1012771--2/19/2009--FBL_FINANCIAL_GROUP

related topics

{loss, insurance, financial}

{condition, economic, financial}

{capital, credit, financial}

{regulation, government, change}

{product, market, service}

{personnel, key, retain}

{tax, income, asset}

{customer, product, revenue}

{debt, indebtedness, cash}

{system, service, information}

Continuing adverse financial market conditions may significantly affect our liquidity, access to capital and cost of capital. The Market Value Adjustment (MVA) feature on certain policies may cause surrenders to increase in an extremely low interest rate environment. Our valuation of fixed maturity 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. Our investment portfolio is subject to credit quality risks which may diminish the value of our invested assets and affect our profitability and reported book value per share. Changing interest rates, market volatility and general economic conditions affect the risks and the returns on both our products and our investment portfolio. We face competition from companies having greater financial resources, more advanced technology systems, broader arrays of products, higher ratings and stronger financial performance, which may impair our ability to retain existing customers, attract new customers and maintain our profitability and financial strength. As a holding company, we depend on our subsidiaries for funds to meet our obligations, but our subsidiaries ability to make distributions to us is limited by law, and could be affected by risk-based capital computations. A significant ratings downgrade may have a material adverse effect on our business. All segments of our business are highly regulated and these regulations or changes in them could affect our profitability. Inaccuracies in assumptions regarding future persistency, mortality and interest rates used in calculating reserve, deferred policy acquisition expense and deferred sales inducement amounts and pricing our products could have a material adverse impact on our net income (loss). We may be required to accelerate the amortization of deferred policy acquisition costs or deferred sales inducements, which could adversely affect our results of operations or financial condition. Our earnings are influenced by our claims experience, which is difficult to estimate. If our future claims experience does not match our pricing assumptions or past results, our earnings could be materially adversely affected. We assumed a significant amount of closed block business through coinsurance agreements and have only a limited ability to manage this business. Our reinsurance program involves risks because we remain liable with respect to the liabilities ceded to reinsurers if the reinsurers fail to meet the obligations assumed by them. Our business is highly dependent on our relationships with Farm Bureau organizations and would be adversely affected if those relationships became impaired. Our relationship with Farm Bureau organizations could result in conflicts of interests. Changes in federal tax laws may affect sales of our products and profitability. Our ability to maintain competitive costs is dependent upon the level of new sales and persistency of existing business. If we are unable to attract and retain agents and develop new distribution sources, sales of our products and services may be reduced. Attracting and retaining employees who are key to our business is critical to our growth and success. Success of our business depends in part on effective information technology systems and on continuing to develop and implement improvements. We experience volatility in net income (loss) due to accounting standards for derivatives.

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1012771--2/19/2009--FBL_FINANCIAL_GROUP_INC