Genworth Financial Inc.‘s latest survey of consumers’ vulnerability found Americans are doing well, considering. Despite the recession, Americans are much less financially at risk than Europeans, the Henrico County-based insurance giant’s latest review shows. “Given the harsh economic climate in the USA of recent months, it is perhaps surprising,“ the review commented.

The Virginia Retirement System has selected Genworth Financial Inc. as its choice to offer long-term-care insurance as a fringe benefit to its more than 600,000 members, retirees and beneficiaries. The coverage will be offered through a group insurance policy, under the Commonwealth of Virginia Voluntary Group Long Term Care Insurance Program.

Steadier housing markets across much of the country are leading Genworth Financial Inc. to ease some rules for writing the coverage buyers need to get into a home. In nearly 200 markets in 45 states, Henrico County-based Genworth has gone back to issuing mortgage insurance for homebuyers making 5 percent down payments, the company disclosed. Mortgage insurance, which homebuyers pay for, repays banks if homeowners stop paying their mortgage.

Genworth Financial Inc. swing back into the black after five straight money-losing quarters, as losses from its investments declined. The Henrico County-based insurance giant reported profit of $45 million, or 4 cents a share, in the third quarter, compared with a $258 million loss a year ago. Its net loss on investments was $122 million, well below the loss of $816 million it suffered a year ago, as worldwide bond and stock markets melted down.

Genworth Financial is introducing new universal life-insurance policies that add another variable customers can control to manage the premiums they pay. The GenGuard products allow customers to change the guarantee period of the policy to lower their premiums. “Our goal with these new product designs is simple—to make life insurance affordable, predictable and accessible to the underserved Main Street consumer market,“ said Buck Stinson, president of Genworth’s U.S life-insurance products unit.

After a strong couple of months for Wall Street, companies are coming back to the market to raise funds, including Henrico County-based Genworth Financial Inc., which late yesterday announced a $500 million sale of stock. The offering, among the largest to come to market recently, is to raise funds for general corporate purposes, Genworth said.

About 85 employees at Genworth Financial Inc.‘s corporate offices in Henrico County were told Tuesday that their positions are being eliminated. The insurance giant is shifting some of its back-office functions in its annuity business to Lynchburg as part of Genworth’s ongoing review of its operations, spokesman Al Orendorff said. About 40 of the jobs will be transferred to Lynchburg, where the company is expanding its call center operations. Those employees will have the option of moving.

Insurance giant Genworth Financial Inc. is taking a billion dollars from its safety net cushion of cash and putting it back to work in financial markets. It’s a sign the worst may be over in those markets—just as is a sale of stock in Genworth’s Canadian unit last month, which raised $705 million and was the biggest deal in Canada in two years.

A bankruptcy at CIT Group Inc., the 101-year-old lender to small businesses that itself is running short of cash, may hurt insurers that invested in the company’s debt, including Henrico County-based Genworth Financial Inc.

Genworth Financial Inc. hit a key financial target yesterday by repaying the last of its long-term debt coming due this year. The Henrico County-based insurance giant’s repayment means it has no big debt payments hanging over it until 2011, while a months-long campaign to beef up its balance sheet means it has lots of cash. Genworth repaid the full $331 million of outstanding 4.75 percent notes that came due yesterday. Last month, it repaid $330 million of 5.23 percent notes.

Genworth Financial Inc. has repaid half of its long-term debt that is coming due this year. It plans to repay the rest on schedule next month, the company said yesterday. Once it does that, it will have no other long-term debt to pay off until 2011. In the Wall Street panic sparked by last year’s credit-market crisis, worries about its debt helped send the Henrico County-based insurance giant’s shares tumbling.

Shut out of last year’s federal bailouts, Henrico County-based Genworth Financial Inc. looked inward to find the financial muscle it needed to weather one of the toughest spells in Wall Street history. Now, it is swimming in cash, with more than enough to repay $660 million of debt coming due this month and next, an obligation that last year made Wall Street so nervous that trades sent Genworth shares tumbling, at one point, down 95 percent in value from their high.

The price tag for nursing homes, in-home care and assisted living kept growing in 2009, potentially adding another hardship to retirees already hurt by financial losses amid the recession. A new study found that the cost of long-term care in Virginia is rising at a rate outpacing inflation. The survey, by Henrico County-based insurer Genworth Financial Inc., said that except for home-based health care, the costs of long-term care also are poised for steady increases.

Tanya Parker spent yesterday morning in a crowded warehouse unloading and sorting canned foods, dried pasta and gourmet candy corn—a far cry from what she did as a corporate events planner at Circuit City. It isn’t a temporary job she’s taken as she waits to return to a corporate suite somewhere. It’s a volunteer gig that takes her mind off her job search and helps others at the same time.

Genworth Financial Inc. said yesterday that it withdrew its bid for a Minnesota-based bank and, as a result, will not participate in the federal government’s $700 billion rescue program. The Henrico County-based insurer’s agreement to buy InterBank of Maple Grove, Minn., was contingent upon receiving approval to participate in the government program.