OLDWICK, N.J., May 22, 2025–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICR) of “a+” (Excellent) of Symetra Life Insurance Company and its subsidiary, First Symetra National Life Insurance Company of New York (New York, NY), together referred to as Symetra Life Group. Concurrently, AM Best has affirmed the Long-Term ICR of “bbb+” (Good) of Symetra Life Group’s parent, Symetra Financial Corporation. The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. All companies are headquartered in Bellevue, WA, unless otherwise specified.

The ratings reflect Symetra Life Group’s balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as very strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, favorable business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM).

AM Best views Symetra Life Group’s balance sheet as strong, as measured by quantitative and qualitative Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), measures with financial support afforded by the ultimate parent, Sumitomo Life Insurance Company. The ultimate parent continues to support the group’s strategic initiatives with capital when needed. Symetra Life Group has shown continued growth in premiums with record sales in 2023 and 2024, combined with continued increases in capital and surplus and positive net income on a GAAP and STAT basis in 2024, aided by positive net investment income.

Offsetting these strengths is Symetra Life Group’s strong top line growth, which has outpaced surplus growth in recent years, as well as the group relying more on affiliated offshore reinsurance that may need additional support if growth continues at this pace.

AM Best views Symetra Life Group’s ERM as being matched to the scope of its operation, while adjusting to changing market conditions. Continued product innovation and its favorable business profile continue to be a positive factor in its overall ratings.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best’s website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best’s Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best’s Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Best’s Credit Ratings, Best’s Performance Assessments, Best’s Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best’s Ratings & Assessments.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright © 2025 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Former Rep. Billy Long (R-MO), President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), was invited to attend Trump’s inauguration as the guest of a financial services CEO who said Long promised him benefits for his company, according to a recording obtained by the Lever.

The executive also stated that Long planned to give a top government job to a campaign donor at an embattled financial firm. Companies peddling tax schemes “don’t have to worry” about regulatory crackdowns under Long’s oversight, added the executive.

In a corporate Zoom recording provided to the Lever by Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) office, Terry Kennedy, CEO of financial services company Appreciation Financial, noted he helped Long attend Trump’s inauguration.

“I call up one of my friends and I said, ‘Hey, the IRS Commissioner Billy Long, the new one coming in that we’re all excited about. . . Is Billy coming to the inauguration?’” Kennedy said. “And. . . my friend says, ‘Well, he doesn’t have a ticket. He’s not because he’s not confirmed yet.’ I said, ‘Well, make him my guest.’”

Kennedy went on to note that he and Long “had dinner one night” during the inauguration and that he “spent a few nights with [Long].”

During that same call, Kennedy addressed Employee Retention Tax Credits (ERC), a pandemic-era program that the IRS says has been the target of the agency’s “civil and criminal investigations of potential fraud and abuse.” Kennedy asserted that companies would no longer have to worry about such IRS scrutiny because Long sold such products himself.

“He actually pushed ERC; is that not a blessing?” said Kennedy. “We could be worried about promoter audits now. We could be worried about anything with the old administration. But Billy actually is now taking over, and we don’t have to worry about that stuff.”

Promoter audits are IRS investigations looking into potential “abusive tax promotions” and other matters. The IRS has been specifically targeting companies promoting ERC tax schemes.

Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.

The April 15 Zoom recording is from a monthly “Huddle Up” meeting hosted by Linqqs, an employee benefits management company that donated $50,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee. Kennedy is listed as the manager of Linqqs on the Nevada state government’s website.

According to Kennedy, Long promised to give him a “private letter ruling” — a special IRS determination that helps taxpayers with complex IRS issues avoid potential tax violations, according to the tax agency.

“Billy, please take your sales hat off and put your new IRS commissioner hat on,” Kennedy recounted asking Long in a conversation, seeking advice about his business’s financial arrangement.

Kennedy also highlighted that Long intends to hire Mark Czuchry, an attorney and managing partner at financial advising firm Lifetime Advisors, as legal counsel at the IRS. Czuchry donated $2,900 to Long’s failed Senate campaign efforts after Trump selected him to head the IRS, and other Lifetime Advisors employees donated an additional $7,800 to Long’s coffers.

Lifetime Advisors is among a number of firms named in an April 14 letter from Senate Finance Committee Democrats calling for a criminal investigation into a “scheme to sell investors a fraudulent tax shelter.” Long worked with Lifetime Advisors in 2023 after leaving Congress, where he sold various tax products, including some of the same tax credits that Treasury officials told Senate Democrats “do not exist.”

The Lever previously reported that employees of Lifetime Advisors and others helped Long pay off $130,000 in personal debt via campaign donations after Trump selected him to head the tax agency in December. Following the Lever’s reporting, three senators launched an investigation into the matter on May 15.

During Long’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Democratic senators pressed Long about his industry donors, plans to weaponize the IRS against his nonprofit enemies, and his pandemic tax schemes.

In his interrogation, Wyden suggested that his staff investigators had found a recording of a tax promoter recounting that Long had promised him a private letter ruling in his new position at the IRS.

Long denied the allegation, “I was in my room for about fifty hours with food poisoning during the inauguration, so I didn’t talk to many people.”

“These taped conversations are so troubling to me,” said Wyden. “What’s at issue is peddling fake tax credits, scamming small businesses, this questionable array of campaign contributions. . . the extent to which you tried to avoid answering these questions suggests to me someone who’s been up to their eyeballs in this sort of questionable behavior.”

The Trump administration has reached an initial trade deal with one G7 member, the United Kingdom, and is engaged in talks with Japan and the European Union. But Canada still faces 25% duties on many of its exports to the United States, including autos, and the other three G7 members — France, Germany, and Italy — all face a baseline tariff of 10% on all their exports as part of the European Union.

It will be the first formal meeting of the G7 attended by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who participated in a brief G7 gathering last month on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will also attend along with central bank governors from the other G7 nations.

“The message from colleagues is pretty clear is that a free and fair and a rules-based multilateral trading system, is a system in which we all win,” Francois-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of finance, said Tuesday.

While many finance ministers gathered in Banff this week will likely seek one-on-one meetings with Bessent, it’s unlikely any trade deals will be reached, according to a person briefed on preparations for the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not have authorization to speak about it publicly.

Instead, the finance officials will seek to smooth the way toward any agreements before a meeting of the heads of state of the G7 countries in June in nearby Kananaskis, Canada.

Bessent may be able to bring a more conciliatory tone to the meetings, Prasad said, as he is often seen as a relatively moderating influence on tariffs in the Trump White House.

And there will likely be some areas of agreement, particularly around the Trump administration’s goal to address what it calls “global imbalances” in world trade, a reference to the United States’ large annual trade deficits, which reflects that it imports more than it exports. The White House sees China as the key driver of such imbalances. China has a large trade surplus.

“Intentional policy choices by other countries have hollowed out America’s manufacturing sector and undermined our critical supply chains, putting our national and economic security at risk,” Bessent said in a speech last month during the IMF and World Bank meetings.

The status of the U.S. dollar may also come up, at least in informal conversations. The dollar dropped in value unexpectedly last month after Trump unveiled his widespread tariffs, while the interest rate on Treasury bonds rose, a sign international investors may have been dumping American assets as confidence in the country’s governance and economy eroded.

“In the hallways, they’re going to talk about nothing but tariffs and the dollar,” said Steven Kamin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former senior economist at the Federal Reserve.

At last year’s meeting of G7 finance officials in Stresa, Italy, they agreed on a joint statement that said the members have a “strong commitment to a free, fair, and rules-based” trading system. It’s not yet clear whether they will be able to agree on such a statement this year.

Another question hanging over the meetings will be whether the G7 can come to agreement on a new round of sanctions on Russia. The European Union and U.K. announced sanctions on Russian oil Tuesday, targeting Russia’s “shadow fleet” of unregistered oil tankers that are shipping its oil and allowing it to fund its war with Ukraine.

Proposals to lower a price cap on Russian oil, set as part of earlier rounds of international sanctions, down from its current level of $60 may also be discussed in meetings Wednesday.

Yet the Trump administration, while it has called for greater sanctions on Russian oil, hasn’t yet signed on to the new restrictions. Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, and said the two countries would soon begin ceasefire talks, though no details were available.

Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko will also attend the G7 meetings this week, though Ukraine is not a member.

Daleep Singh, chief global economist at PGIM Fixed Income and a former deputy national security adviser in the Biden administration, said the issue of Russian oil sanctions will be a key test of what unity remains in the G7.

“If you’re looking for something to engender a just and lasting peace, oil sanctions are the place to look,” he said.