Exhibit 23
To the Board of Directors and Share Owners of
Protective Life Corporation:
In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of Protective Life Corporation and its subsidiaries at December 31, 2003 and 2002, and the results of their operations and their cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2003 in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. In addition, in our opinion, the financial statement schedules present fairly, in all material respects, the information set forth therein when read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements. These financial statements and financial statement schedules are the responsibility of the Company s management; our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements and financial statement schedules based on our audits. We conducted our audits of these statements in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States), which require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement. An audit includes examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements, assessing the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, and evaluating the overall financial statement presentation. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.
As discussed in Note 1 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements, effective December 31, 2003, the Company adopted FASB Interpretation No. 46 (revised December 2003), Consolidation of Variable Interest Entities (FIN 46R), effective January 1, 2002, the Company adopted Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 142, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets and effective January 1, 2001, the Company adopted Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities.
/s/ PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
Birmingham, Alabama
March 11, 2004, except as to Note 10 which is as of December 14, 2004
