Pacific Life Insurance is establishing a business center in Lynchburg

Pacific Life Insurance Co. announced Friday it has completed the purchase of a new term life insurance platform from Genworth Financial and will establish a business center in Lynchburg.

The transaction includes the purchase of the 700 Main St. building in downtown Lynchburg and the key assets supporting the sale of term life insurance, including the principal IT platform and related technology. Pacific Life will offer the new term life business as a separate product suite that offers low-cost insurance protection products to the mass market.

The Newport Beach, Calif. company expects to create 300 jobs during the next three years in Lynchburg. It expects to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Genworth Financial announced in February that it was ending sale of term life insurance and fixed-annuity products, saying it would lay off 200 employees in Lynchburg and 70 at its headquarters in Henrico County.

Pacific Life said its new employees will include some current and former Genworth employees.

Michael Shadler, formerly of Genworth, has accepted an offer from Pacific Life to take a senior leadership role in the Lynchburg office.

“The addition of Genworth’s proven term life insurance business technology platform will allow us to accelerate our growth into the protection business without sacrificing our focus and responsibility to our core markets of highly affluent individuals and businesses,” Rick Schindler, executive vice president of Pacific Life’s Life Insurance Division, said in a statement.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Friday that he approved spending $500,000 from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund for the project.