Articles by Linda
Koco
Contributing Editor
Harkin Day Has Passed, Now What?
Sunday, June 16, could have been thought of as Harkin Day, at least among indexed annuity professionals...
Concept Guides Attract Boomers To Firm
One way that James P. Ruth attracts baby boomers to his firm and the retirement services it offers is by providing a brief concept guide on immediate annuities...
How A Boy And A Toy Turned Into An Awesome Customer Experience
One day, a small boy left a favorite toy at a hotel where he had stayed with his family. That’s not an uncommon event, but what happened afterwards was an awesome event, according to marketing expert Scott Stratten...
Can Searches On Google Help Sales? Richter Says Yes
Sam Richter had a meeting with an executive at Allianz, and he wanted to be present with information that shows he is keeping up with the company and cares about how it is doing...
Heard In The Hallways: MDRT 2013
Question: Is it easier to work on life insurance solutions when the client is a personal friend or a stranger (such as a referral, seminar attendee, qualified lead, etc.) and why?...
FA Illustration Rules Take Hold In Iowa
Iowa’s new annuity disclosure regulation, complete with precedent-setting illustration regulations for fixed annuities, has been in effect since Jan. 1 but, so far, the Iowa Insurance Division has received no complaints about infractions...
Nationwide Eyes Product ‘Crossovers’
Is the day coming when insurance agents will be selling crossover life insurance and annuity products? That is the direction Nationwide Financial is heading...
Who Will Win The Next Annuity Iditarod?
Annuity carriers with first quarter sales drops don’t need to feel like the last musher on the Iditarod Trail. They have plenty of company...
Genworth Breaks Its LTCi Tie With AARP
Genworth has made it official. Effective June 1, it will cease selling AARP-branded long-term care insurance through its Genworth Life Insurance Co. and Genworth Life Insurance Co. of New York companies...
LIMRA Shows Why People Really Buy Annuities
Here is a good one for annuity buffs. What is the top reason that adults aged 40-plus buy deferred annuities? Growth potential, perhaps? Maybe tax deferral? How about tax deferral plus liquidity? What about the product guarantees?...
Will The Romance Last?
Is the consumer romance with fixed indexed annuities likely to continue next year or might it start to fizzle as consumers seek other eligible prospects?...
Biggest Social Issue Of Our Time: Saving For Retirement
Getting Americans to save more is ”the biggest social issue of our time,” maintained Stig O. Nybo at the annual Retirement Industry Conference sponsored by LIMRA, LOMA and Society of Actuaries...
Advisors Key To America’s Retirement Future: Kerzner
Today, many Americans have no incentive to save for retirement, but advisors can do something about that, according to LIMRA Chief, Robert Kerzner...
Advisors Step Up To The Retirement Planning Plate
If there is any doubt that financial advisors are stepping up their efforts to offer retirement income planning and services, LIMRA has some numbers that should put that doubt to rest...
Selling Indexed UL For Upside Potential, Downside Protection
There is a huge opportunity in the emerging growth product, indexed universal life insurance, said Bobby Samuelson in a workshop here. But when entering this market, the industry “needs to know where the landmines are,” he warned...
People Love Their Insurance Agent, Study Shows
LIMRA researchers have been noodling around with the question of how customers feel when beneficiaries undergo the experience of filing a death claim, so they decided to do a study. What they found out is not what they expected...
Five Ways To Reach The Mid-Market In Life Insurance
Carriers are using five ways to reach the mid-market for life insurance, according to new research from LIMRA and the LIFE Foundation...
The Advisor Effect: More Save For Retirement
Nearly 100 percent of baby boomers who work with an advisor do have savings for retirement, according to new research from the Insured Retirement Institute...
What To Do About Closed Block?
If the past is any indicator of what is to come, the recent burst of new annuity products and the debut of more deals between annuity carriers will be followed by closed block announcements...
Annuities + Living Benefits = Unknown Future
The possibility that the very popular guaranteed living benefit (GLB) features in annuities could one day become a so-yesterday item is difficult for today’s annuity professionals to fathom...
The American Annuity Shuffle Begins
Year-end individual annuity sales results provide plenty for annuity aficionados to ponder. There were some sorry-looking numbers, for sure, but also some intriguing surprises. Some would say the carriers were doing a dance, or at least a shuffle...
Sweet Spot For Advisors: Lump Sum Distributions
Private defined benefit plans could represent an expanding market opportunity for advisors...
The Annuity Disconnect Is Here—Now What?
Annuities are in a worse position than life insurance when it comes to consumer attitudes toward the products, according to a new study...
Private Equity Has A Yen For VA Deals
Variable annuity companies might become the apple of private equity eyes in 2013...
Non-Resident Licensing Bill Returns To Congress
Legislation to create a national agent and broker body for multi-state non-resident licensing was introduced in both houses of Congress early this week...
SEC ‘Begins’ Work On VA Summary Prospectus
The Securities and Exchange Commission said it is now working on developing a rule to allow use of variable annuity summary prospectuses, which are short documents that highlight the policy’s key features in simple English and graphical format...
Annuity Toolbox Grows As Interest Rates Stay Low
Why have producers been seeing new annuity tools and strategies popping up from carriers? Dana Pedersen thinks a lot of it has to do with the continuing low interest rate environment...
Annuity Toolbox Grows As Interest Rates Stay Low
Why have producers been seeing new annuity tools and strategies popping up from carriers? Dana Pedersen thinks a lot of it has to do with the continuing low interest rate environment...
What’s In A Word? For Annuities, Buyers
“Do annuities earn money, interest or a return?” That was among the many questions that regulators and annuity industry participants took up this week during a phone conference on a consumer document about deferred annuities...
Consumers Left Out Of NAIC Annuity Process, Activist Says
A consumer representative ticked off a long list of concerns he has about the contingent deferred annuities during a conference call with regulators this week...
NAFA Response To "States Continue Push For Annuity Commission Disclosure"
Thank you for your coverage about the Buyer’s Guide in your most recent article in Insurance News Net (INN) titled “States Continue Push for Annuity Commission Disclosure” on February 18...
States Continue Push For Annuity Commission Disclosure
A few state insurance regulators are continuing to push for increased disclosure of annuity agent commissions...
States Continue Push For Annuity Commission Disclosure
A few state insurance regulators are continuing to push for increased disclosure of annuity agent commissions...
Changes Coming To NAIC Annuity Buyer’s Guide
An updated buyer’s guide for deferred annuities appears to be close to completion. Is this a case of someone reinventing the wheel, or does the re-do have merit? ...
Making Predictions On The Dow And The Super Bowl
Financial gurus are finding it important to weigh in on whether the Dow hitting 14,000 and the Baltimore Ravens winning the 2013 Super Bowl are bellwethers for the markets (and ergo, the economy) for the next 12 months...
On The Dow, The Super Bowl And Financial Advice
Financial prognosticators have really been busy recently, and what they are doing may be muddying the waters for consumers. Advisors could come to the rescue...
RMDs Trigger Prime Time For Income Annuities
When do most advisors start talking with clients about income annuities? Quick, grab a pencil and jot your answer. Then read on...
Security Regulators Step Up Review Of Annuities
Security regulators are sending out signals that they intend to step up review of distribution of complex financial products, such as variable annuities and equity-linked instruments...
Annuity Opening Salvo For 2013: Auspicious?
The year 2013 is opening up more like business as usual than like a war zone. That could be a harbinger of a better year...
Estate Tax Law: The Meaning for Annuities
Annuities appear nowhere in the deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, but the legislation does have at least three indirect implications for annuity advisors and clients...
Estate Tax Surprise: The Law is Permanent
One of the big surprises from the last-moment deal that pulled the nation back from the fiscal cliff was the permanent estate tax law, which should make estate-planning go much more smoothly for advisors and their wealthy customers. ..
Which Annuity Line Shows Most Promise In 2013?
As the New Year’s stardust settles, annuity watchers are scanning the horizon to see what lies ahead for annuities in the next 12 months. ..
Athene To Become Big In Indexed Annuities
Finally, the speculation about who will buy Aviva USA is over. Athene Holding Ltd., a Pembroke, Bermuda insurance holding company, says it has agreed to buy the big fixed indexed annuity carrier, Aviva USA...
On Guggenheim, Sun Life Financial, and Annuities
Just when the annuity industry had stopped talking about the Guggenheim Partners expansion into “the annuity space,” the Chicago- and New York-based private equity went and made another annuity-infused deal...
Is The 401(k) The Next IA Market?
A new marriage could be in the making. This is the marriage of indexed annuities with 401(k) retirement plans ..
Carriers Target RIAs With Fee-Only Variable Annuities
Variable annuities designed for sale in fee-only distribution channels have nearly doubled, putting more VAs into the hands of advisors who do not charge commissions...
Annuities Down But Not Out In 3Q
Third quarter industrywide results were downers for sure. On an overall basis, total annuity sales fell 10 percent, to $54.3 billion, from third quarter last year, according to LIMRA...
Profiling Uncovers Cases in 10 Minutes
Sales training is important, but finding the right clients by profiling is how BGAs really can help advisors make sales...
Aviva Confirms Plans to Sell Its U.S. Business
Speculation that the United Kingdom-based company might sell its U.S. unit has been circulating ever since August, when un-sourced reports surfaced that Guggenheim Partners, a private equity company, was reportedly a potential buyer...
AIG Considers Proprietary Products: Benmosche
American International Group is looking at ways to introduce proprietary insurance products to its new distribution platform, according to AIG President and CEO Robert Benmosche...
Suspended Annuities Causing A Stir
Advisors are upset because a couple of big variable annuity carriers—Prudential and Jackson National—are suspending sales of, or deposits into, certain variable annuities. Other variable annuity carriers are expected to follow, and many have already cut back...
NAIC Alert May Mislead Annuity Buyers
At issue are warnings included in the document about using annuities — in particular, deferred annuities – to help low-income wartime veterans qualify for a government pension. These warnings are in addition to cautionary notes about gifting and moving money...
Annuity Ballgame Targets Retirement Home-Runs
In the past few weeks, a number of annuity carriers have brought out new fixed and variable annuity contracts or features that are geared toward meeting the needs of retirement-minded customers...
Annuity Clients Getting Divorced? Step Carefully
A greater percentage of older couples are getting divorced and are at an age when they are more likely to have annuities. How do they split that baby?...
One Simple Diagram Has Clients Begging To Sign
Typical insurance agents can increase sales by drawing a simple one-page diagram — a diagram that Bill Whitley says so motivates clients that they actually ask to move on to the next step in the buying process...
Life With Critical Illness Riders Catch On
Brokerage general agent tells NAIFA conference that the critical illness rider makes life insurance more attractive for younger clients…
Indexed Annuities Are Changing - And Selling
The changes have come in response to the prolonged low-interest rate environment, and the pressure that has put on carriers’ ability to support product guarantees and related features, according to a wide variety of annuity watchers...
Advisors Still ‘On’ To Variable Annuities
Cogent Research has found that 72 percent of advisors surveyed in 2012 expect to continue selling variable annuities and to allocate 11 percent of their assets under management toward the products...
Global Pressure Slows U.S. Annuity Market
Advisors aren’t talking much about globalization, says Stan Haithcock, a Florida-based annuity specialist. But they should be, because the increasingly international profile of the insurance business is likely to impact the U.S. annuity market...
VAs Edging Up in Financial Advisor Offerings
By Linda Koco
Annuity sales may be flattening from last year, or even dropping in some markets, but it is not from decline in advisor use of the products.
In fact, more tha
Annuity Producers, Get Ready for the Retirement Market
The massive assets now held in qualified retirement plans managed by life and annuity insurers are being eyed by competitors, Conning Research and Consulting reports. So insurers need to respond to the competition...
Annuity Surprises Could Be Jump-Starters
The annuity market is never short on surprises, and the past few weeks have been no exception. Sometimes the surprises are jolts. This time, they are more like jump-starters...
Indexed Annuity as Alternative Asset Class
Several recent surveys indicate that consumer and investor confidence is wobbling. The magnitude is not dramatic, but worry is definitely in the air...
VAs Edging Up in Financial Advisor Offerings
Survey shows that financial advisors are keeping the faith in annuities...
To Use Exclusive Annuity Distribution or Not?
In the indexed annuity business, the traditional distribution model — where marketing organizations distribute annuities of multiple carriers through their advisor networks — was the only game in town for many years...
Gen-Y May Have a Growing Yen for Annuities
The most recent edition of the IRI Fact Book points out that Gen-Y ownership of one kind of annuity — the indexed annuity — has “significantly increased since 2007, when it was at 8 percent.”
The Black Box Changing Life Underwriting
In the life insurance world, the models can be faster, better and cheaper than traditional underwriting methods, but they “do not provide the type of transparency important to producers and clients when determining the risk class.”...
Annuity Plus Life Insurance Equal a Powerful Retirement Income Strategy
John W. Homer, president of Oxford Financial Group, suggests that older clients with liquid assets and a desire to reduce estate taxes may want to consider buying a guaranteed income annuity partnered up with a life insurance policy...
MDRT Speakers: Passion Makes Winners
Being passionate about life and work and finding inspiration from other people are key ingredients that make for winners, according to several speakers at on the Tuesday morning platform of Million Dollar Round Table...
MDRT Meeting, Speakers About Rich Connections
MDRT takes a novel approach to the annual meeting with The ConneXion Zone. And speakers talk about the personal and professional enrichment of making connections...
Make The Leap: Smooth Transitions From Commissions To Fees
An excerpt from MDRT 2012: "Our business model consists of three ways we are compensated, and how we use the methods depends on the circumstances of the case, the complexity or the size, and the ongoing service needs"...
Heard in the Halls: MDRT Day One
Question: What is the biggest change in life insurance production that you have noticed since joining MDRT and now?...
Forbes Publisher to MDRT Elite: Work Faster, Better and with Empathy
“Are you known as a standout in your field?” Forbes Publisher Rich Karlgaard says at MDRT opener...
Rules of Thumb Can Smother Options
Many advisors and planners have decided that they must never recommend putting 30 percent or more of a client’s liquid assets into annuities...
The Annuity Defined … Really?
That lack of understanding gets in the way of good retirement income planning. If people don’t know about, or understand, annuities, why should they consider purchasing one?...
Why Indexed Annuities Keep Charging Ahead
One answer has to do with guaranteed living benefits -- the features were a big part of fixed indexed annuity sales in the first quarter...
Annuity Carrier Exits: Tsunamis Or Small Waves?
The Aviva CEO's exit is the latest in a string of annuity industry shakeups, but should we worry?...
Information Pays as it Sways Income Annuity Buyers
Tell them and they will buy, according to a study that showed that when advisors tell pre-retirees about income annuities, at least 30 percent said they were likely to purchase one...
Targeting Middle Market Retirees? Read This
Advisors can make a living by serving the retirement income needs of the middle market,if they focus on the right segment and use the right strategies...
Advisors Shifting to Active Management of Retirement Income
Speaking at the annual Retirement Income Conference, Prudential CEO stressed that retirement entails many complexities and that industry advisors and providers need to factor those complexities into their planning and solutions...
Why Annuities Are Now Cool
Large broker-dealers and wirehouses are tuning into income annuities, to the point that they are asking for support and information about the products, according to CANNEX...
Social Media Builds Trust (and Sales) for Agents
Rather than getting excited about getting 50,000 likes on the corporate website, carriers should be focusing on getting their agents to post local content and getting people to “like” it...
In Life Insurance Sales, Prepare to Reckon with Women
Agents who still engage in the “old style” of selling, where they talk only to the husband and totally ignore the wife when both are present, may want to reconsider their approach...
LIMRA CEO: We Can’t Grow Unless…
Life industry needs to nurture green shoots of growth, LIMRA CEO Bob Kerzner tells Life Insurance Conference on Tuesday...
Dementia Risks Grow for Life Insurers as Population Ages
Insurers are starting to make cognitive impairment testing a part of the underwriting process for larger life insurance cases...
United States of Annuities
The federal endorsement will increase opportunities for advisors - but they may also come to view their annuity bedfellow with a guarded eye...
DTCC Analysis Shows Fixed Annuity Activity Uptick
According to DTCC data there was a 34 percent increase in fixed annuity inflows, when comparing March 2010 to February 2012 figures...
Advisors Face More Scrutiny in the ‘Alternative’ Zone
The guidance that FINRA has laid out for securities firms may subject advisors who recommend “alternative investment” options inside of variable annuities to greater scrutiny...
Advisors Eyeball SPIAs Valued At Over $200,000
Financial advisors ran searches on single premium income annuities valued at an average of $231,000 last year, according to a 2011 report from an income annuity database...
Regulators Call for Annuity Income Guarantee Scrutiny
NAIC group recommends a different treatment of popular annuity guarantees...
Watch Your ‘Lesser-Known’ Indexes
Regulators say that talking about some indexes in indexed annuities gets a little close to the financial advising line...
Contingent Annuities May Emerge as Income Option
What are contingent annuities? They might be an answer for some clients' guaranteed income needs...
How Annuities Could Be a Health-Care Cost Cushion
A recent report endorses the growing trend of using annuities for health-care expense planning...
More Policyholders Keeping Their Indexed Annuities
If you have been thinking the indexed annuity owners have been keeping their annuities for longer and longer periods in the past few years, you are right! But why they are keeping them, that's the surprise...
Annuity Company Ratings: Can You Count On Them?
Producers need to know if their carriers are healthy, but how reliable are the ratings agencies?...
2012 Could Be Rebuilding Year for Annuities
A review of new products shows that annuity carriers have definitely unveiled new products this year, but certain product lines got most of the attention...
Retirement Anxiety Inspires Rush of New Annuity Products
Annuity sales have suffered with the low rates – but innovations in indexed annuities help to sweeten the deal...
DIAs Mix It Up with SPIAs in Income Annuity Market
Interest grows in deferred income annuities for "bucketing" retirement income...
Carriers Build MVA Annuity Arsenal
Market Value Adjusted annuities are not going great guns right now, but carriers want them to protect against consumer flight when interest rates rise...
BGA Concern: Agents Keep the Sales Dial on Term Life
At a NAILBA roundtable, BGAs say term life is doing well but the products that make the money are not moving...
Gen Y Producers Want To Be Entrepreneurs
To attract Generation Y into life and annuity production, the insurance industry — including brokerage general agencies — will need to make some adjustments...
Panel: Low Rates Batter UL But Value Still Strong
Low-interest rates force carriers to cut some universal life value but extra spice still makes UL nice for clients, according to a NAILBA panel...
Don’t Forget, It’s SOCIAL Media
Too often, producers think they should sell on social media. The trick is to be social, first...
Brokers' Big Problem Needs Big Solution
NAILBA chairwoman, Christi M. Daughenbaugh, says the big problem is recruiting and brokerages can't just nibble around the edges...
NAILBA: Women Breaking into Brokerage
More women are reaching the top rungs of the brokerage ladder but why aren't there more? A NAILBA session seeks the answers...
Liquidity: Annuity Buyers Want It but Most Don’t Use It
Liquidity features may be the apple of the annuity buyer’s eye – but relatively few policyholders actually use them, according to advisors...
Carriers Back Away from Registered Indexed Annuities
ING Groep NV stopped selling registered indexed annuities at the end of October, and now some annuity watchers are wondering if that spells the end of the registered indexed annuity marketplace...
Companies Apply Annuity Balm for Retirement Pain
Recent annuity product rollouts are putting the spotlight on retirement income strategies just as boomers and retirees contemplate an uncertain future...
Where Are The Next-Gen Producers?
“We will need to go out there and adopt their mindset rather than think about who we are and how will they fit with us,” said Todd Tharp at LIMRA’s annual meeting...
Kerzner: This Technology Can Rock Our World
Innovations such as iPads, tablet computers and smart phones “can rock our world,” says life insurance executive Robert A. Kerzner...
Social Media Use Growing At Life Carriers
“The companies are using social media technologies primarily to help producers with lead generation and community building,” said Todd A. Silverhart during a packed break-out session at LIMRA’s annual meeting...
What If Interest Rates Keep Falling?
A falling interest rate environment will spur some customers to look for opportunities for upside potential, and that can affect the products and strategies that agents and companies take...
Annuities Vie With Mattress Money
The tough economy is causing consumers to make some tough retirement savings choices — between annuities, other retirement plans, investments and mattress money, according to an Allianz survey...
Speed-to-Market Building Steam
Annuity products are getting to the market faster today than five years ago because more states are signing onto a compact...
Can Annuities Solve The Retirement Crisis?
The 79-page document issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says experts are recommending use of income annuities to generate retirement income, among other strategies...
VA Players Nosing into Indexed Annuity Market
Registered reps who have been selling variable annuities will soon be asked to start selling indexed annuities, too...
IRI to Super Committee: Save Annuity Tax Deferral
“We do not believe that deficit reduction should be done at the cost of individual retirement savings. We urge committee members to protect savings incentives for all American workers.”...
Insurers Delay Contingent Annuity Launches
Some insurers are delaying the launch of contingent annuity products while regulators are trying to determine whether contingent annuity products are in fact annuities...
ACLI: Annuities Not So Fuddy-Duddy
Products that provide guaranteed lifetime income have changed so much in the past six years that American Council of Life Insurers is now reminding people that “This isn’t your father’s annuity.”...
Are Contingent Annuities Really Annuities?
State regulators are planning what could become a “robust discussion” this Friday about whether so-called contingent annuities are actually annuities or perhaps financial guaranty type of product...
NFI: Federal Regulation of Annuities ‘Conceivable’
A federal regulator could eventually become the principal regulator for life and annuities or reinsurance or monoline bond carriers...
No-Lapse UL: Down but Don't Count Them Out
Despite the popularity of no-lapse UL, some carriers started exiting the market in 2009 and all eight of the top players had left by 2010. Now those exits are crimping industry-wide individual life sales...
Indexed, Income Annuities Surge in Market Share
Indexed annuities and income annuities have grown market share against all odds and all predictions...
Why Aren’t VULs Riding The VA Sales Rocket?
At first blush, the variable universal life sales increase might prompt industry professionals to think that the first half’s rising stock market made VULs catch on once again among consumers -- but not so fast...
AnnuityNews Wrap: Downgrade Begets Downgrade?
Catch the latest from Linda Koco on the annuities industry, including what the "downgrade" of S&P's head honcho really means...
NAIC Targets 'Unrealistic' Annuity Illustrations
illustrations offered with traditional fixed and indexed annuities are not subject to any regulations but use of illustrations with fixed annuities has been growing over the past five years, and some of the documents are “pretty unrealistic,” NAIC official says...
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Debt Deal Could Spur Annuity Sales
The wrangling over the debt ceiling scared consumers enough about the future to want the safe money of annuities...
Swaps Proposal Threatens Annuities’ Insurance Status
Several insurance organizations are concerned that a new government proposal regarding swaps could remove certain annuity and life insurance products from state regulation and make them subject to federal regulation...
The Harkin Amendment’s Big What-If Question
What if all 50 states do not adopt the new annuity suitability regulations developed by National Association of Insurance Commissioners by June 16, 2013 -- and what insurance agents need to know about it...
GAO Report Puts Annuities on Center Stage
Retirements are at risk and the situation cries for annuities. Even the government knows that!...
Iowa Draws Line in the Sand for Advisors
Industry professionals consider the Bulletin to be a regulatory effort to help resolve the so-called “source of funds” issue that has sprung up around the country...
More Annuity Suitability Rules Going into Effect This Summer
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires that all 50 individual states to comply with the NAIC 2010 annuity suitability model by June 16, 2013...
Millionaires Do Buy Annuities: Here’s Why
Fewer millionaires want to actively manage theirs assets, opening the door to annuity products...
Illinois Indexed Annuity Case Heads to Court
The Illinois secretary of state issued the order on May 24. It includes an indirect “proclamation” calling indexed annuities securities, according to Thomas W. Kelty, the advisors’ attorney. Kelty also filed an appeal in circuit court on June 1...
Illinois Ruling May Reopen Indexed Annuity, Securities Issue
Not only does Illinois Order 0800064 provide a “cautionary tale” about understanding and explaining policy features, “but it also strongly intimates— without saying — that Illinois considers index annuities to be securities”...
Independent B/Ds Gain Annuity Market Share
Independent broker/dealers (IBDs) are raising some eyebrows as gain some market share in the individual annuity sales, according to data starting in 2006...
2-Year Estate Tax Window Slows Big Gifts
The new $5 million gift tax exemption has triggered a lot of interest in nudging the ultra-wealthy to make large gifts between now and the end of 2012 because that’s when the high lifetime exemption limit will end. But that is not the norm among the wealthy...
Retirement Education: The More the Better
Research is finding that consumer education can and does make a difference in how people save for retirement. Simply put, the more education the better for the retirement savings account...
Customers Are Unique So Treat Them That Way: Aviva
Aviva coined a term — youmanity — to express the message that the company expresses “heartfelt humanity.” It has begun offering products, services and programs under that banner and promises more...
Money on the Move, Heading to Annuities
Money is moving and many say a good chunk of it is going into annuities...
Simplified Issue May Mean More Sales, Less Comp
Simplified issue may mean smoother and quicker transactions, which is good because you're going to need to do a lot of them to make up for the compensation cut!...
Seeking Zealots for Customer Service
Carriers, producers both have to earn their business with each transaction...
Life, Retirement Conferences Lift Off
Get ready for a week of invaluable insignts from two major industry conferences designed to help producers thrive in tomorrow's insurance and retirement markets...
Income Annuities Elbow In
Maybe it's the boomers looking for a new retirement vehicle or insurance companies wanting another sales vehicle -- or maybe both -- but there is no doubt income annuities are getting more popular...
In Quake’s Wake, Revelations About Nuclear Insurance
The pool has been around for decades but it is getting renewed attention in the wake of the nuclear reactor damage following Japan’s powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11...
10/10 Limits IA Design
Indexed annuities with 10-year surrender charges are becoming so prevalent that newly developed products are starting to look very similar, according to an indexed product researcher...
Ready for Annuities Paired With Bond Funds?
Some financial companies are designing new types of retirement income products that package features of an income annuity with features of a bond fund...
New Annuity Suitability Model Catches On
California and New York are the latest states to pass tougher suitability regs, just days after the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL) endorsed annuity suitability model regulations developed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)...
Gas Pump Pain Means Clients Cling to Policies
You would think it is a long way from gas pump to insurance policy, but clients are feeling poorer...
Do Fixed Annuity Rates Matter Now?
Today's low credited interest rates in fixed annuities may make the products a tough sell, but it is all a matter of perspective for clients...
Some Independent Agents Looking At WL
Whole life, long the product of mutuals and career agents, is starting nudge over universal life in the independent space...
401(k) Annuity Options: Works in Progress
More employers are contemplating offering “in-plan annuity options” to allow retired workers to convert part or all of their 401(k) account into a lifetime income stream via an annuity...
Wall Street Eyes IAs, After Long Battling Them
At least a couple of big Wall Street securities firms are already preparing to make filings for their indexed annuity products, perhaps by spring or summer...
States Ready ‘Source of Funds’ Rules
Regulators in Iowa and Minnesota are co-developing “source of funds” guidelines that will help draw the lines for advisors on making recommendations about moving money between insurance and securities sources...
SEC Study on Fiduciary Standard Sets Up Fight
A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff study published last week about fiduciary standards is already setting off a new round of skirmishing over advisor standards of care...
State of Tax Treatment Catches Eyes in Insurance
The State of the Union didn't directly address it, but insurance tax treatment lurked in the background, particularly in mention of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform...
Heads Up! Busy 2 Weeks in Regs, Reports, Bills
Prepare for a wintry blast of legislative and regulatory news of keen interest to insurance and allied professionals in the next few weeks...
Whole Life Taking on a Whole New Life
Whole life insurance might be stodgy to some but its sales are exciting and it's ready to burst into other distribution channels...
Obama: Tax Deal Good for American People
Although temporary, the estate tax would be a boon to insurance professionals who have been trying to help clients with tax planning without any clarity on the future tax structure. But the higher rate might dissuade some high-net-worth clients from aggressive estate planning and lessen the need for life insurance to cover estate taxes...
The Real Story Behind Landing the Big Case
Those in the know say that breaking into the ultra-wealthy market expertise and experience — plus connections, collaboration, business management, patience and finesse...
