Reinsurance deal helps Conseco raise cash

Conseco Inc. will raise $45 million and free up capital reserves by bringing in a reinsurance company to coinsure a block
of life insurance policies, the Carmel-based company announced Friday morning.

Minnesota-based
Wilton Reassurance Co. will assume half the risk for a block of 237,000 policies held by Conseco’s Bankers Life unit,
based in Chicago. The deal will cost Conseco about $2.5 million every three months, beginning this quarter,
in pre-tax profits.

In its most recent quarter, the company had $83 million of pre-tax profits.

But Conseco continues new efforts to boost its cash levels. The company had less than $86 million
in cash on Sept. 30 and expected that to decline to $73 million by year’s end .

The company raised $78 million
in a stock sale to New York hedge fund Paulson & Co. this month, and then filed Thursday to sell
another $230 million in shares.

Conseco also sold $176.5 million in new bonds this month.

Conseco used
some of these proceeds to buy back $176.5 million in older bonds, which could be converted to cash in September
2010. Conseco still faces a cash call of $116.5 million on the remainder of those bonds.

This is Conseco’s
second reinsurance transaction with Wilton Re. In September, Wilton Re paid $57.5 million to assume 100-percent reinsurance
of a block of life insurance policies held by Conseco’s Carmel-based subsidiary, Conseco Insurance Group.