertise and flexibility in product development. In 2008, as a result of the turmoil in the financial markets, there has been increased preference by lenders for CMHC insurance, which carries a lower capital charge and a 100% guarantee, as compared to loans covered by our policy which benefits from a 90% government guarantee.

Australia

We entered the Australian mortgage insurance market in 1997 with our acquisition of the operating assets of the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation from the Australian government. As part of the expansion of our Australian operations, we also entered the New Zealand mortgage insurance market in 1999 and acquired Vero Lenders Mortgage Insurance Limited in 2006. In 2008, we were the leading provider of mortgage insurance in Australia based upon flow new insurance written. The ten largest mortgage originators in Australia provide the majority of the financing for residential mortgage financing in that country. Our two largest lender relationships in Australia provided the majority of our flow new insurance written in 2008.

Products

In Australia and New Zealand, we offer primary flow mortgage insurance, also known as lenders mortgage insurance (“LMI”), and portfolio credit enhancement policies. Our principal product is LMI which is similar to single premium primary flow insurance we offer in Canada with 100% coverage. Lenders usually collect the single premium from borrowers at the time the loan proceeds are advanced and remit the amount to us as the mortgage insurer.

We provide LMI on a flow basis to customers including banks, building societies, credit unions and non-bank mortgage originators, called mortgage managers. Banks, building societies and credit unions generally acquire LMI only for residential mortgage loans with loan-to-value ratios above 80%. Beginning in 2006, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (“APRA”) reduced capital requirements for high loan-to-value residential mortgages if they have been insured by a mortgage insurance company regulated by APRA. APRA’s license conditions require Australian mortgage insurance companies, including ours, to be monoline insurers, which are insurance companies that offer just one type of insurance product.

We also provide portfolio credit enhancement policies to APRA-regulated lenders that have originated Australian loans for securitization. Portfolio mortgage insurance serves as an important source of credit

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enhancement for the Australian securitization market, and our portfolio credit enhancement coverage generally is purchased for low loan-to-value, seasoned loans written by APRA-regulated institutions. To date, a market for these portfolio credit enhancement policies has not developed in New Zealand to the same extent as in Australia.

Competition

The Australian and New Zealand flow mortgage insurance markets are primarily served by one other private LMI company, as well as various lender-affiliated captive mortgage insurance companies. We compete primarily based upon our reputation for high quality customer service, quick decision making on insurance applications, strong underwriting expertise and flexibility in terms of product development. Our products also compete in Australia and New Zealand with alternative products and financial structures that are designed to transfer credit default risk on mortgage loans.

Europe and other international

We began our European operations in the U.K., which is Europe’s largest market for mortgage loan originations. In recent years, we expanded into eight additional countries. In 2008, we were a leading private mortgage insurance provider in Europe, based upon flow new insurance written. We also have a presence in the developing private mortgage insurance market in Mexico.

Products

Our mortgage insurance products in Europe consist principally of primary flow insurance structured with single premium payments. Our primary flow insurance generally provides first-loss coverage in the event of default on a portion (typically 10% to 20%) of the balance of an individual mortgage loan. We also offer portfolio credit enhancement to lenders that have originated loans for securitization.

Competition

Our competition in Europe includes both public and private entities, including traditional insurance companies, as well as providers of alternative credit enhancement products and public mortgage guarantee facilities. Competition from alternative credit enhancement products include personal guarantees on high loan-to-value loans, second mortgages and bank guarantees, captive insurance companies organized by lenders, and alternative forms of risk transfer including capital markets solutions. We believe that our global expertise and coverage flexibility differentiate us from competitors and alternative products.

International mortgage insurance underwriting and pricing

Loan applications for all loans we insure are reviewed to evaluate each individual borrower’s credit strength and history, the characteristics of the loan and the value of the underlying property. Loan applications for flow mortgage insurance are reviewed by our employees or by employees of mortgage lender customers which underwrite loan applications for mortgage insurance under a delegated underwriting program. This delegated underwriting program permits approved lenders to commit us to insure loans using underwriting guidelines we have previously approved.

When underwriting bulk insurance transactions, we evaluate characteristics of the loans in the portfolio and examine loan files on a sample basis. Each bulk transaction is assigned an overall claim rate based on a weighted average of the expected claim rates for each individual loan that comprises the transaction.

During 2008, we took additional actions to reduce our new business risk profile, which include: tightening underwriting guidelines, including product restrictions, reducing new business in geographic areas we believe are

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more economically sensitive, and terminating commercial relationships as a result of weaker business performance. We have also increased prices in certain markets based on periodic reviews of product performance. We believe these underwriting and pricing actions will improve our underwriting performance on new books of business, and may reduce levels of new insurance written.

International mortgage insurance distribution

We maintain a dedicated sales force that markets our mortgage insurance products internationally to lenders. As in the U.S. market, our sales force markets to financial institutions and mortgage originators, who in turn offer mortgage insurance products to borrowers.

Lifestyle protection insurance

We currently provide lifestyle protection insurance to consumers in more than 20 countries offered principally by financial services companies at the point of sale of consumer products. This business also includes a small Mexican property and casualty insurance business, which we entered into an agreement to sell in January 2009 with closing expected in the latter half of 2009. We expect to selectively expand our lifestyle protection insurance business in new markets and by further penetration of existing distribution relationships and new products. In Europe, we are a leading provider of lifestyle protection insurance.

Products and services

Our lifestyle protection products include lifestyle protection from involuntary unemployment, disability, accident and death. The benefits on these policies pay the periodic payments on the consumer loan for a limited period of time, typically twelve months, though they can be up to 84 months. In some cases, for certain coverages, we may make lump sum payments. Our policies include an exclusion period that is usually 60 days and a waiting period (time between claim submission and claim payment) of typically 30 days. Our policies either require an upfront single premium or monthly premiums.

We also provide third-party administrative services and administer non-risk premium with some relationships in Europe. Additionally, we have entered into structured transactions, covering Canadian and European risk.

Underwriting and pricing

Our lifestyle protection insurance is currently underwritten and priced on a program basis, by type of product and by distributor, rather than an individual policyholder basis. In setting prices, we take into account the underlying obligation, the particular product features and the average customer profile of the distributor. For our monthly premium policies, most contracts allow for monthly price adjustments after consultation with our distribution partners which help us to reduce our business risk profile when there are adverse changes in the market. Additionally, certain of our distribution contracts provide for profit sharing with our distribution partners, which provide our business and our distribution partners with risk protection and profit sharing over the life of the contract. We believe our experience in underwriting allows us to provide competitive pricing to distributors and generate targeted returns and profits for our business.

Distribution

We distribute our lifestyle protection insurance products primarily through financial institutions, including major European banks that offer our insurance products in connection with underlying loans or other financial products they sell to their customers. Under these arrangements, the distributors typically take responsibility for branding and marketing the products, while we take responsibility for pricing, underwriting and claims payment.

We continue to implement innovative methods for distributing our lifestyle protection insurance products, including web-based tools that provide our distributors with a cost-effective means of applying our products to a

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broad range of underlying financial obligations. We believe these innovative methods also make it easier to establish arrangements with new distributors, as well as help us further diversify our distribution and geographical channels in an increasingly changing environment.

Competition

The lifestyle protection insurance market has several large, highly rated international participants. We compete through our commitment to high service levels, depth of expertise in providing tailored product and service solutions and our ability to service global clients at a local level and in multiple countries, if appropriate.

U.S. Mortgage Insurance

Through our U.S. Mortgage Insurance segment, we provide private mortgage insurance. Private mortgage insurance enables borrowers to buy homes with low-down-payment mortgages, which are usually defined as loans with a down payment of less than 20% of the home’s value. Low-down-payment mortgages are sometimes also referred to as high loan-to-value mortgages. Mortgage insurance protects lenders against loss in the event of a borrower’s default. It also generally aids financial institutions in managing their capital efficiently by reducing the capital required for low-down-payment mortgages. If a borrower defaults on mortgage payments, private mortgage insurance reduces and may eliminate losses to the insured institution. Private mortgage insurance may also facilitate the sale of mortgage loans in the secondary mortgage market.

We have been providing mortgage insurance products and services in the U.S. since 1981 and operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. According to Inside Mortgage Finance, in 2008, we were the second largest provider of mortgage insurance in the U.S., based on flow new insurance written. Our principal mortgage insurance customers are originators of residential mortgage loans who typically determine which mortgage insurer or insurers they will use for the placement of mortgage insurance written on loans they originate.

The U.S. private mortgage insurance industry is defined in part by the requirements and practices of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other large mortgage investors. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchase residential mortgages from mortgage lenders and investors, as part of their governmental mandate to provide liquidity in the secondary mortgage market. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased approximately 60% for the year ended December 31, 2008 and approximately 44% and 28% for the years ended December 31, 2007 and 2006, respectively, of all the mortgage loans originated in the U.S., according to statistics published by Inside Mortgage Finance. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises, and we refer to them as the “GSEs.” Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s mortgage insurance requirements include specified insurance coverage levels and minimum financial strength ratings. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac currently require maintenance of a rating by at least two out of three listed rating agencies (S&P, Fitch and Moody’s) of at least “AA-”/“Aa3” (as applicable), with no rating below those levels by any of the three listed rating agencies; otherwise, additional limitations or requirements may be imposed for eligibility to insure loans purchased by the GSEs. In February 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac temporarily suspended automatic imposition of the additional requirements otherwise applicable upon a ratings downgrade below the above-described requirements, subject to certain specified conditions.

The GSEs may purchase mortgages with unpaid principal amounts up to a specified maximum, or the “conforming loan limit,” which is currently $417,000 and subject to annual adjustment. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 permits the GSEs to purchase loans in excess of the $417,000 limit in certain high-cost areas of the country. For 2009, the limit in those areas is 125% of median home price for the area, but no more than $729,750. Each GSE’s Congressional charter generally prohibits it from purchasing a mortgage where the loan-to-value ratio exceeds 80% of home value unless the portion of the unpaid principal balance of the mortgage, which is in excess of 80% of the value of the property securing the mortgage, is protected against default by lender recourse, participation or by a qualified insurer. As a result, high loan-to-value mortgages

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purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac generally are insured with private mortgage insurance. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased the majority of the flow loans we insured as of December 31, 2008.

The following table sets forth selected financial information regarding our U.S. Mortgage Insurance segment as of or for the periods indicated. Additional selected financial information and operating performance measures regarding our U.S. Mortgage Insurance segment as of or for these periods are included under “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—U.S. Mortgage Insurance.”

Products and services

The majority of our U.S. mortgage insurance policies provide default loss protection on a portion (typically 10% to 40%) of the balance of an individual mortgage loan. Our primary mortgage insurance policies are predominantly “flow” insurance policies, which cover individual loans at the time the loan is originated. We also enter into “bulk” insurance transactions with lenders and investors in selected instances, under which we insure a portfolio of loans for a negotiated price.

In addition to flow and bulk primary mortgage insurance, we have written a limited amount of mortgage insurance on a pool basis. Under pool insurance, the mortgage insurer provides coverage on a group of specified loans, typically for 100% of all losses on every loan in the portfolio, subject to an agreed aggregate loss limit.

Flow insurance

Flow insurance is primary mortgage insurance placed on an individual loan when the loan is originated. Our primary mortgage insurance covers default risk on first mortgage loans generally secured by one- to four-unit residential properties and can be used to protect mortgage lenders and investors from default on any type of residential mortgage loan instrument that we have approved. Our insurance covers a specified coverage percentage of a “claim amount” consisting of unpaid loan principal, delinquent interest and certain expenses associated with the default and subsequent foreclosure. As the insurer, we are generally required to pay the coverage percentage of a claim amount specified in the primary policy, but we also have the option to pay the lender an amount equal to the unpaid loan principal, delinquent interest and certain expenses incurred with the default and foreclosure, and acquire title to the property. In addition, the claim amount may be reduced or eliminated if the loss on the defaulted loan is reduced as a result of the lender’s disposition of the property. The lender selects the coverage percentage at the time the loan is originated, often to comply with investor requirements to reduce the loss exposure on loans purchased by the investor.

In connection with flow insurance, we perform fee-based contract underwriting services for mortgage lenders. The provision of underwriting services by mortgage insurers eliminates the duplicative lender and mortgage insurer underwriting activities and speeds the approval process. Under the terms of our contract underwriting agreements, we agree to indemnify the lender against losses incurred in the event we make material errors in determining whether loans processed by our contract underwriters meet specified underwriting or purchase criteria, subject to contractual limitations on liability.

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In the U.S., we have entered into a number of reinsurance agreements in which we share portions of our flow mortgage insurance risk written on loans originated or purchased by lenders with captive reinsurance companies, or captive reinsurers, affiliated with these lenders. In return, we cede an agreed portion of our gross premiums on insurance written to the captive reinsurers. Substantially all of our captive mortgage reinsurance arrangements are structured on an excess of loss basis. In February 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced a change to its eligibility rules limiting captive reinsurance arrangements to those where premiums ceded do not exceed 25%. As of December 31, 2008, our total mortgage insurance risk in-force reinsured to all captive reinsurers was $3.2 billion, and the total capital held in trust for our benefit by all captive reinsurers was $1.0 billion. These captive reinsurers are not rated, and their claims-paying obligations to us are secured by an amount of capital held in trust as determined by the underlying treaties. For the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007, we recorded a reinsurance credit of $505 million and $2 million, respectively, under these captive reinsurance arrangements. We expect to reach the attachment point for reinsurance credit in 2009 for additional captive reinsurance arrangements as incurred losses continue to develop on our 2005 through 2007 books of business. New insurance written through the bulk channel generally is not subject to these arrangements.

The following table sets forth selected financial information regarding our captive reinsurance arrangements as of or for the periods indicated:

Bulk insurance

Under our primary bulk insurance, we insure a portfolio of loans in a single, bulk transaction. Generally, in our bulk insurance, the individual loans in the portfolio are insured to specified levels of coverage and there may be deductible provisions and aggregate loss limits applicable to all of the insured loans. In addition, loans that we insure in bulk transactions with loan-to-value ratios above 80% typically have flow mortgage insurance, written either by us or another private mortgage insurer, which helps mitigate our exposure under these transactions. We base the premium on our bulk insurance upon our evaluation of the overall risk of the insured loans included in a transaction and we negotiate the premium directly with the securitizer or other owner of the loans. Premiums for bulk transactions generally are paid monthly by lenders, investors or a securitization vehicle in connection with a securitization transaction or the sale of a loan portfolio. Prior to 2006, the majority of our bulk insurance business was related to loans financed by lenders who participated in the mortgage programs sponsored by the Federal Home Loan Banks (“FHLBs”). In 2006, we increased our participation in the GSE low documentation, or Alt-A, programs and began to provide bulk insurance on lender portfolios. During 2007, we continued to provide bulk insurance on GSE Alt-A programs. Additionally, we provided bulk insurance on lender portfolios, a substantial portion of which was comprised of low loan-to-value and high Fair Isaac Company (“FICO”) score payment option adjustable rate (“POA”) loans. For additional information related to our bulk insurance, see “Item 3—Legal Proceedings.”

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Pool insurance

Pool insurance generally covers the loss on a defaulted mortgage loan that either exceeds the claim payment under the primary coverage (if primary insurance is required on that loan) or the total loss (if that loan does not require primary insurance), in each case up to a stated aggregate loss limit on the pool. During 2005, we wrote pool insurance selectively for state housing finance agencies. In 2006, we wrote a limited amount of pool insurance on second lien mortgages, typically held in lender portfolios. These policies cover prime credit-quality second lien mortgages and typically include aggregate stop loss provisions. However, we no longer write business in the second lien mortgage market.

Underwriting and pricing

Loan applications for all loans we insure are reviewed to evaluate each individual borrower’s credit strength and history, the characteristics of the loan and the value of the underlying property.

Fair Isaac Company developed the FICO credit scoring model to calculate a score based upon a borrower’s credit history. We use the FICO credit score as one indicator of a borrower’s credit quality. The higher the credit score, the lower the likelihood that a borrower will default on a loan. FICO credit scores range up to 850, with a score of 620 or more generally viewed as a “prime” loan and a score below 620 generally viewed as a “sub-prime” loan. A minus loans generally are loans where the borrowers have FICO credit scores between 575 and 660, and where the borrower has a blemished credit history. As of December 31, 2008, on a risk in-force basis, approximately 92% of our primary insurance loans had FICO credit scores of at least 620, approximately 6% had FICO credit scores between 575 and 619, and approximately 2% had FICO credit scores of 574 or less. Loan applications for flow mortgage insurance are reviewed by our employees directly as part of our traditional underwriting process or by our contract underwriters as we process mortgage loan applications requiring mortgage insurance. The majority of our mortgage lender customers underwrite loan applications for mortgage insurance under a delegated underwriting program, in which we permit approved lenders to commit us to insure loans using underwriting guidelines we have previously approved.

When underwriting bulk insurance transactions, we evaluate credit scores and loan characteristics of the loans in the portfolio and examine loan files on a sample basis. Each bulk transaction is assigned an overall claim rate based on a weighted average of the expected claim rates for each individual loan that comprises the transaction.

We also provide mortgage insurance for Alt-A loans, which are originated under programs in which there is a reduced level of verification or disclosure of the borrower’s income or assets and a higher historical and expected default rate than standard documentation loans; Interest Only loans which allow the borrower flexibility to pay interest only, or to pay interest and as much principal as desired, during an initial period of time; and POA mortgages, which typically provide four payment options that a borrower may select for the first five years of a loan.

Beginning in the second half of 2007 and through 2008, we have taken specific underwriting and risk management actions to reduce our new business risk profile, including changing prices, product levels and underwriting guidelines, to improve the performance of new business written. Our primary guideline actions during the fourth quarter of 2008 included adding incremental geographic locations to our declining market policy definition and changes in third-party loan origination guidelines, including restrictions on delegated underwriting guidelines, as well as imposing tighter underwriting guidelines on lower credit and higher loan-to-value risks. Additionally, with increased refinancing activity, we also added new restrictions on FICO and debt-to-income ratios to better manage our capital consumption from new production. We believe these underwriting and pricing actions will improve our underwriting results on these and future books of business under the anticipated economic and housing market environment, and may have an impact on our volume of new insurance written. We will continue to monitor current housing conditions and the performance of our books of business to determine if we need to make further changes in our underwriting guidelines and practices.

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Distribution

We distribute our mortgage insurance products through our dedicated sales force throughout the U.S. This sales force primarily markets to financial institutions and mortgage originators, which in turn offer mortgage insurance products to borrowers. In addition to our field sales force, we also distribute our products through a telephone sales force serving our smaller lenders, as well as through our “Action Center” which provides live phone and web chat-based support for all customer segments.

Competition

We compete primarily with U.S. and state government agencies, other private mortgage insurers, mortgage lenders and other investors, the GSEs and, potentially, the FHLBs. We also compete, indirectly, with structured transactions in the capital markets and with other financial instruments designed to mitigate credit risk.

U.S. and state government agencies. We and other private mortgage insurers compete for flow business directly with U.S. federal and state governmental and quasi-governmental agencies, principally the Federal Housing Administration (“FHA”) and, to a lesser degree, the Veteran’s Administration (“VA”). In addition to competition from the FHA and the VA, we and other private mortgage insurers face competition from state-supported mortgage insurance funds in several states, including California, Illinois and New York.

Private mortgage insurers. The private mortgage insurance industry is highly competitive and currently consists of seven mortgage insurers, excluding us. Our private mortgage insurance competitors include Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation; PMI Mortgage Insurance Company; CMG Mortgage Insurance Company; Radian Guaranty Inc.; Republic Mortgage Insurance Company; Triad Guaranty Insurance Corporation; and United Guaranty Residential Insurance Company.

Mortgage lenders and other investors. We and other mortgage insurers compete with transactions structured by mortgage lenders to avoid mortgage insurance on low-down-payment mortgage loans. These transactions include self-insuring and simultaneous second loans, which separate a mortgage with a loan-to-value ratio of more than 80%, which generally would require mortgage insurance, into two loans: a first mortgage with a loan- to-value ratio of 80% and a simultaneous second mortgage for the excess portion of the loan.

The GSEs—Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHLBs. As the predominant purchasers of conventional mortgage loans in the U.S., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provide a direct link between mortgage origination and capital markets. As discussed above, most high loan-to-value mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac are insured with private mortgage insurance issued by an insurer deemed qualified by the GSEs. Our mortgage insurance company is a qualified insurer with both GSEs. Private mortgage insurers may be subject to competition from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the extent the GSEs are compensated for assuming default risk that would otherwise be insured by the private mortgage insurance industry.

We also compete with structured transactions in the capital markets and with other financial instruments designed to mitigate the risk of mortgage defaults, such as credit default swaps and credit linked notes, with lenders who forego mortgage insurance (self-insure) on loans held in their portfolios, and with mortgage lenders who maintain captive mortgage insurance and reinsurance programs.

Private mortgage insurers must satisfy requirements set by the GSEs to be eligible to insure loans sold to the GSEs, and the GSEs have the ability to implement new eligibility requirements for mortgage insurers. They also have the authority to change the pricing arrangements for purchasing retained-participation mortgages as compared to insured mortgages, increase or reduce required mortgage insurance coverage percentages, and alter or liberalize underwriting standards and pricing terms on low-down-payment mortgages they purchase.

In addition to the GSEs, FHLBs purchase single-family conforming mortgage loans. Although not required to do so, the FHLBs currently use mortgage insurance on substantially all mortgage loans with a loan-to-value ratio above 80%.

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Corporate and Other

Our Corporate and Other activities include debt financing expenses that are incurred at our holding company level, unallocated corporate income and expenses, eliminations of inter-segment transactions, the results of non-core businesses that are managed outside our operating segments and our group life and health insurance business, which we sold in May 2007 and was accounted for as discontinued operations.

Discontinued Operations

On May 31, 2007, we completed the sale of our group life and health insurance business for gross cash proceeds of approximately $660 million. Accordingly, the business was accounted for as discontinued operations and its results of operations, financial position and cash flows were separately reported for all periods presented. The sale resulted in a gain on sale of discontinued operations of $51 million, net of taxes.

International Operations

Information regarding our international operations is presented in note 21 to the consolidated financial statements under “Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Marketing

As we position ourselves as a specialty insurance provider, we promote and differentiate our products and services through technology, specialized support for our distributors and innovative marketing programs tailored to particular consumer groups.

We offer a range of products that are designed to meet the needs of consumers throughout the various stages of their lives. We are selective in the products we offer and strive to maintain appropriate return and risk thresholds when we expand the scope of our product offerings. We also have developed sophisticated technological tools that enhance performance by automating key processes and reducing response times and process variations. These tools also make it easier for our customers and distributors to do business with us.

We have focused our marketing approach on promoting our brand to key constituencies, including sales intermediaries, employees, investors and consumers. We seek to build recognition of our brand and maintain good relationships with leading distributors by providing a high level of specialized and differentiated distribution support, such as product training, advanced marketing and sales solutions, financial product design for affluent customers and technology solutions that support the distributors’ sales efforts and by pursuing joint business improvement efforts. In addition, we sponsor various advisory councils with independent sales intermediaries and dedicated sales specialists to gather their feedback on industry trends, new product suggestions and ways to enhance our relationships.

Risk Management

Risk management is a critical part of our business and in the changing economic environment, we seek to adapt and actively manage risk. We have an enterprise risk management framework that includes risk management processes relating to product development and management, business acquisitions, asset-liability management, portfolio diversification and actuarial databases and information systems. The risk management framework includes the assessment of risk, a proactive decision process to determine which risks are acceptable and the ongoing monitoring and management of those risks. We have emphasized our adherence to risk management techniques and leveraged the benefits into a competitive advantage in distribution and management of our products as we are actively trying to mitigate risk in this changing environment.

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Product development and management

Our risk management process begins with the development and introduction of new products and services. We have established a product development process that specifies a series of required analyses, reviews and approvals for any new product. For each proposed product, this process includes a review of the market opportunity and competitive landscape, major pricing assumptions and methodologies, return expectations, reinsurance strategies, underwriting criteria and business risks and potential mitigating factors. Before we introduce a new product, we establish a monitoring program with specific performance targets and leading indicators, which we monitor frequently to identify any deviations from expected performance so that we can take corrective action when necessary. Significant product introductions require approval by our senior management team.

We use a similar process to introduce variations to existing products and to offer existing products in new markets and through new distribution channels. Product performance reviews include an analysis of the major drivers of profitability, underwriting performance and variations from expected results including an in-depth experience analysis of the product’s major risk factors. Other areas of focus include the regulatory and competitive environments and other emerging factors that may be affecting product performance.

In addition, we initiate special reviews when a product’s performance fails to meet the indicators we established during that product’s introductory review process. If a product does not meet our performance criteria, we consider adjustments in pricing, design and marketing or ultimately discontinuing sales of that product. In addition, in our U.S. and international mortgage insurance businesses, we also review the profitability of lender accounts to assess whether our business with these lenders is achieving anticipated performance levels and to identify trends requiring remedial action, including changes to underwriting guidelines, product mix or other customer performance. We review our underwriting, pricing and risk selection strategies on a regular basis to ensure that our products remain competitive and consistent with our marketing and profitability objectives.

Business acquisitions

When we consider an acquisition of a new block or book of business, we use our risk management process to evaluate a business opportunity and assess its strategic fit with our current business model. We have a review process that includes a series of required analyses, reviews and approvals similar to those employed for new product introductions.

Asset-liability management

We maintain segmented investment portfolios for the majority of our product lines. This enables us to perform an ongoing analysis of the interest rate risks associated with each major product line, in addition to the interest rate risk for our overall enterprise. We analyze the behavior of our liability cash flows across a wide variety of future interest rate scenarios, reflecting policy features and expected policyholder behavior. We also analyze the behavior of our asset portfolios across the same scenarios. We believe this analysis shows the sensitivity of both our assets and liabilities to large and small changes in interest rates and enables us to manage our assets and liabilities more effectively. In addition, we have hedging programs to mitigate interest rate risk associated with our assets, liabilities and capital. We also use hedging programs to mitigate equity market risk in our variable annuity products.

Portfolio diversification

We use product new business and in-force limits to manage our risk concentrations and to manage product, business level, geographic and other risk exposures. In addition, our assets are managed within strict limitations to control credit risk and to avoid excessive concentration in our investment portfolio. We seek diversification in our investment portfolio by investing in multiple asset classes, tailored to match the cash flow characteristics of our liabilities. In the current adverse market environment, we are monitoring existing exposures and reducing our holdings, where appropriate.

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We also manage unique product exposures in our business segments. For example, in managing our mortgage insurance risk exposure, we carefully monitor geographic concentrations in our portfolio and the condition of housing markets in each country in which we operate. We monitor our concentration of risk in-force at the regional, state and major metropolitan area levels on a quarterly basis. In the U.S., we evaluate the condition of housing markets in major metropolitan areas with our proprietary OmniMarket model, which rates housing markets based on variables such as economic activity, unemployment, mortgage delinquencies, home sales trends and home price changes. We also regularly monitor factors that affect home prices and their affordability by region and major metropolitan area.

Actuarial databases and information systems

Our extensive actuarial databases and innovative information systems technology are important tools in our risk management programs. We believe we have the largest actuarial database for long-term care insurance claims with over 30 years of experience in offering those products. We also have substantial experience in offering individual life insurance products, and we have developed a large database of claims experience, particularly in preferred risk classes, which provides significant predictive experience for mortality.

We use advanced and, in some cases, proprietary technology to manage variations in our underwriting process. For example, in our mortgage insurance businesses, we use borrower credit scores, our proprietary mortgage scoring model, OmniScore^®, and/or our extensive database of mortgage insurance experience along with external data including rating agency data to evaluate new products and portfolio performance. In the U.S. and Canada, OmniScore^® uses the borrower’s credit score and additional data concerning the borrower, the loan and the property, including loan-to-value ratio, loan type, loan amount, property type, occupancy status and borrower employment to predict the likelihood of having to pay a claim. In the U.S., OmniScore^® also incorporates our assessment of the housing market in which a property is located, as evaluated with our OmniMarket model. We believe this additional mortgage data and housing market assessment significantly enhances OmniScore’s^® predictive power over the life of the loan. We perform portfolio analysis on an ongoing basis to determine if modifications are required to our product offerings, underwriting guidelines or premium rates.

Operations and Technology

Service and support

We have a dedicated team of service and support personnel, supplemented by an outsourcing provider in India who provides back-office support to our sales intermediaries. We use advanced and, in some cases, proprietary, patent-pending technology to provide product design and underwriting, and we operate service centers that leverage technology, integrated processes and process management techniques.

In our Retirement and Protection segment, we interact directly and cost-effectively with our independent sales intermediaries and dedicated sales specialists through secure websites that have enabled them to transact business with us electronically, obtain information about our products, submit applications, check application and account status and view commission information. We also provide our independent sales intermediaries and dedicated sales specialists with account information to disseminate to their customers through the use of industry-standard communications.

We also introduced technologically advanced services to customers in our International and U.S. Mortgage Insurance segments. Advances in technology enable us to accept applications through electronic submission and to issue electronic insurance commitments and certificates to varying degrees across the jurisdictions in which we do business. Through our internet-enabled information systems, lenders can receive information about their loans in our database, as well as make corrections, file notices and claims, report settlement amounts, verify loan information and access payment histories. In the U.S., we also assist in workouts through what we believe is the mortgage insurance industry’s first on-line workout approval system, allowing lenders to request and obtain

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authorization from us for them to provide workout solutions to their borrowers. For the years ended December 31, 2008, 2007 and 2006, we received approximately 92%, 92% and 88%, respectively, of our U.S. mortgage insurance applications electronically.

Operating centers

We have centralized most of our operations and have established scalable, low-cost operating centers in Virginia, North Carolina and Ireland. In addition, through an arrangement with an outsourcing provider, we have a substantial team of professionals in India who provide a variety of services to us, including customer service, transaction processing, and functional support including finance, investment research, actuarial, risk and marketing resources to our insurance operations.

Technology capabilities and process improvement

We rely on proprietary processes for project approval, execution, risk management and benefit verification as part of our approach to technology investment. Our technology team is experienced in large-scale project delivery, including many insurance administration system consolidations and the development of Internet-based servicing capabilities. We continually manage technology costs by standardizing our technology infrastructure, consolidating application systems, reducing servers and storage devices and managing project execution risks.

We believe we have greatly enhanced our operating efficiency, generated significant cost savings and created competitive advantages by using a variety of process tools designed to address all aspects of process management. Our tools enable us to more effectively operate processes, improve our process performance and build new processes. Our team of operational quality experts is focused on driving our process and project execution and championing process management disciplines. We tailor the application of our tools to the specific needs of each project or process resulting in more effective execution.

Reserves

We calculate and maintain reserves for estimated future benefit payments to our policyholders and contractholders in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“U.S. GAAP”) and industry accounting practices. We release these reserves as those future obligations are extinguished. The reserves we establish reflect estimates and actuarial assumptions with regard to our future experience. These estimates and actuarial assumptions involve the exercise of significant judgment that is subjected to a variety of internal and external independent reviews. Our future financial results depend significantly upon the extent to which our actual future experience is consistent with the assumptions we have used in pricing our products and determining our reserves. Many factors can affect future experience, including economic and social conditions, inflation, healthcare costs and changes in doctrines of legal liability and damage awards in litigation. Therefore, we cannot determine with complete precision the ultimate amounts we will pay for actual future benefits or the timing of those payments.

Reinsurance

We follow the industry practice of reinsuring portions of our insurance risks with reinsurance companies. We use reinsurance both to diversify our risks and to manage loss exposures and capital effectively. Reinsurance is also used to improve available capital and surplus, as well as capital ratios that we manage to target levels. The use of reinsurance permits us to write policies in amounts larger than the risk we are willing to retain, and also to write a larger volume of new business.

We cede insurance primarily on a treaty basis, under which risks are ceded to a reinsurer on specific blocks of business where the underlying risks meet certain predetermined criteria. To a lesser extent, we cede insurance risks on a facultative basis, under which the reinsurer’s prior approval is required on each risk reinsured. Use of reinsurance does not discharge us, as the insurer, from liability on the insurance ceded. We, as the insurer, are

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required to pay the full amount of our insurance obligations even in circumstances where we are entitled or able to receive payments from our reinsurer. The principal reinsurers to which we cede risks have A.M. Best financial strength ratings ranging from “A++” to “A-.” Historically, we have not had significant concentrations of reinsurance risk with any one reinsurer. However, prior to the completion of the IPO, we entered into reinsurance transactions with Union Fidelity Life Insurance Company (“UFLIC”), an affiliate of our former parent, which resulted in a significant concentration of reinsurance risk with UFLIC, whose obligations to us are secured by trust accounts as described in note 10 in our consolidated financial statements under “Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.”

The following table sets forth our exposure to our principal reinsurers, including reinsurance recoverable as of December 31, 2008 and the A.M. Best ratings of those reinsurers as of that date:

We also participate in reinsurance programs in which we share portions of our U.S. mortgage insurance risk written on loans originated or purchased by lenders with captive reinsurance companies affiliated with these lenders. In return, we cede to the captive reinsurers an agreed portion of our gross premiums on flow insurance written. New insurance written through the bulk channel generally is not subject to these arrangements. See “Item 1—Business—U.S. Mortgage Insurance” for additional information regarding reinsurance captives. As of December 31, 2008, we had a reinsurance recovery of $505 million where cumulative losses have exceeded the attachment points in several captive reinsurance arrangements.

Financial Strength Ratings

Ratings with respect to financial strength are an important factor in establishing the competitive position of insurance companies. Ratings are important to maintaining public confidence in us and our ability to market our products. Rating organizations review the financial performance and condition of most insurers and provide opinions regarding financial strength, operating performance and ability to meet obligations to policyholders. Short-term financial strength ratings are an assessment of the credit quality of an issuer with respect to an instrument considered short-term in the relevant market, typically one year or less.

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As of February 27, 2009, our principal life insurance subsidiaries were rated by A.M. Best, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch as follows:

As of February 27, 2009, our mortgage insurance subsidiaries were rated by S&P, Moody’s and DBRS as follows:

The A.M. Best, S&P, Moody’s, Fitch and DBRS ratings included are not designed to be, and do not serve as, measures of protection or valuation offered to investors. These financial strength ratings should not be relied on with respect to making an investment in our securities.

A.M. Best states that the “A” (Excellent) and “A-” (Excellent) ratings are assigned to those companies that have an excellent ability to meet their ongoing obligations to policyholders. The “A” (Excellent) and “A-” (Excellent) ratings are the third- and fourth-highest of 15 ratings assigned by A.M. Best, which range from “A++” to “F.”

S&P states that an insurer rated “AA” (Very Strong) has very strong financial security characteristics and is highly likely to have the ability to meet financial commitments, while an insurer rated “A” (Strong) has strong financial security characteristics. The “AA” and “A” ranges are the second- and third-highest of nine financial strength rating ranges assigned by S&P, which range from “AAA” to “R.” A plus (+) or minus (-) shows relative standing in a rating category. Accordingly, the “AA,” “AA-,” “A+” and “A” ratings are the third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-highest of S&P’s 21 ratings categories. The short-term “A-1” rating is the highest rating and shows the capacity to meet financial commitments on short-term policy obligations is strong. An obligor rated “mxAAA”

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has a very strong capacity to meet its financial commitments relative to that of other Mexican obligors. The “mxAAA” rating is the highest enterprise credit rating assigned on S&P’s CaVal national scale.

Moody’s states that insurance companies rated “A” (Good) offer good financial security. Moody’s states that insurance companies rated “Baa” (Adequate) offer adequate financial security. The “A” (Good) and “Baa” (Adequate) ranges are the third- and fourth-highest of nine financial strength rating ranges assigned by Moody’s, which range from “Aaa” to “C.” Numeric modifiers are used to refer to the ranking within the group, with 1 being the highest and 3 being the lowest. Accordingly, the “A1,” “Baa1” and “Baa2” ratings are the fifth-, eight- and ninth-highest of Moody’s 21 ratings categories. Short-term rating “P-1” is the highest rating and shows superior ability for repayment of senior note short-term policyholder claims and obligations. Issuers or issues rated “Aa.mx” demonstrate very strong creditworthiness relative to other issuers in Mexico.

Fitch states that “A” (Strong) rated insurance companies are viewed as possessing strong capacity to meet policyholder and contract obligations. The “A” rating category is the third-highest of eight financial strength rating categories, which range from “AAA” to “C.” The symbol (+) or (-) may be appended to a rating to indicate the relative position of a credit within a rating category. These suffixes are not added to ratings in the “AAA” category or to ratings below the “CCC” category. Accordingly, the “A-” rating is the seventh-highest of Fitch’s 21 ratings categories.

DBRS states that long-term obligations rated “AA” are of superior credit quality. Given the extremely restrictive definition DBRS has for the “AAA” category, entities rated “AA” are also considered to be strong credits, typically exemplifying above-average strength in key areas of consideration and unlikely to be significantly affected by reasonably foreseeable events.

In 2008, rating agencies undertook a broad reassessment of the credit and financial strength ratings of life and mortgage insurance companies. The following list summarizes major ratings actions affecting Genworth in 2008:

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The following list summarizes major ratings actions affecting Genworth in 2009:

A.M. Best, S&P, Moody’s, Fitch and DBRS review their ratings periodically and we cannot assure you that we will maintain our current ratings in the future. Other agencies may also rate our company or our insurance subsidiaries on a solicited or an unsolicited basis.

Investments

As of December 31, 2008, we had total cash, cash equivalents and invested assets of $67.9 billion. We manage our assets to meet diversification, credit quality, yield and liquidity requirements of our policy and contract liabilities by investing primarily in fixed maturity securities, including government, municipal and corporate bonds, mortgage-backed and other asset-backed securities and mortgage loans on commercial real estate. We also hold equity securities and other invested assets, which include short-term investments, trading securities, derivatives and limited partnerships. In all cases, investments for our particular insurance company subsidiaries are required to comply with restrictions imposed by applicable laws and insurance regulatory authorities.

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The following table sets forth our cash, cash equivalents and invested assets as of the dates indicated:

For a discussion of our investments, see “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Consolidated Balance Sheets.”

Our primary investment objective is to meet our obligations to policyholders and contractholders while increasing value to our stockholders by investing in a diversified, high-quality portfolio, comprised of income producing securities and other assets. Our investment strategy focuses primarily on:

We are exposed to two primary sources of investment risk:

We manage credit risk by analyzing issuers, transaction structures and any associated collateral. We monitor credit risk and continually measure the probability of credit default and estimated loss in the event of such a default, which provides us with early notification of worsening credits. We also manage credit risk through industry and issuer diversification and asset allocation practices. For commercial mortgage loans, we manage credit risk through geographic, property type and product type diversification and asset allocation.

We mitigate interest rate risk through rigorous management of the relationship between the duration of our assets and the duration of our liabilities, seeking to minimize risk of loss in both rising and falling interest rate environments. For further information on our management of interest rate risk, see “Item 7A—Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.”

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Organization

Our investment department includes trading, credit research, portfolio management, derivatives, risk management and accounting functions. Under the direction of the Investment Committee, it is responsible for establishing investment policies and strategies, reviewing asset liability management and performing asset allocation.

We use both internal and external asset managers to take advantage of specific areas of expertise in particular asset classes or to leverage country-specific investing capabilities. We manage certain asset classes for our domestic insurance operations, including public corporate securities, structured securities, government securities, commercial mortgage loans, privately placed debt securities and derivatives. We utilize external asset managers primarily for our municipal securities, emerging markets and high yield portfolios. Management of investments for our international operations is overseen by the managing director and boards of directors of the applicable non-U.S. legal entities in consultation with our Chief Investment Officer. The majority of the assets of our lifestyle protection insurance and European, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand mortgage insurance businesses are managed by unaffiliated investment managers located in their respective countries. As of December 31, 2008 and 2007, approximately 13% and 12% of our invested assets, respectively, were held by our international businesses and were invested primarily in non-U.S.-denominated securities.

Fixed maturity securities

Fixed maturity securities, which were primarily classified as available-for-sale, including tax-exempt bonds, consisted principally of publicly traded and privately placed debt securities, and represented 63% and 75% of total cash, cash equivalents and invested assets as of December 31, 2008 and 2007, respectively.

We invest in privately placed fixed maturity securities to increase diversification and obtain higher yields than can ordinarily be obtained with comparable public market securities. Generally, private placements provide us with protective covenants, call protection features and, where applicable, a higher level of collateral. However, our private placements are generally not freely transferable because of restrictions imposed by federal and state securities laws, the terms of the securities and illiquid trading markets.

The Securities Valuation Office of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (“NAIC”) evaluates bond investments of U.S. insurers for regulatory reporting purposes and assigns securities to one of six investment categories called “NAIC designations.” The NAIC designations parallel the credit ratings of the Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations for marketable bonds. NAIC designations 1 and 2 include bonds considered investment grade (rated “Baa3” or higher by Moody’s, or rated “BBB-” or higher by S&P). NAIC designations 3 through 6 include bonds considered below investment grade (rated “Ba1” or lower by Moody’s, or rated “BB+” or lower by S&P).

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The following tables present our public, private and total fixed maturity securities by the Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations designations and/or equivalent NAIC ratings, as well as the percentage, based upon fair value, that each designation comprises. Our non-U.S. fixed maturity securities generally are not covered by the NAIC. Certain privately placed fixed maturity securities that are not rated by the Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations are shown based upon their NAIC designation. Certain securities, primarily non-U.S. securities, are not covered by the NAIC or rated by the Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations and are so designated.

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Based upon fair value, public fixed maturity securities represented 75% and 72% of total fixed maturity securities as of December 31, 2008 and 2007, respectively. Private fixed maturity securities represented 25% and 28% of total fixed maturity securities as of December 31, 2008 and 2007, respectively.

We diversify our fixed maturity securities by security sector. Our investments in mortgage-backed securities include securities collateralized by sub-prime and Alt-A loans. Sub-prime loans are loans considered alternative credit as broadly determined by a combination of FICO score, loan-to-value ratio and other collateral data. Alt-A loans are loans considered alternative or low documentation. The following table sets forth the fair value of our fixed maturity securities by sector as well as the percentage of the total fixed maturity securities holdings that each security sector comprised as of the dates indicated:

See “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for additional information.

The following table sets forth the major industry types that comprise our corporate bond holdings, based primarily on industry codes established in the Barclays Capital Aggregate Index (formerly known as the Lehman Aggregate Index), as well as the percentage of the total corporate bond holdings that each industry comprised as of the dates indicated:

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We diversify our corporate bond holdings by industry and issuer. The portfolio does not have significant exposure to any single issuer. As of December 31, 2008, our combined corporate bond holdings in the ten issuers to which we had the greatest exposure were $2.5 billion, which was approximately 4% of our total cash, cash equivalents and invested assets. The exposure to the largest single issuer of corporate bonds held as of December 31, 2008 was $486 million, which was less than 1% of our total cash, cash equivalents and invested assets.

We do not have material unhedged exposure to foreign currency risk in our invested assets of our U.S. operations. In our international insurance operations, both our assets and liabilities are generally denominated in local currencies.

Commercial mortgage loans and other invested assets

Our mortgage loans are collateralized by commercial properties, including multi-family residential buildings. Commercial mortgage loans are primarily stated at principal amounts outstanding, net of deferred expenses and allowance for loan loss. As of December 31, 2008 and 2007, we had $18 million and $125 million, respectively, of commercial mortgage loans that were held-for-sale and were stated at the lower of cost or market.

We diversify our commercial mortgage loans by both property type and geographic region. See note 5 to our consolidated financial statements under “Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” for additional information on distribution across property type and geographic region for commercial mortgage loans, as well as information on our interest in equity securities and other invested assets.

Selected financial information regarding our other invested assets and derivative financial instruments as of December 31, 2008 and 2007 is included under “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Investment and Derivative Instruments.”

Regulation

Our businesses are subject to extensive regulation and supervision.

General

Our insurance operations are subject to a wide variety of laws and regulations. State insurance laws and regulations (“Insurance Laws”) regulate most aspects of our U.S. insurance businesses, and our U.S. insurers are regulated by the insurance departments of the states in which they are domiciled and licensed. Our non-U.S. insurance operations are principally regulated by insurance regulatory authorities in the jurisdictions in which they are domiciled. Our insurance products, and thus our businesses, also are affected by U.S. federal, state and local tax laws, and the tax laws of non-U.S. jurisdictions. Insurance products that constitute “securities,” such as variable annuities and variable life insurance, also are subject to U.S. federal and state and non-U.S. securities laws and regulations. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) state securities authorities and non-U.S. authorities regulate and supervise these products.

Our securities operations are subject to U.S. federal and state and non-U.S. securities and related laws. The SEC, state securities authorities, FINRA and similar non-U.S. authorities are the principal regulators of these operations.

The primary purpose of the Insurance Laws affecting our insurance and securities businesses, and the securities laws affecting our variable annuity insurance products, broker/dealers and advisory businesses, is to protect our policyholders, contractholders and clients, not our stockholders. These Insurance Laws are regularly

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re-examined and any changes to these laws or new laws may be more restrictive or otherwise adversely affect our operations.

In addition, insurance and securities regulatory authorities (including state law enforcement agencies and attorneys general or their non-U.S. equivalents) periodically make inquiries regarding compliance with insurance, securities and other laws and regulations, and we cooperate with such inquiries and take corrective action when warranted.

Many of our distributors and institutional customers also operate in regulated environments. Changes in the regulations that affect their operations may affect our business relationships with them and their decision to distribute or purchase our subsidiaries’ products.

In addition, the Insurance Laws of our U.S. insurers’ domiciliary jurisdictions and the Insurance Laws in the U.K., Australia, Canada and in certain other jurisdictions in which we operate require that a person obtain the approval of the applicable insurance regulator prior to acquiring control of an insurer. These laws may discourage potential acquisition proposals and may delay, deter or prevent an investment in or a change of control involving us, or one or more of our regulated subsidiaries, including transactions that our management and some or all of our stockholders might consider desirable.

U.S. Insurance Regulation

Our U.S. insurers are licensed and regulated in all jurisdictions in which they conduct insurance business. The extent of this regulation varies, but Insurance Laws generally govern the financial condition of insurers, including standards of solvency, types and concentrations of permissible investments, establishment and maintenance of reserves, credit for reinsurance and requirements of capital adequacy, and the business conduct of insurers, including marketing and sales practices and claims handling. In addition, Insurance Laws usually require the licensing of insurers and agents, and the approval of policy forms, related materials and the rates for certain lines of insurance.

The Insurance Laws applicable to us or our U.S. insurers are described below. Our U.S. mortgage insurers are also subject to additional insurance laws and regulations applicable specifically to mortgage insurers discussed below under “—Mortgage Insurance.”

Insurance holding company regulation

All U.S. jurisdictions in which our U.S. insurers conduct business have enacted legislation requiring each U.S. insurer (except captive insurers) in a holding company system to register with the insurance regulatory authority of its domiciliary jurisdiction and furnish that regulatory authority various information concerning the operations of, and the interrelationships and transactions among, companies within its holding company system that may materially affect the operations, management or financial condition of the insurers within the system. These Insurance Laws regulate transactions between insurers and their affiliates, sometimes mandating prior notice to the regulator and/or regulatory approval. Generally, these Insurance Laws require that all transactions between an insurer and an affiliate be fair and reasonable, and that the insurer’s statutory surplus following such transaction be reasonable in relation to its outstanding liabilities and adequate to its financial needs. As a holding company with no significant business operations of our own, we depend on dividends or other distributions from our subsidiaries as the principal source of cash to meet our obligations, including the payment of interest on, and repayment of principal of, any debt obligations. Our U.S. insurers’ payment of dividends or other distributions is regulated by the Insurance Laws of their respective domiciliary states, and insurers may not pay an “extraordinary” dividend or distribution, or pay a dividend except out of earned surplus, without prior regulatory approval. In general, an “extraordinary” dividend or distribution is defined as a dividend or distribution that, together with other dividends and distributions made within the preceding 12 months, exceeds the greater (or, in some jurisdictions, the lesser) of:

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In addition, insurance regulators may prohibit the payment of ordinary dividends or other payments by our insurers (such as a payment under a tax sharing agreement or for employment or other services) if they determine that such payment could be adverse to our policyholders or contractholders.

The Insurance Laws of our U.S. insurers’ domiciliary jurisdictions require that a person obtain the approval of the insurance commissioner of an insurer’s domiciliary jurisdiction prior to acquiring control of such insurer. Control of an insurer is generally presumed to exist if any person, directly or indirectly, owns, controls, holds with the power to vote, or holds proxies representing, 10% or more of the voting securities of the insurer or its ultimate parent entity. In considering an application to acquire control of an insurer, the insurance commissioner generally considers factors such as the experience, competence and financial strength of the applicant, the integrity of the applicant’s board of directors and executive officers, the acquirer’s plans for the management and operation of the insurer, and any anti-competitive results that may arise from the acquisition. Some states require a person seeking to acquire control of an insurer licensed but not domiciled in that state to make a filing prior to completing an acquisition if the acquirer and its affiliates and the target insurer and its affiliates have specified market shares in the same lines of insurance in that state. These provisions may not require acquisition approval but can lead to imposition of conditions on an acquisition that could delay or prevent its consummation.

Periodic reporting

Our U.S. insurers must file reports, including detailed annual financial statements, with insurance regulatory authorities in each jurisdiction in which they do business, and their operations and accounts are subject to periodic examination by such authorities.

Policy forms

Our U.S. insurers’ policy forms are subject to regulation in every U.S. jurisdiction in which they transact insurance business. In most U.S. jurisdictions, policy forms must be filed prior to their use, and in some U.S. jurisdictions, forms must be approved prior to use.

Market conduct regulation

The Insurance Laws of U.S. jurisdictions govern the marketplace activities of insurers, affecting the form and content of disclosure to consumers, product illustrations, advertising, product replacement, sales and underwriting practices, and complaint and claims handling, and these provisions are generally enforced through periodic market conduct examinations.

Statutory examinations

Insurance departments in U.S. jurisdictions conduct periodic detailed examinations of the books, records, accounts and business practices of domestic insurers. These examinations generally are conducted in cooperation with insurance departments of two or three other states or jurisdictions representing each of the NAIC zones, under guidelines promulgated by the NAIC.

In the three-year period ended December 31, 2008, we have not received any material adverse findings resulting from any insurance department examinations of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries.

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Guaranty associations and similar arrangements

Most jurisdictions in which our U.S. insurers are licensed require those insurers to participate in guaranty associations which pay contractual benefits owed under the policies of impaired or insolvent insurers. These associations levy assessments, up to prescribed limits, on each member insurer in a jurisdiction on the basis of the proportionate share of the premiums written by such insurer in the lines of business in which the impaired, insolvent or failed insurer is engaged. Some jurisdictions permit member insurers to recover assessments paid through full or partial premium tax offsets. Aggregate assessments levied against our U.S. insurers were not material to our consolidated financial statements.

Policy and contract reserve sufficiency analysis

The Insurance Laws of their domiciliary jurisdictions require our U.S. life insurers to conduct annual analyses of the sufficiency of their life and health insurance and annuity reserves. Other jurisdictions where insurers are licensed may have certain reserve requirements that differ from those of their domiciliary jurisdictions. In each case, a qualified actuary must submit an opinion stating that the aggregate statutory reserves, when considered in light of the assets held with respect to such reserves, make good and sufficient provision for the insurer’s associated contractual obligations and related expenses. If such an opinion cannot be provided, the insurer must establish additional reserves by transferring funds from surplus. Our U.S. life insurers submit these opinions annually to their insurance regulatory authorities. Different reserve requirements exist for our U.S. mortgage insurance subsidiaries. See “—Reserves—Mortgage Insurance.”

Surplus and capital requirements

Insurance regulators have the discretionary authority, in connection with maintaining the licensing of our U.S. insurers, to limit or restrict insurers from issuing new policies, or policies having a dollar value over certain thresholds, if, in the regulators’ judgment, the insurer is not maintaining a sufficient amount of surplus or is in a hazardous financial condition. We seek to maintain new business and capital management strategies to support meeting related regulatory requirements. In addition, we do not believe that the current or anticipated levels of statutory surplus of our U.S. insurers present a material risk that any regulator would limit the types or values of new policies that our U.S. insurers may issue.

Risk-based capital

The NAIC has established RBC standards for U.S. life insurers, as well as a risk-based capital model act (“RBC Model Act”) recommended to be adopted by the states. The RBC Model Act requires that life insurers annually submit a report to state regulators regarding their RBC based upon four categories of risk: asset risk, insurance risk, interest rate risk and business risk. The capital requirement for each is determined by applying factors which vary based upon the degree of risk to various asset, premium and reserve items. The formula is an early warning tool to identify possible weakly capitalized companies for purposes of initiating further regulatory action.

If an insurer’s RBC fell below specified levels, it would be subject to different degrees of regulatory action depending upon the level, ranging from requiring the insurer to propose actions to correct the capital deficiency to placing the insurer under regulatory control. As of December 31, 2008, the RBC of each of our U.S. life insurance subsidiaries exceeded the level of RBC that would require any of them to take or become subject to any corrective action.

Statutory accounting principles

U.S. insurance regulators developed statutory accounting principles (“SAP”) as a basis of accounting used to monitor and regulate the solvency of insurers. Since insurance regulators are primarily concerned with ensuring an insurer’s ability to pay its current and future obligations to policyholders, statutory accounting

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conservatively values the assets and liabilities of insurers, generally in accordance with standards specified by the insurer’s domiciliary jurisdiction. Uniform statutory accounting practices are established by the NAIC and generally adopted by regulators in the various U.S. jurisdictions.

Due to differences in methodology between SAP and U.S. GAAP, the values for assets, liabilities and equity reflected in financial statements prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP are materially different from those reflected in financial statements prepared under SAP.

Regulation of investments

Each of our U.S. insurers is subject to Insurance Laws that require diversification of its investment portfolio and which limit the proportion of investments in certain asset categories, such as non-investment grade fixed maturity securities, equity real estate, other equity investments and derivatives. Assets invested contrary to such regulatory limitations must be treated as non-admitted assets for purposes of measuring surplus, and, in some instances, would require divestiture of such non-complying investments. We believe the investments made by our U.S. insurers comply with these Insurance Laws.

Federal regulation

Most of our variable annuity, some of our fixed guaranteed products, and all of our variable life insurance products, as well as our FABNs issued as part of our registered notes program are “securities” within the meaning of federal and state securities laws, are registered under the Securities Act of 1933 and are subject to regulation by the SEC. These products may also be regulated by FINRA and state securities authorities. Federal and state securities regulation similar to that discussed below under “—Securities Regulation” affects investment advice and sales and related activities with respect to these products. In addition, although the federal government does not comprehensively regulate the business of insurance, federal legislation and administrative policies in several areas, including taxation, financial services regulation, and pension and welfare benefits regulation, can also significantly affect the insurance industry.

Federal initiatives

Although the federal government generally does not directly regulate the insurance business, federal initiatives often, and increasingly, have an impact on the business in a variety of ways. From time to time, federal measures are proposed which may significantly affect the insurance business, including limitations on antitrust immunity, tax incentives for lifetime annuity payouts, simplification bills affecting tax-advantaged or tax-exempt savings and retirement vehicles, and proposals to modify or make permanent the estate tax repeal enacted in 2001. In addition, various forms of direct federal regulation of insurance have been proposed in recent years, and we anticipate that further proposals will arise as Congress considers broader financial regulatory reform in the wake of the current financial crisis. We cannot predict whether any such proposals will be adopted or what impact, if any, such proposals, if adopted as laws, may have on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Changes in tax laws

Changes in tax laws could make some of our products less attractive to consumers. For example, the gradual increase in the federal estate tax exclusion amount, begun in 2001, which leads to a temporary repeal of the federal estate tax in 2010, has resulted in reduced sales, and could continue to adversely affect sales and surrenders, of some of our estate planning products, including survivorship/second-to-die life insurance policies. The federal estate tax is currently scheduled to be reinstated for estates of decedents dying after December 31, 2010, and Congress may introduce legislation in early 2009 that will prevent the federal estate tax’s scheduled temporary repeal. The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, which lowered the federal income tax rate on capital gains and certain ordinary dividends, may provide an incentive for certain of our

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customers and potential customers to shift assets into mutual funds and away from our products including annuities that are designed to defer taxes payable on investment returns. On the other hand, individual income tax rates are scheduled to revert to previous levels in tax years beginning after 2010, possibly positively influencing investors to buy our products, and the 2010 expiration of favorable income tax rates for dividend income could increase interest in our products.

U.K. Insurance Regulation

General

Insurance and reinsurance businesses in the U.K. are subject to close regulation by the Financial Services Authority (“FSA”), which has provided authorization to certain of our U.K. subsidiaries to effect and carry out contracts of insurance in the U.K. Insurers authorized by the FSA in the U.K. are generally able to operate throughout the European Union, subject to satisfying certain FSA requirements and, in some cases, additional local regulatory provisions. Certain of our U.K. subsidiaries operate in other European Union member states through establishment of branch offices.

Supervision

The FSA has adopted a risk-based approach to the supervision of insurers whereby it periodically performs a formal risk assessment of insurance companies or groups carrying on business in the U.K. After each risk assessment, the FSA will inform the insurer of its views on the insurer’s risk profile, including details of remedial action the FSA requires and the likely consequences of not taking such actions. The FSA also supervises the management of insurance companies through the “approved persons” regime, which subjects to FSA approval any person appointed to perform certain specified “controlled functions” for a regulated entity.

In addition, the FSA supervises the sale of general insurance, including lifestyle protection insurance and mortgage insurance. Under FSA rules, persons involved in the sale of general insurance (including insurers and distributors) are prohibited from offering or accepting any inducement in connection with the sale of general insurance that is likely to conflict materially with their duties to insureds. Although the rules do not generally require disclosure of broker compensation, the insurer or distributor must disclose broker compensation at the insured’s request.

Solvency requirements

Under FSA rules, insurers must maintain a minimum amount of capital resources for solvency purposes at all times, the calculation of which depends on the type, amount and claims history of the insurer. Failure to maintain the required minimum amount of capital resources is one of the grounds on which the FSA may exercise its wide powers of intervention. In addition, an insurer that is part of a group is required to perform and submit to the FSA a capital resources calculation return in respect of the following:

Restrictions on dividend payments

The U.K. Companies Act prohibits U.K. insurers from declaring a dividend to their stockholders unless they have “profits available for distribution,” the determination of which is based on the insurer’s audited accumulated realized profits less its accumulated realized losses.

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Change of control

The acquisition of “control” of any U.K. insurer requires prior FSA approval. For these purposes, a party that “controls” a U.K. insurer includes any company or individual that (together with its or his associates) directly or indirectly acquires 10% or more of the shares in such insurer or its parent company, or (amongst others) is entitled to exercise or control the exercise of 10% or more of the voting power of such insurer or its parent company or is able to exercise significant influence over the management of the authorized insurance company or its parent company by virtue of its shareholding or voting power. Prior FSA approval is also required where an existing approved controller increases its “control” through certain thresholds (20%, 33% and 50%). To approve an application for acquiring such voting power or exceeding a new threshold, the FSA must be satisfied that the acquirer is a fit and proper person to have such “control” and also that the interests of consumers would not be threatened by such acquisition or increase of “control.” Failure to make the relevant prior application could result in action being taken against our U.K. subsidiaries by the FSA.

Intervention and enforcement

The FSA has extensive powers to intervene in the affairs of an insurer or authorized person and has the power, among other things, to enforce and take disciplinary measures in respect of, breaches of its rules, which includes the alteration or withdrawal of any authorizations.

Mortgage Insurance

State regulation

General

Mortgage insurers generally are limited by Insurance Laws to writing mortgage insurance business exclusively, prohibiting our mortgage insurers from directly writing other types of insurance. Mortgage insurers are not subject to the NAIC’s risk-based capital requirements but are subject to other capital requirements placed directly on mortgage insurers. Generally, mortgage insurers are required by certain states and other regulators to maintain a risk in-force to capital ratio not to exceed 25:1. As of December 31, 2008, none of our U.S. mortgage insurance subsidiaries had a risk in-force to capital ratio in excess of 25:1.

Reserves

Insurance Laws require our U.S. mortgage insurers to establish a special statutory contingency reserve in their statutory financial statements to provide for losses in the event of significant economic declines. Annual additions to the statutory contingency reserve must equal 50% of net earned premiums as defined by Insurance Laws. These contingency reserves generally are held until the earlier of (i) the time that loss ratios exceed 35% or (ii) ten years, although regulators have granted discretionary releases from time to time. The statutory contingency reserve for our U.S. mortgage insurers was approximately $1.6 billion as of December 31, 2008. This reserve reduces the policyholder surplus of our U.S. mortgage insurers, and therefore, their ability to pay dividends to us.

Federal regulation

In addition to federal laws that directly affect mortgage insurers, private mortgage insurers are affected indirectly by federal legislation and regulation affecting mortgage originators and lenders, by purchasers of mortgage loans such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and by governmental insurers such as the FHA and VA. For example, changes in federal housing legislation and other laws and regulations that affect the demand for private mortgage insurance may have a material effect on private mortgage insurers. Legislation or regulation that increases the number of people eligible for FHA or VA mortgages could have a materially adverse effect on our ability to compete with the FHA or VA.

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The Homeowners Protection Act provides for the automatic termination, or cancellation upon a borrower’s request, of private mortgage insurance upon satisfaction of certain conditions. The Homeowners Protection Act applies to owner-occupied residential mortgage loans regardless of lien priority and to borrower-paid mortgage insurance closed after July 29, 1999. FHA loans are not covered by the Homeowners Protection Act. Under the Homeowners Protection Act, automatic termination of mortgage insurance would generally occur once the loan-to-value ratio reaches 78%. A borrower generally may request cancellation of mortgage insurance once the actual payments reduce the loan balance to 80% of the home’s original value. For borrower-initiated cancellation of mortgage insurance, the borrower must have a “good payment history” as defined by the Homeowners Protection Act.

The Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act of 1974 (“RESPA”) applies to most residential mortgages insured by private mortgage insurers. Mortgage insurance has been considered in some cases to be a “settlement service” for purposes of loans subject to RESPA. Subject to limited exceptions, RESPA precludes us from providing services to mortgage lenders free of charge, charging fees for services that are lower than their reasonable or fair market value, and paying fees for services that others provide that are higher than their reasonable or fair market value. In addition, RESPA prohibits persons from giving or accepting any portion or percentage of a charge for a real estate settlement service, other than for services actually performed. Although many states prohibit mortgage insurers from giving rebates, RESPA has been interpreted to cover many non-fee services as well. Mortgage insurers and their customers are subject to the possible sanctions of this law, which may be enforced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Administration (“HUD”), state insurance departments, state attorneys general and other enforcement authorities.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) also affect the business of mortgage insurance in various ways. ECOA, for example, prohibits discrimination against certain protected classes in credit transactions. FCRA governs the access and use of consumer credit information in credit transactions and requires notices to consumers in certain circumstances.

Most originators of mortgage loans are required to collect and report data relating to a mortgage loan applicant’s race, nationality, gender, marital status and census tract to HUD or the Federal Reserve under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (“HMDA”). The purpose of HMDA is to detect possible impermissible discrimination in home lending and, through disclosure, to discourage such discrimination. Mortgage insurers are not required to report HMDA data although, under the laws of several states, mortgage insurers currently are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of certain classifications. Mortgage insurers have, through Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, entered voluntarily into an agreement with the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council to report the same data on loans submitted for insurance as is required for most mortgage lenders under HMDA.

International regulation

Canada

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (“OSFI”) provides oversight to all federally incorporated financial institutions, including our Canadian mortgage insurance company. OSFI does not have enforcement powers over market conduct issues in the insurance industry, which are a provincial responsibility. The Federal Bank Act, Insurance Companies Act and Trust and Loan Companies Act prohibit Canadian banks, trust companies and insurers from extending mortgage loans where the loan value exceeds 80% of the property’s value, unless mortgage insurance is obtained in connection with the loan. As a result, all mortgages issued by these financial institutions with a loan-to-value ratio exceeding 80% must be insured by a qualified insurer or CMHC.

We have an agreement with the Canadian government under which it guarantees the benefits payable under a mortgage insurance policy, less 10% of the original principal amount of an insured loan, in the event that we

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fail to make claim payments with respect to that loan because of insolvency. We pay the Canadian government a risk premium for this guarantee and make other payments to a reserve fund in respect of the government’s obligation. Because banks are not required to maintain regulatory capital on an asset backed by a sovereign guarantee, our 90% sovereign guarantee permits lenders purchasing our mortgage insurance to reduce their regulatory capital charges for credit risks on mortgages by 90%. The Canadian Department of Finance has informed us that they intend to review the guarantee agreement we have with the Canadian government. Although the Department of Finance originally targeted completion of the review by the end of 2008, we continue to be engaged in ongoing discussions with Department of Finance officials on this matter and no new target completion date has been announced.

The Insurance Companies Act of Canada provides that dividends may only be declared by the board of directors of the Canadian insurer and paid if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the payment of the dividend would not cause the insurer to be in violation of its minimum capital and liquidly requirements. Also, we are required to notify OSFI at least 15 days prior to the dividend payment date.

The legislative requirement in Canada to obtain mortgage insurance on high loan-to-value mortgages and the favorable capital treatment given to financial institutions because of our 90% sovereign guarantee effectively preclude these financial institutions from issuing simultaneous second mortgage products similar to those offered in the U.S.

Australia

APRA regulates all financial institutions in Australia, including life, general and mortgage insurance companies. Effective July 1, 2002, APRA provided new regulatory standards for all general insurers, including mortgage insurers. APRA’s license conditions currently require Australian mortgage insurers to be monoline insurers, which are insurers offering just one type of insurance product.

APRA also sets authorized capital levels and monitors corporate governance requirements, including our risk management strategy. In this regard, APRA reviews our management, controls, processes, reporting and methods by which all risks are managed, including a periodic review of outstanding insurance liabilities by an approved actuary, and a reinsurance management strategy, which outlines our use of reinsurance in Australia.

In addition, APRA determines the capital requirements for depository institutions and provides for reduced capital requirements for certain depository institutions that insure residential mortgages with an “acceptable” mortgage insurer for all non-standard mortgages and for standard mortgages with loan-to-value ratios above 80%. APRA’s regulations currently set out a number of circumstances in which a loan may be considered to be non-standard from a depository institution’s perspective.

APRA rules also provide that LMI on a non-performing loan (90 days plus arrears) protects most depository institutions from having to increase the regulatory capital on the loan to a risk-weighting of 100%. The new regulations impose significantly higher minimum capital requirements on mortgage insurers to assure they have sufficient capital to withstand a hypothetical three-year stress loss scenario. In addition, the new regulations increase mortgage insurers’ capital requirements for insured loans that are considered to be non-standard.

The new regulations also impose additional quarterly reporting obligations on mortgage insurers with respect to risk profiles and reinsurance arrangements, amend the definition of an “acceptable” mortgage insurer and eliminate the reduced capital requirements for depository institutions in the event that the mortgage insurer has contractual recourse to the depository institution or a member of the depository institution’s consolidated group.

Australian company law provides that dividends may only be paid out of profits of the Australian insurer. Additionally, APRA has the power to impose restrictions on our ability to declare and pay dividends based on a number of factors, including the impact on our minimum regulatory capital ratio.

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United Kingdom and Europe

The U.K. is a member of the European Union and applies the harmonized system of regulation set out in the European Union directives. Our authorization to provide mortgage insurance in the U.K. enables us to offer our products in all the European Union member states, subject to certain regulatory requirements of the FSA and, in some cases, local regulatory requirements. We can provide mortgage insurance only in the classes for which we have authorization under applicable regulations and must maintain required risk and capital reserves. We are also subject to the oversight of other regulatory agencies in other countries throughout Europe where we do business. For more information about U.K. insurance regulation that affects our mortgage subsidiaries that operate in the U.K., see “—U.K. Insurance Regulation.”

Other Non-U.S. Insurance Regulation

We operate in a number of countries around the world in addition to the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K., including Mexico, Spain, Guernsey and Bermuda. Generally, our subsidiaries (and in some cases our branches) conducting business in these countries must obtain licenses from local regulatory authorities and satisfy local regulatory requirements, including those relating to rates, forms, capital, reserves and financial reporting.

Other Laws and Regulations

Securities regulation

Certain of our U.S. subsidiaries and certain policies, contracts and services offered by them, are subject to regulation under federal and state securities laws and regulations of the SEC, state securities regulators and FINRA. Certain of our U.S. subsidiaries are investment advisers registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 or applicable state securities laws. Certain of their employees are licensed as investment advisory representatives in states as required by state law. Two of our U.S. investment adviser subsidiaries manage investment companies that are registered with the SEC under the Investment Company Act of 1940. In addition, some of our insurance company separate accounts are registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Some variable annuity contracts and all of our variable life insurance policies, as well as our FABNs issued by one of our U.S. subsidiaries as part of our registered notes program are registered under the Securities Act of 1933. Certain of our U.S. subsidiaries are registered and regulated as broker/dealers under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and are members of, and subject to regulation by, FINRA, as well as by various state and local regulators. The registered representatives of our broker/dealers are also regulated by the SEC and FINRA and are further subject to applicable state and local laws.

These laws and regulations are primarily intended to protect investors in the securities markets and generally grant supervisory agencies broad administrative powers, including the power to limit or restrict the conduct of business for failure to comply with such laws and regulations. In such event, the possible sanctions that may be imposed include suspension of individual employees, limitations on the activities in which the investment adviser or broker/dealer may engage, suspension or revocation of the investment adviser or broker/ dealer registration, censure or fines. We may also be subject to similar laws and regulations in the states and other countries in which we provide investment advisory services, offer the products described above or conduct other securities-related activities.

Certain of our U.S. subsidiaries also sponsor and manage investment vehicles that rely on certain exemptions from registration under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Securities Act of 1933. Nevertheless, certain provisions of the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Securities Act of 1933 apply to these investment vehicles and the securities issued by such vehicles in certain circumstances. The Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Securities Act of 1933, including the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder, are subject to change, which may affect our U.S. subsidiaries that sponsor and manage such investment vehicles.

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The SEC, FINRA, state attorneys general, other federal offices and the New York Stock Exchange may conduct periodic examinations, in addition to special or targeted examinations of us and/or specific products. These examinations or inquiries may include, but are not necessarily limited to, product disclosures and sales issues, financial and accounting disclosure and operational issues. Often examinations are “sweep exams” whereby the regulator reviews current issues facing the financial or insurance industry as a whole.

Reverse mortgage regulation

We acquired Liberty Reverse Mortgage, Incorporated (“Liberty”), an originator of reverse mortgage loans, on October 31, 2007. In November 2008, Liberty was renamed Genworth Financial Home Equity Access, Inc. Liberty is subject to various federal and state laws and regulations including mortgage banking laws and regulations (“Mortgage Banking Laws”), as well as other federal and state laws and regulations protecting privacy and other consumer rights. Liberty is regulated by the mortgage banking departments of the states in which it is licensed, as well as the FHA with respect to loans insured through HUD.

In addition, mortgage banking authorities (including state law enforcement agencies and attorneys general) increasingly make inquiries regarding compliance with Mortgage Banking Laws and other applicable laws and regulations, and we cooperate with such inquiries and take corrective action when warranted. HUD conducts periodic, detailed examinations of the loans and business practices of issuers of reverse mortgage loans it insures.

Federal bank regulation

If we close our pending acquisition of InterBank, fsb, which is subject to federal regulation as a federal savings bank by the OTS, we will be considered to be a savings and loan holding company and will be subject to regulation as such and to periodic examination by the OTS. In addition, if our pending acquisition of InterBank, fsb closes, the Home Owners Loan Act generally would prohibit a person from acquiring control of us (and indirectly, InterBank, fsb) without prior regulatory approval.

Environmental considerations

As an owner and operator of real property, we are subject to extensive U.S. federal and state and non-U.S. environmental laws and regulations. Potential environmental liabilities and costs in connection with any required remediation of such properties is also an inherent risk in property ownership and operation. In addition, we hold equity interests in companies, and have made loans secured by properties, that could potentially be subject to environmental liabilities. We routinely have environmental assessments performed with respect to real estate being acquired for investment and real property to be acquired through foreclosure. We cannot provide assurance that unexpected environmental liabilities will not arise. However, based upon information currently available to us, we believe that any costs associated with compliance with environmental laws and regulations or any remediation of such properties will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

ERISA considerations

We provide certain products and services to employee benefit plans that are subject to ERISA or the Internal Revenue Code. As such, our activities are subject to the restrictions imposed by ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code, including the requirement under ERISA that fiduciaries must perform their duties solely in the interests of ERISA plan participants and beneficiaries, and fiduciaries may not cause or permit a covered plan to engage in certain prohibited transactions with persons who have certain relationships with respect to such plans. The applicable provisions of ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code are subject to enforcement by the U.S. Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

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USA PATRIOT Act

The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (the “Patriot Act”), enacted in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, contains anti-money laundering and financial transparency laws and mandates the implementation of various new regulations applicable to broker/dealers and other financial services companies including insurance companies. The Patriot Act seeks to promote cooperation among financial institutions, regulators and law enforcement entities in identifying parties who may be involved in terrorism or money laundering. Anti-money laundering laws outside of the U.S. contain similar provisions. The increased obligations of financial institutions to identify their customers, watch for and report suspicious transactions, respond to requests for information by regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies, and share information with other financial institutions, require the implementation and maintenance of internal practices, procedures and controls. We believe that we have implemented, and that we maintain, appropriate internal practices, procedures and controls to enable us to comply with the provisions of the Patriot Act. Certain additional requirements became applicable under the Patriot Act in May 2006 through a U.S. Treasury regulation which required that certain insurers have anti-money laundering compliance plans in place. We believe our plan complies with these requirements.

Privacy of consumer information

U.S. federal and state laws and regulations require financial institutions, including insurance companies, to protect the security and confidentiality of consumer financial information and to notify consumers about the companies’ policies and practices relating to their collection and disclosure of consumer information and their policies relating to protecting the security and confidentiality of that information. Similarly, federal and state laws and regulations also govern the disclosure and security of consumer health information. In particular, regulations promulgated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulate the disclosure and use of protected health information by health insurers and others, the physical and procedural safeguards employed to protect the security of that information, and the electronic transmission of such information. Congress and state legislatures are expected to consider additional legislation relating to privacy and other aspects of consumer information.

In Europe, the collection and use of personal information is subject to strict regulation. The European Union’s Data Protection Directive establishes a series of privacy requirements that European Union member states are obliged to enact into their national legislation. Certain European Union countries have additional national law requirements regarding the use of private data. Other European countries that are not European Union member states have similar privacy requirements in their national laws. These requirements generally apply to all businesses, including insurance companies. In general, companies may process personal information only if consent has been obtained from the individuals concerned or if certain other conditions are met. These other requirements include the provision of notice to customers and other persons concerning how their personal information is used and disclosed, limitations on the transfer of personal information to countries outside the European Union, registration with the national privacy authorities, where applicable, and the use of appropriate information security measures against the access or use of personal information by unauthorized persons. Similar laws and regulations protecting the security and confidentiality of consumer and financial information are also in effect in Canada, Australia and other countries in which we operate.

Employees

We have approximately 6,000 full-time and part-time employees following our recent restructuring as described elsewhere in this Annual Report. We believe our employee relations are satisfactory.

Directors and Executive Officers

See Part III, Item 10 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for information about our directors and executive officers.

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Available Information

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act are available, without charge, on our website, www.genworth.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after we file such reports with the SEC. Our SEC filings are also accessible through the Internet at the SEC’s web site at www.sec.gov. Copies are also available, without charge, from Genworth Investor Relations, 6620 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23230.

Our website also includes the charters of our Audit Committee, Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, Legal and Public Affairs Committee, and Management Development and Compensation Committee, any key practices of these committees, our Governance Principles, and our company’s code of ethics. Copies of these materials also are available, without charge, from Genworth Investor Relations, at the above address. Within the time period required by the SEC and the New York Stock Exchange, we will post on our website any amendment to our code of ethics and any waiver applicable to any of our directors, executive officers or senior financial officers.

On May 30, 2008, our Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer certified to the New York Stock Exchange that he was not aware of any violation by us of the New York Stock Exchange’s corporate governance listing standards.

Transfer Agent and Registrar

Our Transfer Agent and Registrar is BNY Mellon Shareowner Services, P.O. Box 358015, Pittsburgh, PA 15252-8015. Telephone: 866-229-8413; 201-680-6578 (outside the U.S. and Canada may call collect); and 800-231-5469 (for hearing impaired).

You should carefully consider the following risks. These risks could materially affect our business, results of operations or financial condition, cause the trading price of our common stock to decline materially or cause our actual results to differ materially from those expected or those expressed in any forward looking statements made by us or on our behalf. These risks are not exclusive, and additional risks to which we are subject include, but are not limited to, the factors mentioned under “Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements” and the risks of our businesses described elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008.

Risks Relating to Our Businesses

Adverse capital and credit market conditions may significantly affect our access to capital and may affect our ability to meet liquidity or refinancing requirements in the future.

During 2008 and the beginning of 2009, the capital and credit markets experienced extreme volatility and disruption. As a result, access to capital and credit markets (including short- and long-term debt markets and equity markets) and to other available forms of financing and liquidity, including certain types of reinsurance transactions, has been significantly impaired for us and for many other companies. In the current market, our liquidity needs could increase materially and rapidly for a variety of reasons, many of which are outside of our control. For example, some of our insurance and investment products entitle holders to surrender their policies or withdraw funds prior to maturity, for any reason and on limited notice, in exchange for specified cash amounts (although these may be subject to specified withdrawal penalties). In addition, we may require additional funds to invest in our insurance subsidiaries in the event that their regulatory capital levels decline below desired levels as a result of future impairments of investment securities or other conditions, including changes in regulatory capital requirements. The principal sources of our liquidity are premiums and deposits collected from our insurance and investment products, the margin generated from in-force business, and cash flow or sales proceeds from our investment portfolio. Other key sources of liquidity and funding include a variety of short- and long-term financing instruments, including our credit facilities, reinsurance transactions, repurchase agreements and, under appropriate market conditions, commercial paper.

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In the event market or other conditions have an adverse impact on our capital and liquidity needs beyond expectations and the sources outlined do not satisfy our needs, we would have to seek additional funding. Funding sources could potentially include the generation of proceeds from the sale of assets (including assets in our investment portfolio or blocks of business), the incurrence of additional debt or access to government funding programs such as TARP. In addition, funding sources could potentially include issuing equity, with any decision to issue equity thoroughly considering the degree to which such an equity issuance would dilute current stockholders’ value. All such funding sources can have various impacts on income, book value and stockholders’ equity.

The availability of additional funding will depend on a variety of factors such as market conditions, regulatory considerations, the general availability of credit, the overall availability of credit to the financial services industry, the level of activity and availability of reinsurers or acquirers of assets, our credit ratings and credit capacity and the performance of and outlook for our business (including investor perceptions of the likelihood that we will incur material investment losses in the future). Market conditions may make it difficult to obtain funding or complete asset sales to generate additional liquidity, especially on short notice. Our access to funding may be further impaired if our credit or financial strength ratings are negatively impacted.

Current market conditions also have exerted significant downward pressure on the price of our common stock, which could impact our ability to raise capital through the issuance of additional equity related securities, or to obtain stockholder approval (if required) for the issuance of equity securities. If we were to issue equity or equity related securities, such securities could take various forms including convertible or hybrid debt, common stock, preferred stock, and/or warrants. Preferred stock would have terms that are more favorable than our common stock. Any issuance of equity securities could dilute the interests of our existing stockholders and could adversely affect the trading price of our common stock. Our subsidiaries are also subject to insurance laws and regulations, as well as other federal and state laws and regulations, which would require us to seek regulatory approval for an issuance of additional equity in certain circumstances, including if we issue material amounts of voting stock. If required, a review by insurance regulators could be time consuming and there is no assurance that approval would be granted.

Continued downturns and volatility in equity and credit markets and the global economy would materially adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Our results of operations are materially affected by the state of the global economies in which we operate and conditions in the capital markets we access globally. The continued inactivity in the global capital markets and the recessionary state of many global economies have fueled uncertainty. Additionally, concerns over the availability and cost of credit, shrinking global mortgage markets, general instability of financial and other institutions have contributed to increased volatility in our business and results of operations.

Factors such as increased unemployment, lack of consumer spending, business investment, government spending, the volatility and strength of the global capital markets, and inflation all affect the business and economic environment and, ultimately, the amount and profitability of our business. In an economic downturn like the current one, which is characterized by higher unemployment, lower family income, lower corporate earnings, lower business investment and lower consumer spending, the demand for certain financial and insurance products may be adversely affected. In addition, we may experience an elevated incidence of claims and lapses or surrenders of policies, and some of our policyholders may choose to defer paying insurance premiums or stop paying insurance premiums altogether.

Domestic and international equity and credit markets have experienced heightened volatility and turmoil during 2008, with issuers that have exposure to the mortgage and credit markets particularly affected. These events and the continuing market upheavals have had, and may continue to have, an adverse effect on us, in part because we have a large investment portfolio and also because such events can influence customer behavior. Our revenues have declined as a result of the current environment and could continue to decline in the event that there are significant additional impairments in our investment portfolio or the equity markets further erode the profitability of our retirement income products impacted by those markets.

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Downturns and volatility in equity markets may discourage purchases of separate account products, such as variable annuities, that have returns linked to the performance of the equity markets and may cause some existing customers to withdraw cash values or reduce investments in these products. In addition, if the performance of the underlying mutual funds in the separate account experience downturns and volatility for a long period of time, the payment of any living benefit guarantee available in certain variable annuity products may have an adverse effect on us, because more payments will be required to come from general account assets than from contractholder separate account investments. Continued equity market volatility could result in additional losses in our variable annuity products and associated hedging program which will further challenge our ability to recover deferred acquisition costs (“DAC”) on these products and could lead to additional write-offs of DAC, as well as increased hedging costs.

Our revenues and returns from our mutual fund wrapped and separately managed account products and services could also be impacted by downturns and volatility in equity markets. Because these products and services generate fees generally from the value of assets under management, a decline in the equity markets could reduce our revenues by reducing the value of the investment assets we manage. Downturns in equity markets could also lead to an increase in liabilities associated with secondary guarantee features, such as guaranteed minimum benefits on separate account products, where we have equity market risk exposure.

The market for fixed income instruments has experienced significantly decreased liquidity and price valuations, increased price volatility, numerous credit downgrade events and an increased probability of default. Securities that are less liquid are more difficult to value and have been hard to dispose of in the current environment. In addition, given the continuing recession, issuers of the fixed-income securities and commercial mortgage loans that we own may default on principal and interest payments. The economic downturn has caused significant declines in the value of our fixed maturity securities portfolio and could lead to a higher rate of defaults on our fixed-income security portfolio that could adversely affect our financial results.

As a result of market conditions, investors and lenders have retreated from many investments in asset-backed securities, including those associated with non-agency residential mortgage loans and commercial mortgage loans, as well as types of debt investments with weak lender protections or those with limited transparency and/or complex features which hindered investor understanding. At the same time, investors shifted emphasis towards less risky investments, increasing the demand for U.S. Treasury instruments. This has resulted in an unfavorable liquidity environment for issuers, including Genworth, of financial instruments such as commercial paper, long-term debt and asset-backed securities. In addition, the downturn has, and will continue to have, an adverse effect on our ability to efficiently access capital markets for capital management purposes, including the issuance of fixed and floating rate non-recourse funding obligations for purposes of supporting our term and universal life insurance products. If credit markets remain tight for a prolonged period, this is likely to have a continuing adverse impact on our profitability, liquidity and access to funding opportunities.

Investors in certain of our institutional products have chosen to not exercise maturity extension options. Investors in certain of our institutional products that have early termination provisions may choose to elect early termination provisions in favor of investment alternatives offering higher returns or different liquidity features in light of the current or future downturns, volatility in credit markets or their own current cash needs. Because we earn a spread between interest earned and interest credited on these products, earlier-than-anticipated maturities could reduce our revenues and profitability and may cause us to liquidate underlying investments earlier than anticipated, which could result in investment losses given current market conditions or cause us to use other available sources of cash.

A downgrade or a potential downgrade in our financial strength or credit ratings could result in a loss of business and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Financial strength ratings, which various rating agencies publish as measures of an insurance company’s ability to meet contractholder and policyholder obligations, are important to maintaining public confidence in our

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products, the ability to market our products and our competitive position. Credit ratings, which rating agencies publish as measures of an entity’s ability to repay its indebtedness, are important to our ability to raise capital through the issuance of debt and to the cost of such financing. See “Item 1. Business—Financial Strength Ratings” for a complete description of our current ratings.

A ratings downgrade could occur for a variety of reasons, including reasons specifically related to our company, generally related to our industry or the broader financial services industry or as a result of changes by the rating agencies in their methodologies or rating criteria. A negative outlook on our ratings or a downgrade in any of our financial strength or credit ratings (including those recently announced), the announcement of a potential downgrade, or customer concerns about the possibility of a downgrade, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These direct or indirect effects could include:

In addition, if our mortgage insurance companies’ financial strength ratings decrease below the thresholds established by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we may not be able to insure mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac currently require maintenance of a rating by at least two out of three listed rating agencies (S&P, Fitch and Moody’s) of at least “AA-”/“Aa3” (as applicable); otherwise additional limitations or requirements may be in the case of Fannie Mae or will be in the case of Freddie Mac imposed for eligibility to insure loans purchased by the GSEs. In February 2008, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac advised us that they were temporarily suspending their ratings requirements for top tier mortgage insurers, subject to submission of an acceptable remediation plan. We have submitted remediation plans to both GSEs and to date have not been advised that either intends to impose additional requirements upon us. As of December 31, 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased the majority of the flow loans we insured in the U.S. An inability to insure mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or their transfer of our existing policies to an alternative mortgage insurer, would have a materially adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

There can be no assurance as to the impact on the financial markets of the U.S. government’s plan to purchase large amounts of illiquid, mortgage-backed and other securities from financial institutions.

In October 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (the “EESA”) was enacted in response to the financial crises affecting the banking system and financial markets and continuing concern for the financial stability of investment banks and other financial institutions. Under the EESA, the U.S. Treasury has the authority to, among other things, invest up to $700 billion directly into certain financial institutions, for the purpose of stabilizing the financial markets. In February 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law an additional economic recovery package that is designed to further stimulate the U.S. economy through a variety of

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measures, including new federal spending programs designed to spur new job creation and certain federal tax cuts. The U.S. government, Federal Reserve and other governmental and regulatory bodies have taken or are considering taking a variety of other actions to address the financial crisis. There can be no assurance as to what impact any of these actions will have on the financial markets, including the extreme levels of volatility and limited availability of credit currently being experienced. Continued volatility could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be able to access any of the U.S. government’s recently adopted or future financial support programs.

The U.S. government, Federal Reserve and other governmental and regulatory bodies have recently adopted and, in the future may adopt, a variety of programs to provide financial support to companies in the face of the challenging markets. The programs are evolving rapidly and many of the important details have not yet been decided. In addition, we have filed an application with the U.S. Treasury Department to participate in its CPP under TARP. Our application is still under review and we cannot assure you that we will be approved for participation in the CPP. We continue to review our eligibility to participate in various other programs. However, we cannot predict whether we will be eligible to participate in such programs, what the terms of our participation would be or whether we would elect to participate in any programs for which we may be eligible nor can we predict the impact on the perception of our company if we are not eligible to participate in such programs.

Interest rate fluctuations could adversely affect our business and profitability.

During the second half of 2008, interest rates decreased significantly. Our insurance and investment products are sensitive to interest rate fluctuations and expose us to the risk that falling interest rates will reduce our “spread,” or the difference between the returns we earn on the investments that support our obligations under these products and the amounts that we must pay policyholders and contractholders. Because we may reduce the interest rates we credit on most of these products only at limited, pre-established intervals, and because some contracts have guaranteed minimum interest crediting rates, declines in interest rates have adversely affected, and will continue to adversely affect, the profitability of these products.

During periods of increasing market interest rates, we may offer higher crediting rates on interest-sensitive products, such as universal life insurance and fixed annuities, and we may increase crediting rates on in-force products to keep these products competitive. In addition, rapidly rising interest rates may cause increased policy surrenders, withdrawals from life insurance policies and annuity contracts and requests for policy loans, as policyholders and contractholders shift assets into higher yielding investments. Increases in crediting rates, as well as surrenders and withdrawals, could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Our term life and long-term care insurance products also expose us to the risk of interest rate fluctuations. The pricing and expected future profitability of these products are based in part on expected investment returns. Over time, term life and long-term care insurance products generally produce positive cash flows as customers pay periodic premiums, which we invest as they are received. Low interest rates, like those we are currently experiencing, reduce our ability to achieve our targeted investment margins and may adversely affect the profitability of our term life and long-term care insurance products.

In both the U.S. and international mortgage markets, rising interest rates generally reduce the volume of new mortgage originations. A decline in the volume of new mortgage originations would have an adverse effect on our new mortgage insurance written. Rising interest rates also can increase the monthly mortgage payments for insured homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages (“ARMs”) that could have the effect of increasing default rates on ARM loans and thereby increasing our exposure on our mortgage insurance policies. This is particularly relevant in our international mortgage insurance business where ARMs are the predominant mortgage product. ARMs also have increased as a percentage of the U.S. mortgage loans that we insure.

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Declining interest rates historically have increased the rate at which borrowers refinance their existing mortgages, thereby resulting in cancellations of the mortgage insurance covering the refinanced loans. Declining interest rates historically also have contributed to home price appreciation, which may provide borrowers in the U.S. with the option of canceling their mortgage insurance coverage earlier than we anticipated when pricing that coverage. These cancellations could have an adverse effect on our results from our mortgage insurance business. However, under current market conditions, we are in a period of home price depreciation in a majority of markets. Consequently, some borrowers in the U.S. do not have sufficient equity to allow refinancing of existing higher rate ARMs for lower rate mortgage loans, an action that would typically result in the cancellation of existing mortgage insurance coverage. Many of these borrowers are now contributing to higher delinquencies and foreclosures because they are not able to meet the reset higher rate monthly payments due under the terms of the underlying ARMs. These developments have had an adverse impact on our U.S. mortgage insurance business.

Interest rate fluctuations also could have an adverse effect on the results of our investment portfolios. During periods of declining market interest rates like those we are currently experiencing, the interest we receive on variable interest rate investments decreases. In addition, during those periods, we are forced to reinvest the cash we receive as interest or return of principal on our investments in lower-yielding high-grade instruments or in lower-credit instruments to maintain comparable returns. Issuers of fixed-income securities also may decide to prepay their obligations in order to borrow at lower market rates, which exacerbates the risk that we may have to invest the cash proceeds of these securities in lower-yielding or lower-credit instruments. Additionally, recent volatility and uncertainty in the sub-prime residential market has resulted in increased mortgage interest rates and delinquency rates. These developments have had an adverse impact on our U.S. mortgage insurance business, as well as our investments in securities backed by sub-prime residential mortgage loans. See “—A deterioration in economic conditions or a decline in home price appreciation may adversely affect our loss experience in mortgage insurance.”

Our valuation of fixed maturity, equity and trading securities may include methodologies, estimations and assumptions that are subject to differing interpretations and could result in changes to investment valuations that may materially adversely affect our results of operations or financial condition.

Fixed maturity, equity and trading securities are reported at fair value on our consolidated balance sheets. They represent the majority of our total cash, cash equivalents and invested assets. Our portfolio of fixed maturity securities consists primarily of investment grade securities. During periods of market disruption, including periods of volatile asset pricing, credit-spread volatility, illiquidity and reduced transparency of market participant valuation inputs, certain of our investment securities, such as our Alt-A and sub-prime mortgage-backed securities, become difficult to value. There may be certain asset classes that were in active markets with significant observable data that become illiquid due to the current financial environment. In these cases, valuing our investment securities may require more subjectivity and management judgment. As a result, valuations may include inputs and assumptions that are less observable or require greater estimation, as well as valuation methods that are more sophisticated or require greater estimation, thereby resulting in values that are less certain and may vary significantly from the value at which the investments may be ultimately sold. The methodologies, estimates and assumptions we use in valuing our investment securities evolve over time and are subject to different interpretation (including based on developments in relevant accounting literature), all of which can lead to changes in the value of our investment securities. Rapidly changing and unprecedented credit and equity market conditions could materially impact the valuation of investment securities as reported within our consolidated financial statements, and the period-to-period changes in value could vary significantly. Decreases in value may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations or financial condition.

Defaults, downgrades or other events impairing the value of our fixed maturity securities portfolio may reduce our income.

We are subject to the risk that the issuers or guarantors of fixed maturity securities we own may default on principal and interest payments they owe us. As of December 31, 2008, fixed maturity securities of $42.9 billion

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in our investment portfolio represented 63% of our total cash, cash equivalents and invested assets. The current economic downturn and severe market disruption, including but not limited to rapidly widening credit spreads and extensive illiquidity across many asset classes, has caused the fair value of our fixed maturity securities portfolio to decline. This trend, which contributed to our net loss in 2008, may continue. With the ongoing economic downturn impacting the credit quality of certain issuers or guarantors, certain of our investments have become other-than-temporarily impaired, and therefore, our results of operations and financial position have been adversely affected. As a result, we recognized $2.1 billion of impairments during 2008, including $815 million in the fourth quarter.

Events reducing the value of our investment portfolio other than on a temporary basis could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Levels of write-downs or impairments are impacted by our assessment of the financial condition of the issuer, whether or not the issuer is paying its principal and interest obligations and our intent and ability to hold securities which have declined in value until recovery. The credit quality of our hybrid securities may be adversely impacted by the level and type of government support, including the risk that these institutions could be nationalized. If we determine to reposition or realign portions of the portfolio where we determine not to hold certain securities in an unrealized loss position to recovery, then we will incur an other-than-temporary impairment charge.

We may be required to recognize additional impairments in the value of our goodwill, which would increase our expenses and reduce our U.S. GAAP profitability.

Goodwill represents the excess of the amount we paid to acquire our subsidiaries and other businesses over the fair value of their net assets at the date of the acquisition. Under U.S. GAAP, we test the carrying value of goodwill for impairment at least annually at the “reporting unit” level, which is either an operating segment or a business one level below the operating segment. Goodwill is impaired if the fair value of the reporting unit as a whole is less than the fair value of the identifiable assets and liabilities of the reporting unit, plus the carrying value of goodwill, at the date of the test. For example, goodwill may become impaired if the fair value of a reporting unit as a whole were to decline by an amount greater than the decline in the value of its individually identifiable assets and liabilities. This may occur for various reasons, including changes in actual or expected income or cash flows of a reporting unit or generation of income by a reporting unit at a lower rate of return than similar businesses or for decreases in our market capitalization. If any portion of our goodwill becomes impaired, we would be required to recognize the amount of the impairment as a non-cash expense in the current period.

For the year ended December 31, 2008, we recorded non-cash charges of $243 million, $22 million and $12 million to write-off the entire goodwill balance associated with our retirement income, U.S. mortgage insurance and institutional reporting units, respectively. We continue to evaluate current market conditions that may affect the fair value of our reporting units to assess whether any goodwill impairment exists. Continued or deteriorating adverse market conditions for certain businesses may have a significant impact on the fair value of our reporting units and could result in additional future impairments of goodwill. See note 9 in our consolidated financial statements under “Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” for additional information related to goodwill.

The soundness of other financial institutions could adversely affect us.

We routinely execute transactions with counterparties in the financial services industry, including brokers and dealers, commercial banks, investment banks and other institutional clients. Many of these transactions expose us to credit risk in the event of default of its counterparty or client. For example, we hedge various business risks using derivative instruments, including options, interest rate and currency swaps with a number of counterparties. If our counterparties fail or refuse to honor their obligations, our hedges of the related risk will be ineffective. Such failure could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

We manage our credit risk by requiring certain financial institutions to post collateral. However, this may be ineffective when the collateral posted by a financial institution cannot be realized upon or is liquidated at prices

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not sufficient to recover the full amount of the loan or derivative exposure due to it. We also have exposure to various financial institutions in the form of equity investments and unsecured debt instruments. There can be no assurance that any such losses or impairments to the carrying value of its financial assets would not have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

We also entered into letters of credit with financial institutions to fund the statutory reserves of our term and universal life insurance products. If these financial institutions fail to honor these letters of credit, we could experience a significant reduction in capital, which in turn, could materially adversely affect our ability to write new business and operate our insurance businesses and could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition.

An inability to access our credit facilities could result in a reduction in our liquidity and lead to downgrades in our credit and financial strength ratings.

We have a $1.0 billion five-year revolving credit facility that matures in May 2012 and a $1.0 billion five-year revolving credit facility that matures in August 2012. These facilities bear variable interest rates based on one-month London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) plus a margin. Lehman Commercial Paper Inc. (“LCP”) had committed $70 million under the August 2012 credit facility and Lehman Brothers Bank, FSB (“Lehman FSB”) had committed $70 million under the May 2012 credit facility. On October 5, 2008, LCP filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. LCP was unable to fulfill its commitments under the August 2012 credit facility and Lehman FSB declined to fulfill its commitment under the May 2012 credit facility. Therefore, we only have access to $1.9 billion under these facilities. As of December 31, 2008, we had borrowings of an aggregate $930 million under these facilities and we utilized $184 million of the commitment under these facilities primarily for the issuance of a letter of credit for the benefit of one of our U.S. mortgage insurance subsidiaries. We rely on our credit facilities as a potential source of liquidity. The availability of these facilities could be critical to our credit and financial strength ratings and our ability to meet our obligations as they come due, particularly in the current market when alternative sources of credit are tight. The credit facilities contain various affirmative and negative covenants and events of default, including covenants requiring us to maintain a specified minimum consolidated net worth (as defined in the facilities), to conduct our business in certain specified ways, to comply with applicable laws and not to engage in certain fundamental changes to our business (including disposition of a business segment or assets above a certain threshold). Consolidated net worth, as defined in these agreements, means all amounts that would be included on a consolidated balance sheet of the borrower and its subsidiaries under stockholders’ equity, excluding accumulated non-owner changes in stockholders’ equity, also referred to as accumulated other comprehensive income (loss), or “AOCI.” Our right to make borrowings under these facilities is subject to the fulfillment of certain important conditions, including our compliance with all covenants. Our failure to comply with the covenants in the credit facilities or fulfill the conditions to borrowings would restrict our ability to access these credit facilities when needed and, consequently, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

A decline in our risk-based capital could result in a decline in our ratings, increased scrutiny by state insurance regulators and have an adverse impact on our financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Our insurance company subsidiaries are subject to RBC standards and other minimum statutory capital and surplus requirements imposed under the laws of their respective states of domicile. The RBC standards, which are based upon the RBC Model Act adopted by the NAIC, require our insurance subsidiaries to report their results of RBC calculations annually to the state departments of insurance and the NAIC. Changes in SAP relating to RBC calculations could adversely impact our ability to meet minimum RBC and statutory capital and surplus requirements. In addition, defaults or impairments in our investment portfolio and a decline in the results of operations of our insurance subsidiaries, like those we have experienced recently, have had an adverse impact on our RBC levels, in response to which we have contributed capital from our holding company to the life

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insurance subsidiaries. There can be no assurance that the life insurance subsidiaries will not need additional capital or that we will be able to provide it to maintain the targeted RBC levels to support their business operations.

The failure of our insurance subsidiaries to meet applicable RBC requirements or minimum statutory capital and surplus requirements could subject our insurance subsidiaries to further examination or corrective action imposed by state insurance regulators, including limitations on their ability to write additional business, state supervision or seizure or liquidation. A decline in our RBC also could cause rating agencies to downgrade the financial strength ratings of our insurance subsidiaries, which would have an adverse impact on our ability to write new business. Certain actions by state insurance regulators or rating agencies could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

If our reserves for future policy claims are inadequate, we may be required to increase our reserve liabilities, which could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

We calculate and maintain reserves for estimated future payments of claims to our policyholders and contractholders in accordance with U.S. GAAP and industry accounting practices. We release these reserves as those future obligations are extinguished. The reserves we establish necessarily reflect estimates and actuarial assumptions with regard to our future experience. These estimates and actuarial assumptions involve the exercise of significant judgment. Our future financial results depend significantly upon the extent to which our actual future experience is consistent with the assumptions we have used in pricing our products and determining our reserves. Many factors can affect future experience, including economic and social conditions, inflation, healthcare costs, policyholder persistency (resulting in adverse claims experience), and changes in doctrines of legal liability and damage awards in litigation. Therefore, we cannot determine with precision the ultimate amounts we will pay for actual claims or the timing of those payments.

We regularly monitor our reserves. If we conclude that our reserves are insufficient to cover actual or expected policy and contract benefits and claims payments, we would be required to increase our reserves and incur income statement charges for the period in which we make the determination, which would adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition and put additional strain on our available liquidity. We recently increased our loss reserves significantly for our U.S. mortgage insurance business as a result of an increase in delinquencies, along with an increase in the average loan balance of mortgage loan delinquencies. See “—Risks Relating to Our U.S. Mortgage Insurance Segment” below.

As a holding company, we depend on the ability of our subsidiaries to transfer funds to us to pay dividends and to meet our obligations.

We act as a holding company for our insurance subsidiaries and do not have any significant operations of our own. Dividends from our subsidiaries and permitted payments to us under our tax sharing arrangements with our subsidiaries are our principal sources of cash to pay stockholder dividends and to meet our obligations. These obligations include our operating expenses and interest and principal on our current and any future borrowings. These obligations also include amounts we owe to GE under the Tax Matters Agreement. If the cash we receive from our subsidiaries pursuant to dividend payment and tax sharing arrangements is insufficient for us to fund any of these obligations, or if a subsidiary is unable to pay dividends to us, we may be required to raise cash through the incurrence of debt, the issuance of additional equity or the sale of assets. However, given the current conditions in the equity and credit markets, there can be no assurance that we would be able to raise cash by these means.

The payment of dividends and other distributions to us by each of our insurance subsidiaries is regulated by insurance laws and regulations. In general, dividends in excess of prescribed limits are deemed “extraordinary” and require insurance regulatory approval. In addition, insurance regulators may prohibit the payment of ordinary dividends or other payments by our insurance subsidiaries to us (such as a payment under a tax sharing agreement or for employee or other services) if they determine that such payment could be adverse to our policyholders or contractholders.

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Intense competition could negatively affect our ability to maintain or increase our market share and profitability.

Our businesses are subject to intense competition. We believe the principal competitive factors in the sale of our products are product features, price, commission structure, marketing and distribution arrangements, brand, reputation, financial strength ratings and service.

Many other companies actively compete for sales in our retirement and protection markets, including other major insurers, banks, other financial institutions, mutual fund and asset management firms and specialty and capital markets providers. In addition, alternative products that leverage the capital markets could compete with traditional insurance products and reduce our market share. The principal direct and indirect competitors for our U.S. and, increasingly, international mortgage insurance businesses include other private mortgage insurers, structured transactions in the capital markets, other financial instruments designed to manage credit risk, such as credit default swaps and credit linked notes, lenders who forego mortgage insurance, or self-insure, on loans held in their portfolios, and lenders that provide mortgage reinsurance through captive mortgage reinsurance programs. Further, we also compete with governmental and quasi-governmental agencies, including in the U.S., the FHA and to a lesser degree, the VA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In Canada and some European countries, our mortgage insurance business competes directly with government entities, which provide comparable mortgage insurance. Government entities with which we compete typically do not have the same capital requirements and do not have the same profit objectives as we do.

In many of our product lines, we face competition from competitors that have greater market share or breadth of distribution, offer a broader range of products, services or features, assume a greater level of risk, have lower profitability expectations or have higher financial strength ratings than we do. Many competitors offer similar products and use similar distribution channels. The substantial expansion of banks’ and insurance companies’ distribution capacities and expansion of product features in recent years have intensified pressure on margins and production levels and have increased the level of competition in many of our business lines. Consolidation among banks, insurance companies and other financial services companies could also have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations if the surviving entity requires more favorable terms than we had previously been offering to one or more of the combined companies or if it elects not to continue to do business with us following the consolidation.

Reinsurance may not be available, affordable or adequate to protect us against losses.

As part of our overall risk and capacity management strategy, we have historically purchased reinsurance for certain risks underwritten by our various business segments. The availability and cost of reinsurance protection are impacted by our operating and financial performance as well as market conditions beyond our control. For example, continued volatility in the equity markets and the related impacts on asset values required to fund liabilities have materially reduced the availability of certain types of reinsurance and made it much more costly when it is available, as reinsurers have been less willing to take on credit risk in a volatile market. Accordingly, we may be forced to incur additional expenses for reinsurance or may not be able to obtain sufficient new reinsurance on acceptable terms, which could adversely affect our ability to write future business or obtain statutory capital credit for new reinsurance.

If the counterparties to our reinsurance arrangements or to the derivative instruments we use to hedge our business risks default or fail to perform, we may be exposed to risks we had sought to mitigate, which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

We use reinsurance and derivative instruments to mitigate our risks in various circumstances. Reinsurance does not relieve us of our direct liability to our policyholders, even when the reinsurer is liable to us.

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Accordingly, we bear credit risk with respect to our reinsurers. We cannot assure you that our reinsurers will pay the reinsurance recoverable owed to us now or in the future or that they will pay these recoverables on a timely basis. A reinsurer’s insolvency, inability or unwillingness to make payments under the terms of its reinsurance agreement with us could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Prior to the completion of our IPO, we ceded to UFLIC substantially all of our in-force structured settlements block of business, variable annuity business and the long-term care insurance assumed from MetLife Insurance Company of Connecticut as of December 31, 2003. UFLIC has established trust accounts for our benefit to secure its obligations under the reinsurance arrangements, and General Electric Capital Corporation (“GE Capital”), an indirect subsidiary of GE, has agreed to maintain UFLIC’s risk-based capital above a specified minimum level. If UFLIC becomes insolvent notwithstanding this agreement, and the amounts in the trust accounts are insufficient to pay UFLIC’s obligations to us, our financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

In addition, we use derivative instruments to hedge various business risks. We enter into a variety of derivative instruments, including options, interest rate and currency swaps with a number of counterparties. If our counterparties fail or refuse to honor their obligations under the derivative instruments, our hedges of the related risk will be ineffective. This failure could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Our focus on key distribution relationships may expose us to reduced sales in the future should a key distribution partner terminate its relationship with us.

Although we distribute our products through a wide variety of distribution models, we do maintain relationships with key distribution partners. These distribution partners are an integral part of our business model. As capital, credit and equity markets continue to experience extreme volatility, we are at risk that key distribution partners may merge, change their distribution model affecting how our products are sold, or terminate their distribution contract with us. In addition, distributors may elect to reduce or terminate their distribution relationships with us in light of our recent results, adverse developments in our business, adverse rating agency actions or concerns about market-related risks. Any termination or material change in relationship with a key distribution partner could have a material adverse affect on our future sales for one or more product lines.

Our insurance businesses are heavily regulated, and changes in regulation may reduce our profitability and limit our growth.

Our insurance operations are subject to a wide variety of laws and regulations. State insurance laws regulate most aspects of our U.S. insurance businesses, and our insurance subsidiaries are regulated by the insurance departments of the states in which they are domiciled and licensed. Our international operations are principally regulated by insurance regulatory authorities in the jurisdictions in which they are domiciled.

State laws in the U.S. grant insurance regulatory authorities broad administrative powers with respect to, among other things:

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State insurance regulators and the NAIC regularly reexamine existing laws and regulations applicable to insurance companies and their products. Changes in these laws and regulations, or in interpretations thereof, can be made for the benefit of the consumer at the expense of the insurer and thus could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Our mortgage insurance business is subject to additional laws and regulations. For a discussion of the risks associated with those laws and regulations, see “—Risks Relating to Our International Segment” and “—Risks Relating to Our U.S. Mortgage Insurance Segment.”

Legal and regulatory investigations and actions are increasingly common in the insurance business and may result in financial losses and harm our reputation.

We face a significant risk of litigation and regulatory investigations and actions in the ordinary course of operating our businesses, including the risk of class action lawsuits. Our pending legal and regulatory actions include proceedings specific to us and others generally applicable to business practices in the industries in which we operate. In our insurance operations, we are, have been, or may become subject to class actions and individual suits alleging, among other things, issues relating to sales or underwriting practices, payment of contingent or other sales commissions, claims payments and procedures, product design, product disclosure, administration, additional premium charges for premiums paid on a periodic basis, denial or delay of benefits, charging excessive or impermissible fees on products, recommending unsuitable products to customers, our pricing structures and business practices in our mortgage insurance business, such as captive reinsurance arrangements with lenders and contract underwriting services, violations of RESPA or related state anti-inducement laws and breaching fiduciary or other duties to customers. In our investment-related operations, we are subject to litigation involving commercial disputes with counterparties. We are also subject to litigation arising out of our general business activities such as our contractual and employment relationships. Plaintiffs in class action and other lawsuits against us may seek very large or indeterminate amounts, including punitive and treble damages, which may remain unknown for substantial periods of time. We are also subject to various regulatory inquiries, such as information requests, subpoenas and books and record examinations, from state, federal and international regulators and other authorities. A substantial legal liability or a significant regulatory action against us could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, even if we ultimately prevail in the litigation, regulatory action or investigation, we could suffer significant reputational harm, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

For further discussion of current investigations and proceedings in which we are involved, see “Item 3—Legal Proceedings.” We cannot assure you that these investigations and proceedings will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. It is also possible that we could become subject to further investigations and have lawsuits filed or enforcement actions initiated against us. In addition, increased regulatory scrutiny and any resulting investigations or proceedings could result in new legal precedents and industry-wide regulations or practices that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our computer systems may fail or their security may be compromised, which could damage our business and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Our business is highly dependent upon the effective operation of our computer systems. We rely on these systems throughout our business for a variety of functions, including processing claims and applications,

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providing information to customers and distributors, performing actuarial analyses and maintaining financial records. Despite the implementation of security and back-up measures, our computer systems may be vulnerable to physical or electronic intrusions, computer viruses or other attacks, programming errors and similar disruptive problems. The failure of these systems for any reason could cause significant interruptions to our operations, which could result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We retain confidential information in our computer systems, and we rely on sophisticated commercial technologies to maintain the security of those systems. Anyone who is able to circumvent our security measures and penetrate our computer systems could access, view, misappropriate, alter, or delete any information in the systems, including personally identifiable customer information and proprietary business information. In addition, an increasing number of states and foreign countries require that customers be notified if a security breach results in the disclosure of personally identifiable customer information. Any compromise of the security of our computer systems that results in inappropriate disclosure of personally identifiable customer information could damage our reputation in the marketplace, deter people from purchasing our products, subject us to significant civil and criminal liability and require us to incur significant technical, legal and other expenses.

The occurrence of natural or man-made disasters or a pandemic could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

We are exposed to various risks arising out of natural disasters, including earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes, and man-made disasters, including acts of terrorism and military actions and pandemics. For example, a natural or man-made disaster or a pandemic could lead to unexpected changes in persistency rates as policyholders and contractholders who are affected by the disaster may be unable to meet their contractual obligations, such as payment of premiums on our insurance policies, deposits into our investment products, and mortgage payments on loans insured by our mortgage insurance policies. They could also significantly increase our mortality and morbidity experience above the assumptions we used in pricing our insurance and investment products. The continued threat of terrorism and ongoing military actions may cause significant volatility in global financial markets, and a natural or man-made disaster or a pandemic could trigger an economic downturn in the areas directly or indirectly affected by the disaster. These consequences could, among other things, result in a decline in business and increased claims from those areas, as well as an adverse effect on home prices in those areas, which could result in increased loss experience in our mortgage insurance business. Disasters or a pandemic also could disrupt public and private infrastructure, including communications and financial services, which could disrupt our normal business operations.

A natural or man-made disaster or a pandemic could also disrupt the operations of our counterparties or result in increased prices for the products and services they provide to us. For example, a natural or man-made disaster or a pandemic could lead to increased reinsurance prices and potentially cause us to retain more risk than we otherwise would retain if we were able to obtain reinsurance at lower prices. In addition, a disaster or a pandemic could adversely affect the value of the assets in our investment portfolio if it affects companies’ ability to pay principal or interest on their securities. See “—We may face losses if there are significant deviations from our assumptions regarding the future persistency of our insurance policies and annuity contracts” and “—A deterioration in economic conditions or a decline in home price appreciation may adversely affect our loss experience in mortgage insurance.”

Risks Relating to Our Retirement and Protection Segment

We may face losses if morbidity rates or mortality rates differ significantly from our pricing expectations.

We set prices for our insurance and some annuity products based upon expected claims and payment patterns, using assumptions for, among other things, morbidity rates, or likelihood of sickness, and mortality rates, or likelihood of death, of our policyholders and contractholders. The long-term profitability of these products depends upon how our actual experience compares with our pricing assumptions. For example, if morbidity rates are higher, or mortality rates are lower, than our pricing assumptions, we could be required to

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make greater payments under long-term care insurance policies and annuity contracts than we had projected. Conversely, if mortality rates are higher than our pricing assumptions, we could be required to make greater payments under our life insurance policies and annuity contracts with GMDBs than we had projected.

The risk that our claims experience may differ significantly from our pricing assumptions is particularly significant for our long-term care insurance products. Long-term care insurance policies provide for long-duration coverage and, therefore, our actual claims experience will emerge over many years after pricing assumptions have been established. For example, changes in socio-demographics and behavioral trends may have an adverse impact on our future loss trends. Moreover, long-term care insurance does not have the extensive claims experience history of life insurance, and as a result, our ability to forecast future claim rates for long-term care insurance is more limited than for life insurance.

We may be required to accelerate the amortization of deferred acquisition costs and the present value of future profits, which would increase our expenses and reduce profitability.

DAC represents costs that vary with and are primarily related to the sale and issuance of our insurance policies and investment contracts that are deferred and amortized over the estimated life of the related insurance policies and investment contracts. These costs include commissions in excess of ultimate renewal commissions, solicitation and printing costs, sales material and some support costs, such as underwriting and contract and policy issuance expenses. Under U.S. GAAP, DAC is subsequently amortized to income, over the lives of the underlying contracts, in relation to the anticipated recognition of premiums or gross profits. In addition, when we acquire a block of insurance policies or investment contracts, we assign a portion of the purchase price to the right to receive future net cash flows from existing insurance and investment contracts and policies. This intangible asset, called the present value of future profits (“PVFP”), represents the actuarially estimated present value of future cash flows from the acquired policies. We amortize the value of this intangible asset in a manner similar to the amortization of DAC.

Our amortization of DAC and PVFP generally depends upon anticipated profits from investments, surrender and other policy and contract charges, mortality, morbidity and maintenance expense margins. Unfavorable experience with regard to expected expenses, investment returns, mortality, morbidity, withdrawals or lapses may cause us to increase the amortization of DAC or PVFP, or both, or to record a charge to increase benefit reserves.

We regularly review DAC and PVFP to determine if they are recoverable from future income. If these costs are not recoverable, they are charged to expenses in the financial period in which we make this determination. For example, if we determine that we are unable to recover DAC from profits over the life of a block of insurance policies or annuity contracts, or if withdrawals or surrender charges associated with early withdrawals do not fully offset the unamortized acquisition costs related to those policies or annuities, we would be required to recognize the additional DAC amortization as an expense in the current period. Continued equity market volatility could result in additional losses in our variable annuity products and associated hedging program which will challenge our ability to recover DAC on these products and could lead to further write-offs of DAC.

Our reputation in the long-term care insurance market may be adversely affected by the rate actions currently being implemented on our in-force long-term care insurance products and by any rate actions we may take in the future.

Although the terms of all our long-term care insurance policies permit us to increase premiums during the premium-paying period, prior to our announced rate increase on July 26, 2007, we had not increased premiums on any in-force long-term care insurance policies issued by us. During 2007 and 2008, we filed for state regulatory approvals for premium rate increases of between 8% and 12% on most of our block of older issued long-term care insurance policies and are currently in the process of implementing these rate increases. We cannot predict how our existing policyholders, agents and competitors will react to our rate actions in the long-

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term. In addition, these rate actions, and any future rate action we may take, could limit our ability to continue to market and sell new long-term care insurance products and our ability to retain existing policyholders, agent attrition, independent channel market share and morbidity trends may be impacted by the market/consumer perception and existing competitors’ differentiation strategy.

Medical advances, such as genetic research and diagnostic imaging, and related legislation could adversely affect the financial performance of our life insurance, long-term care insurance and annuity businesses.

Genetic research includes procedures focused on identifying key genes that render an individual predisposed to specific diseases, such as particular types of cancer and other diseases. Other medical advances, such as diagnostic imaging technologies, also may be used to detect the early onset of diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. We believe that if individuals learn through medical advances that they are predisposed to particular conditions that may reduce life longevity or require long-term care, they will be more likely to purchase our life and long-term care insurance policies or not to permit existing policies to lapse. In contrast, if individuals learn that they lack the genetic predisposition to develop the conditions that reduce longevity or require long-term care, they will be less likely to purchase our life and long-term care insurance products but more likely to purchase certain annuity products. In addition, such individuals that are existing policyholders will be more likely to permit their policies to lapse.

If we were to gain access to the same genetic or medical information as our prospective policyholders and contractholders, then we would be able to take this information into account in pricing our life and long-term care insurance policies and annuity contracts. However, there are a number of legislative and regulatory actions and proposals that make, or could make, genetic and other medical information confidential and unavailable to insurance companies. Pursuant to these legislative and regulatory actions and proposals, prospective policyholders and contractholders would only disclose this information if they chose to do so voluntarily. These factors could lead us to reduce sales of products affected by these legislative and regulatory actions and proposals and could result in a deterioration of the risk profile of our portfolio, which could lead to payments to our policyholders and contractholders that are higher than we anticipated.

Medical advances could also lead to new forms of preventative care. Preventative care could extend the life and improve the overall health of individuals. If this were to occur, the duration of payments under certain of our annuity products likely would increase, thereby reducing net income in that business.

We may face losses if there are significant deviations from our assumptions regarding the future persistency of our insurance policies and annuity contracts.

The prices and expected future profitability of our insurance and deferred annuity products are based in part upon expected patterns of premiums, expenses and benefits, using a number of assumptions, including those related to persistency, which is the probability that a policy or contract will remain in-force from one period to the next. The effect of persistency on profitability varies for different products. For most of our life insurance and deferred annuity products, actual persistency that is lower than our persistency assumptions could have an adverse impact on profitability, primarily because we would be required to accelerate the amortization of expenses we deferred in connection with the acquisition of the policy or contract. For our universal life insurance policies, increased persistency that is the result of the sale of policies by the insured to third parties that continue to make premium payments on policies that would otherwise have lapsed, also known as life settlements, could have an adverse impact on profitability because of the higher claims rate associated with settled policies.

For our long-term care insurance and some other health insurance policies, actual persistency in later policy durations that is higher than our persistency assumptions could have a negative impact on profitability. If these policies remain in-force longer than we assumed, then we could be required to make greater benefit payments than we had anticipated when we priced these products. This risk is particularly significant in our long-term care insurance business because we do not have the experience history that we have in many of our other businesses.

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As a result, our ability to predict persistency for long-term care insurance is more limited than for many other products. Some of our long-term care insurance policies have experienced higher persistency than we had assumed, which has resulted in adverse claims experience.

Because our assumptions regarding persistency experience are inherently uncertain, reserves for future policy benefits and claims may prove to be inadequate if actual persistency experience is different from those assumptions. Although some of our products permit us to increase premiums during the life of the policy or contract, we cannot guarantee that these increases would be sufficient to maintain profitability. Moreover, many of our products do not permit us to increase premiums or limit those increases during the life of the policy or contract. Significant deviations in experience from pricing expectations regarding persistency could have an adverse effect on the profitability of our products.

Regulations XXX and AXXX may have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations by requiring us to increase our statutory reserves for term and universal life insurance or incur higher operating costs.

The Model Regulation entitled “Valuation of Life Insurance Policies,” commonly known as “Regulation XXX,” requires insurers to establish additional statutory reserves for term life insurance policies with long-term premium guarantees. In addition, Valuation of Life Insurance Policies Regulation, as clarified by Actuarial Guideline 38 (more commonly known as “Regulation AXXX”) requires insurers to establish additional statutory reserves for certain universal life insurance policies with secondary guarantees. Virtually all of our newly issued term and universal life insurance products are now affected by Regulations XXX and AXXX, respectively.

In response to this regulation, we have increased term and universal life insurance statutory reserves and changed our premium rates for term life insurance products. We also have implemented reinsurance and other capital management actions to mitigate the capital and tax impact of Regulations XXX and AXXX. However, we cannot provide assurance that there will not be regulatory, tax or other challenges to the actions we have taken to date. The result of those potential challenges could require us to increase statutory reserves or incur higher operating and/or tax costs.

In light of the current downturn in the credit markets, we also cannot provide assurance that we will be able to continue to implement actions to mitigate the impact of Regulation XXX or AXXX on future sales of term and universal life insurance products. Recent market conditions have limited the capacity or increased prices for these reserve funding structures. If capacity continues to be limited for a prolonged period of time, our ability to obtain new funding for these structures may be hindered, and as a result our ability to write additional business in a capital efficient and cost-effective manner may be impacted. If we are unable to continue to implement these actions, we may be required to increase statutory reserves, incur higher operating costs than we currently anticipate, reduce our sales of these products or pursue alternative approaches, such as reinsurance and private funding transactions. We also may have to implement measures that may be disruptive to our business. For example, because term and universal life insurance are particularly price-sensitive products, any increase in premiums charged on these products in order to compensate us for the increased statutory reserve requirements or higher costs of reinsurance may result in a significant loss of volume and adversely affect our life insurance operations.

If demand for long-term care insurance either declines or remains flat, we may not be able to execute our strategy to expand our long-term care insurance business.

We have devoted significant resources to developing our long-term care insurance business and our growth strategy relies partly upon continued growth of the sale of this product. In recent years, industry sales of individual long-term care insurance have varied. In some years, sales have declined while in other years sales have grown moderately. Annualized first-year premiums for individual long-term care insurance achieved a historical high in 2002 at approximately $1.0 billion and decreased by 38% to approximately $630 million in

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2007, according to LIMRA International, Inc. We believe this decrease was due primarily to decisions by several providers to cease offering long-term care insurance, to raise premiums on in-force policies and/or to introduce new products with higher prices. These actions resulted in decreased purchases of long-term care insurance products and have caused some distributors to reduce their sales focus on these products. Our individual long-term care insurance sales and our annualized first-year premiums have remained relatively flat in recent periods. If the market for long-term care insurance continues to remain flat or declines, we may be unable to realize our growth strategy in this area and our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Risks Relating to Our International Segment

We have significant operations internationally that could be adversely affected by changes in political or economic stability or government policies where we operate.

We have a presence in more than 25 countries around the world. Global economic and regulatory developments could affect our business in many ways. For example, our operations are subject to local laws and regulations, which in many ways are similar to the state laws and regulations outlined above. Many of our international customers and independent sales intermediaries also operate in regulated environments. Changes in the regulations that affect their operations also may affect our business relationships with them and their ability to purchase or to distribute our products. These changes could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, compliance with applicable laws and regulations is time consuming and personnel-intensive, and changes in these laws and regulations may increase materially our direct and indirect compliance and other expenses of doing business, thus having an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Local economic conditions, including inflation, recession and currency fluctuations, as discussed above, also affect our international businesses. Political changes, some of which may be disruptive, can interfere with our customers and all of our activities in a particular location. Attempts to mitigate these risks can be costly and are not always successful.

Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and international securities markets could negatively affect our profitability.

Our international operations generate revenues denominated in local currencies. For the years ended December 31, 2008, 2007 and 2006, 25%, 24% and 21%, respectively, of our revenues, excluding net investment gains (losses), and 116%, 43% and 35%, respectively, of our income from continuing operations, excluding net investment gains (losses), were generated by our international operations. We generally invest cash generated by our international operations in securities denominated in local currencies. As of December 31, 2008 and 2007, approximately 13% and 12%, respectively, of our invested assets were held by our international operations and were invested primarily in non-U.S.-denominated securities. Although investing in securities denominated in local currencies limits the effect of currency exchange rate fluctuation on local operating results, we remain exposed to the impact of fluctuations in exchange rates as we translate the operating results of our foreign operations into our financial statements. We currently do not hedge this exposure, and as a result, period-to-period comparability of our results of operations is affected by fluctuations in exchange rates. For example, our results for the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007, included $20 million and $52 million, respectively, net of tax, due to the favorable impact of changes in foreign exchange rates. In addition, because we derive a significant portion of our income from non-U.S.-denominated revenue, our results of operations could be adversely affected to the extent the dollar value of non-U.S.-denominated revenue is reduced due to a strengthening U.S. dollar, which occurred in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Our investments in non-U.S.-denominated securities are subject to fluctuations in non-U.S. securities and currency markets, and those markets can be volatile. Non-U.S. currency fluctuations also affect the value of any dividends paid by our non-U.S. subsidiaries to their parent companies in the U.S.

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We may face losses if unemployment rates differ significantly from our pricing expectations.

We set prices for our lifestyle protection insurance based upon expected claims and payment patterns. These expectations reflect our assumptions regarding unemployment levels. The long-term profitability of these products depends upon how our actual experience compares with our pricing assumptions. If unemployment levels are higher than our pricing assumptions, the claims frequency could be higher for our lifestyle protection insurance business than we had projected. Additionally, rising unemployment rates can impact a borrower’s ability to pay their mortgage, thereby increasing the likelihood that we could incur a loss in our international mortgage insurance business.

Our claims expenses would increase and our results of operations would suffer if the rate of defaults on mortgages covered by our mortgage insurance increases or the severity of such defaults exceeds our expectations.

As in the U.S., a deterioration in economic conditions internationally may increase the likelihood that borrowers in a given country will not have sufficient income to pay their mortgages, and can also adversely affect home values, which increases our risk of loss. A decline in home prices, whether or not in conjunction with deteriorating economic conditions, would also increase our risk of loss. A substantial economic downturn or decline in home price appreciation could have a significant adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. We also may be particularly affected by economic downturns or declines in recent significant home price appreciation in areas where a large portion of our business is concentrated.

A significant portion of our international mortgage insurance risk in-force consists of loans with high loan-to-value ratios, which generally result in more and larger claims than loans with lower loan-to-value ratios.

Mortgage loans with higher loan-to-value ratios typically have claim incidence rates substantially higher than mortgage loans with lower loan-to-value ratios. In Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the risks of having a portfolio with a significant portion of high loan-to-value mortgages are greater than in the U.S. and Europe because we generally agree to cover 100% of the losses associated with mortgage defaults in those markets, compared to percentages in the U.S. and Europe that are typically 12% to 35% of the loan amount.

Although mortgage insurance premiums for higher loan-to-value ratio loans generally are higher than for loans with lower loan-to-value ratios, the difference in premium rates may not be sufficient to compensate us for the enhanced risks associated with mortgage loans bearing higher loan-to-value ratios.

Our international mortgage insurance business is subject to substantial competition from government-owned and government-sponsored enterprises, and this may put us at a competitive disadvantage on pricing and other terms and conditions.

Like our U.S. mortgage insurance business, our international mortgage insurance business competes with government-owned and government-sponsored enterprises. In Canada, we compete with CMHC, a Crown corporation owned by the Canadian government. In Europe, these enterprises include public mortgage guarantee facilities in a number of countries. Like government-owned and government-sponsored enterprises in the U.S., these competitors may establish pricing terms and business practices that may be influenced by motives such as advancing social housing policy or stabilizing the mortgage lending industry, which may not be consistent with maximizing return on capital or other profitability measures. In the event that a government-owned or sponsored entity in one of our markets determines to reduce prices significantly or alter the terms and conditions of its mortgage insurance or other credit enhancement products in furtherance of social or other goals rather than a profit motive, we may be unable to compete in that market effectively, which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. See “—We compete with government-owned and government-sponsored enterprises in our U.S. mortgage insurance business, and this may put us at a competitive disadvantage on pricing and other terms and conditions.”

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In Canada, CMHC is a sovereign entity that provides mortgage lenders with 100% capital relief from bank regulatory requirements on loans that it insures. In contrast, lenders receive only 90% capital relief on loans we insure. CMHC also operates the Canadian Mortgage Bond Program, which provides lenders the ability to efficiently guaranty and securitize their mortgage loan portfolios. If we are unable to effectively distinguish ourselves competitively with our Canadian mortgage lender customers, under current market conditions or in the future, we may be unable to compete effectively with CMHC as a result of the more favorable capital relief it can provide or the other products and incentives that it offers to lenders. In addition, in light of current market conditions, the increased capital relief offered by CMHC could make it difficult for us to compete with CMHC.

Present conditions in the international financial markets could lead other countries to nationalize our competitors or establish competing governmental agencies, which would further limit our competitive position in international markets and, therefore, materially affect our results of operations.

Changes in regulations could affect our international operations significantly and could reduce the demand for mortgage insurance.

In addition to the general regulatory risks that are described above under “—Our insurance businesses are heavily regulated, and changes in regulation may reduce our profitability and limit our growth,” we are also affected by various additional regulations relating particularly to our international mortgage insurance operations.

The Canadian Department of Finance has informed us that they intend to review the guarantee agreement we have with the Canadian government. Although the Department of Finance originally targeted completion of the review by the end of 2008, we continue to be engaged in ongoing discussions with Department of Finance officials on this matter and no new target completion date has been announced. Although we believe the Canadian government will preserve the guarantee in order to maintain competition in the Canadian mortgage industry, we cannot be sure what, if any, changes will be made to the terms of the guarantee. In the second quarter of 2008, the aggregate cap for all Canadian licensed mortgage insurers guaranteed polices was increased to CDN $250 billion, which facilitates our ongoing ability to offer mortgage insurance products under the guarantee. The failure of the Canadian government to maintain the guarantee on terms similar to the current guarantee could have an adverse effect on our ability to offer mortgage insurance products in Canada and could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. In July 2008, the Government of Canada announced adjustments to the rules for government guaranteed mortgages. We have incorporated these adjustments into our underwriting guidelines effective October 15, 2008. These new standards have resulted in a modest reduction of mortgage originations in Canada.

APRA regulates all financial institutions in Australia, including general, life and mortgage insurance companies. APRA also determines the minimum regulatory capital requirements for depository institutions. APRA’s current regulations provide for reduced capital requirements for certain depository institutions that insure residential mortgages with an “acceptable” mortgage insurer for all non-standard mortgages and for standard mortgages with loan-to-value ratios above 80%. APRA’s regulations currently set out a number of circumstances in which a loan may be considered to be non-standard from a depository institution’s perspective.

Under rules adopted by APRA effective January 1, 2008, in connection with the revisions to a set of regulatory rules and procedures governing global bank capital standards that were introduced by the Basel Committee of the Bank for International Settlements, known as Basel II, certain approved deposit-taking institutions (“ADIs”) in Australia are now required to hold less capital on high loan-to-value mortgage loans and will receive a capital incentive for using mortgage insurance, but at a reduced level, and potentially limited to the higher risk portions of their loan portfolios, when compared to previous regulations in Australia. The rules also provide that ADIs would need to acquire mortgage insurance coverage levels lower than existing requirements in order to obtain these reduced capital incentives. Accordingly, lenders in Australia may be able to reduce their use of mortgage insurance for high loan-to-value ratio mortgages, or limit their use to the higher risk portions of their portfolios, which may have an adverse affect on our Australian business.

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We believe the Basel II framework may encourage the growth of international mortgage insurance by facilitating its recognition as an approved credit risk mitigant and enabling banks to therefore reduce the capital they must allocate for loans covered by a mortgage insurance policy. Basel II has been designed to reward banks that have developed effective risk management systems by allowing them to hold less capital than banks with less effective systems. Basel II was finalized and issued in June 2004; however, its adoption and implementation by individual countries internationally and in the U.S. is ongoing.

Since the Basel II framework continues to evolve, we cannot predict the mortgage insurance benefits that ultimately will be provided to lenders, or how any such benefits may affect the opportunities for the growth of mortgage insurance. If countries implement Basel II in a manner that does not reward lenders for using mortgage insurance as a credit risk mitigant on high loan-to-value mortgage loans, or if lenders conclude that mortgage insurance does not provide sufficient capital incentives, then we may have to revise our product offerings to meet the new requirements and our results of operations may be adversely affected.

Risks Relating to Our U.S. Mortgage Insurance Segment

Current activities related to our review of strategic alternatives for our U.S. mortgage insurance business may negatively impact our operating results.

On September 30, 2008, we announced that we were exploring strategic alternatives regarding our U.S. mortgage insurance business, including a possible spin-off to our stockholders, to determine the optimal course for our company, our customers and our stockholders. To date, we have not made any formal decisions regarding this business and we have not identified any immediate alternatives that we find attractive or viable. Therefore, we continue to operate the business in a disciplined fashion with sound risk and capital management practices.

In the future, if we chose to divest that business, we cannot be sure that we will be able to complete a spin-off, attract interested third parties for a possible sale transaction or execute any other transaction involving this business. If a transaction were to occur, we also cannot ensure that its terms would be favorable to us or would have a material beneficial effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. If the review of strategic alternatives continues for a significant amount of time, there are risks that customers, employees and stockholders may react negatively to the uncertainty of the process or to any decision we reach not to pursue a transaction. That negative reaction could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our claims expenses and loss reserves have increased in recent periods and could continue to increase if the rate of defaults on mortgages covered by our mortgage insurance continue to increase, and in some cases we expect that paid claims and loss reserves will increase.

During 2007 and 2008, we have experienced an increase in paid claims and increases in loss reserves as a result of a significant increase in delinquencies and foreclosures in our more recent books of business, particularly those of 2005, 2006, 2007 and the first half of 2008. This was evident in all products across all regions of the country. This is particularly evident in our A minus, Alt-A, ARMs and certain 100% loan-to-value products in Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada. In addition, throughout the U.S., we have experienced an increase in the average loan balance of mortgage loans, including on delinquent loans, as well as a significant decline in home price appreciation, which has turned negative in the majority of U.S. markets. Certain regions around the country, particularly surrounding the Great Lakes area of the upper Midwest continue to experience an economic slowdown and have seen a more pronounced weakness in their housing markets, as well as a decline in home prices.

The foregoing factors have contributed to an increase in our incurred losses and loss reserves. While over 90% of our primary risk in-force in the U.S. is considered prime, based on FICO credit scores of the underlying

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mortgage loans, continued low or negative home price appreciation, coupled with worsening economic conditions, is likely to cause further increases in our incurred losses and related loss ratios. As of December 31, 2008 and 2007, approximately 68% and 70%, respectively, of our U.S. mortgage insurance risk in-force had not yet reached its anticipated highest claim frequency years, which are generally between the third and seventh year of the loan. As a result, we expect our loss experience will increase as policies continue to age. If the claim frequency on the risk in-force significantly exceeds the claim frequency that was assumed in setting premium rates, our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows would be adversely affected.

Our premium rates vary with the perceived risk of a claim on the insured loan, which takes into account factors such as the loan-to-value ratio, our long-term historical loss experience, whether the mortgage provides for fixed payments or variable payments, the term of the mortgage, the borrower’s credit history and the level of documentation and verification of the borrower’s income and assets. Our ability to properly determine eligibility and accurate pricing for the mortgage insurance we issue is dependent upon our underwriting and other operational routines. These routines may vary across the jurisdictions in which we do business. Deficiencies in actual practice in this area could have an adverse impact on our results. We establish renewal premium rates for the life of a mortgage insurance policy upon issuance, and we cannot cancel the policy or adjust the premiums after the policy is issued. As a result, we cannot offset the impact of unanticipated claims with premium increases on policies in-force, and we cannot refuse to renew mortgage insurance coverage. The premiums we agree to charge upon writing a mortgage insurance policy may not adequately compensate us for the risks and costs associated with the coverage we provide for the entire life of that policy.

Certain types of mortgages have higher probabilities of claims. These include Alt-A loans, loans with an initial Interest Only payment option and other non-traditional loans that we have insured in prior years, including A minus loans and 100% loan-to-value products. Alt-A loans are originated under programs in which there is a reduced level of verification or disclosure of the borrower’s income or assets and a higher historical and expected default rate than standard documentation loans. Standard documentation loans include loans with reduced or different documentation requirements that meet specifications of GSE approved underwriting systems with historical and expected delinquency rates consistent with our standard portfolio. The Interest Only payment option allows the borrower flexibility to pay interest only or pay interest and as much principal as desired, during an initial period of time. A minus loans generally are loans where the borrowers have FICO credit scores between 575 and 660, and where the borrower has a blemished credit history. A material portion of our Alt-A and Interest Only loans was written in 2005 through 2007. At the end of 2007, we began to adopt changes to our underwriting guidelines to substantially eliminate new insurance on these loans. However, the new guidelines only affect business written after those guidelines became effective. Business written before the effectiveness of those guidelines was insured in accordance with the guidelines in effect at time of the commitment, even though that business would not meet the new guidelines. Although historical information is limited, we believe that Alt-A and Interest Only loans written prior to the adoption of the new guidelines may pose a higher risk of claims due to features such as deferred amortization of the loan on an Interest Only product. If defaults on Alt-A or Interest Only or other non-traditional loans are higher than the assumptions we made in pricing our mortgage insurance on those loans, then we would be required to make greater claims payments than we had projected, which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

A deterioration in economic conditions or a decline in home price appreciation may adversely affect our loss experience in mortgage insurance.

Losses in our mortgage insurance business generally result from events, such as reduction of income, unemployment, divorce, illness and inability to manage credit and interest-rate levels that reduce a borrower’s ability to continue to make mortgage payments. The amount of the loss we suffer, if any, depends in part on whether the home of a borrower who defaults on a mortgage can be sold for an amount that will cover unpaid principal and interest and the expenses of the sale. A deterioration in economic conditions generally increases the likelihood that borrowers will not have sufficient income to pay their mortgages and can also adversely affect housing values, which increases our risk of loss. A decline in home price appreciation, whether or not in conjunction with deteriorating economic conditions, may also increase our risk of loss.

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Many regions throughout the U.S. have experienced an economic slowdown and have seen a more pronounced weakness in their housing markets, as well as declines in home prices. This slowdown and the resulting impact on the housing markets are reflected in our increasing delinquencies. However, we believe that there may be a lag in the rate at which delinquent loans are going to foreclosure due to various local and lender foreclosure moratoria as well as servicer and court-related backlog issues. As these loans eventually go to foreclosure, our delinquency counts will be reduced and our paid claims will increase accordingly. In addition, foreclosure moratoria could cause our losses to increase as expenses accrue for longer periods or if the value of foreclosed homes further decline during such delays. We are also experiencing an increase in delinquencies and associated reserves relating to adjustable rate loans including POAs and Alt-A products in our bulk business, particularly from the 2006 and 2007 books of business.

The conservatorship of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae may limit the number of mortgages originated which, in turn could affect our results of operations.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the largest purchasers and guarantors of mortgage loans in the United States. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by Congressional charter to ensure that mortgage lenders have sufficient funds to continue to finance home purchases. In September 2008, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”) announced a plan to place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship under the authority of the FHFA. As a result, the number of mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could decrease. This could result in fewer mortgages being originated and, consequently, decrease the demand for private mortgage insurance, which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, the appointment of a conservator may increase the likelihood that the charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be changed by new federal legislation. Such changes may allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce or eliminate the level of private mortgage insurance coverage that they use as credit enhancement, which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations, including certain changes in business practices that could increase risk associated with mortgages we insure.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and a small number of large mortgage lenders exert significant influence over the U.S. mortgage insurance market.

Our mortgage insurance products protect mortgage lenders and investors from default-related losses on residential first mortgage loans made primarily to home buyers with high loan-to-value mortgages—generally, those home buyers who make down payments of less than 20% of their home’s purchase price. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased approximately 60%, 44% and 28% for the years ended December 31, 2008, 2007 and 2006, respectively, of all the mortgage loans originated in the U.S., according to statistics published by Inside Mortgage Finance. We believe the increase in the percentage of mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has increased the market size for flow private mortgage insurance during 2008. Changes by the GSEs in underwriting requirements or pricing terms on mortgage purchases could affect the market size for private mortgage insurance. Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s charters generally prohibit them from purchasing any mortgage with a face amount that exceeds 80% of the home’s value, unless that mortgage is insured by a qualified insurer or the mortgage seller retains at least a 10% participation in the loan or agrees to repurchase the loan in the event of default. As a result, high loan-to-value mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac generally are insured with private mortgage insurance. These provisions in Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s charters create much of the demand for private mortgage insurance in the U.S. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are also subject to regulatory oversight by the HUD and the FHFA. As of December 31, 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased the majority of the flow mortgage loans that we insured. As a result, a change in the charter provisions or other statutes or regulations relating to their purchase or guarantee activity could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Increasing consolidation among mortgage lenders, including the impact of recently announced transactions, will continue to result in significant customer concentration for U.S. mortgage insurers. As a result of this

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significant concentration, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the largest mortgage lenders possess substantial market power, which enables them to influence our business and the mortgage insurance industry in general. Although we actively monitor and develop our relationships with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and our largest mortgage lending customers, a deterioration in any of these relationships, or the loss of business from any of our key customers, could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, if the FHLBs reduce their purchases of mortgage loans, purchase uninsured mortgage loans or use other credit-enhancement products, this could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

A decrease in the volume of high loan-to-value home mortgage originations or an increase in the volume of mortgage insurance cancellations could result in a decline in our revenue.

We provide mortgage insurance primarily for high loan-to-value mortgages. Factors that could lead to a decrease in the volume of high loan-to-value mortgage originations include: