Pacific Life Insurance Company (Newport Beach, Calif.), has launched a variable annuity, Pacific Destinations O-Series, that offers the low mortality, expense, and administrative fees of an A-share product without an up-front sales charge.

The product features four investment asset allocation categories. For an additional cost, two optional guaranteed withdrawal benefits: Automatic Income Builder, which lets clients receive income for life with automatic increases; and CoreIncome Advantage5 Plus, which can lock in market gains and an income that can continue for life.

A premium-based charge will apply to each purchase payment and is deducted quarterly over a seven-year period.

Among other channels, the product will marketed through Edward Jones, a distribution partner of Pacific Life, the company says.

Midland National Life Insurance Co. (West Des Moines, Iowa) has released a new fixed index annuity, MNL RetireVantage.

The company says the new offering can link to price of gold and pay partial interest credits at the date of death. The annuity also offers an Additional Benefit Rider that can pay holders a premium bonus, an additional annuity payout benefit, an increased penalty-free withdrawal allowance and return of premium.

The product comes with two surrender charge and premium bonus options, five index account options and multiple index choices including gold price.

The U.S. Retirement Division of ING North America Insurance Corp. (Windsor, Conn.) has unveiled a new asset allocation program to help 401(k) plan participants convert their savings over time into a guaranteed lifetime stream of income. 

The ING Lifetime Income Protection Program is initially being offered to customers in ING’s corporate defined contribution plans. The program provides participants with a series of target date asset allocation models, or “portfolios,” that help build retirement savings followed by an income benefit for life, guaranteed by multiple insurers: AllianceBernstein, AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company and Nationwide Financial.

ING says it worked with AllianceBernstein to design a program that leverages the expertise of that firm’s multi-insurer platform, while incorporating both guaranteed and non-guaranteed components into one consolidated program. 

ING’s asset manager, ING Investment Management, oversees these collective trusts.  AllianceBernstein also serves as an investment manager.

In other product news, Western & Southern Financial Group (Cincinnati, Ohio) and Mid Atlantic Capital Group Inc. (Pittsburgh, Pa.) have finalized their formal filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the key business methods underpinning VAROOM, a variable annuity launched in Jan. 2011 offering subaccount options that invest in individual exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

VAROOM (Variable Annuity for Roll Over Only Money) is issued by Western & Southern member companies Integrity Life Insurance Company (Cincinnati, Ohio) and National Integrity Life Insurance Company (Goshen, N.Y.).

Western & Southern says the application seeks to patent the business methods that enable an individual ETF to be offered as the underlying investment in a variable annuity. In addition, the business methods employ index-based ETFs exclusively, enabling Western & Southern to better manage the associated market risk of VAROOM through improved hedging.