It's A Wonderful Hartford Life

While his competitors reel from hits to their balance sheets--and images--Lowndes A. Smith, president of ITT Corp.'s Hartford Life Insurance Cos., is sitting pretty. Thanks to a pristine balance sheet and prescient management, the former chief accounting officer for ITT's insurance units is in the midst of a deal spree that is the envy of his peers.

Smith's latest coup is a doozy: On July 7, after three years of wooing, the American Association of Retired Persons made Hartford Life the 60% owner of a new insurer that will begin marketing annuities exclusively to AARP members in 1995. That's a captive audience of 34 million. And it's a deal that had been sought by every major insurer, as well as by fund giants such as Fidelity Investments.