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NAIC Testified in Defense of the McCarran-Ferguson Act
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners testified in Washington, D.C., in defense of the McCarran-Ferguson Act. How many times in the last 61 years has a similar lead sentence appeared in insurance publications? This time the challenge to the venerable old "act to regulate the business of insurance"...
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BIG "I" Releases 2007 Legislative Agenda
The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (the Big "I") looks to build on its successes in 2006 by advocating aggressively for a number of important legislative reforms, at both the federal and state levels, in 2007...
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2006 Insurance Payrolls Soar 45,500 to Record High
Insurance payrolls jumped by 3,500 in December, pushing industry employment higher by 45,500 for all of 2006. At year-end, insurance jobs totaled a record 2.320 million, up 1.8% from 2005. November's payroll gain of 3,400 was revised slightly lower from initial reporting of 3,600...
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Fight or Flight? The Fallout of the Contingent Commission Controversy
The saga of the 2004 Spitzer-initiated probes on broker compensation dealings continues. Some of the top brokers involved have folded their tents. Others, like Acordia, won't give up on fighting for what the company considers a traditional business model in the industry...
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NASD Re-Amends VA Suitability Rule
The NASD has amended a controversial proposed rule that would add specific suitability rules for variable annuity sales, although the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to rule on the proposal...
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| Top Life & Health Headlines |
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Full Speed Ahead for Consumer-Driven Health Care
If you're looking for trends and opportunities to follow in 2007, the fast-changing health insurance environment merits serious attention. Several factors are converging to drive meaningful change throughout the health care system...
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O'Connell to Receive $50M Remuneration for Getting Fired by MassMutual
Fifty million dollars worth of severance-pay and benefits.That's how much Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. needs to remunerate to its former Chief Executive Officer Robert J. O'Connell after an independent arbitration committee and lower courts unanimously ruled that they "fired him without cause" last June of 2005...
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Life Insurers Lead Way To 'Triple X' Captives
The world's largest life insurers are forming the reinsurance captives to meet reserving requirements for universal life, whole life and term life insurance policies.Under "Triple X" regulations, insurers' need for reserves will peak about 10 years into the life of an insurance policy. That is why insurers are forming the captives now...
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America's Trillion-Dollar Health System May Be Greenest Of Them All
Presumptive presidential hopeful and democratic stalwart Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised to bring health care back. She might make it a platform issue for the 2008 race. Republicans seem prepared to do likewise...
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The Pension Protection Act of 2006 Strengthens Defined Benefit and Contribution Plans and Expands Market Opportunities
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) gives insurers a lot to be excited about. The recently enacted 900-page law lists many provisions that are widely anticipated to strengthen the defined-contribution plan market, encourage Americans to plan for their retirement and protect public interest with regards to defined-benefit plans and its funding rules...
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IRS's Private-Annuity Rule Roils the HNW Universe
A new proposal from the IRS regarding private-annuity sales has sent ripples through the estate-planning universe. In early December, the proposal was still in the comment stage. However, if it passes, it will be implemented in phases...
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Empowerment, Productivity and Profit: The Promise of Business Process Management
Faced with the need to continuously squeeze ever-greater returns from their operations, insurance companies have a tremendous amount to gain by adopting Business Process Management (BPM) tools and techniques...
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Step In Time With The Over-45 Set: These Older, Wealthy Clients Have Big Needs-and They're Not All The Same
Are you doing all you can for your middle-age or older high-net-worth clients? Sure, they may be model investors who have financial plans and use a myriad of products. But there may be opportunities to help them that you could be missing...
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IRS Killing Private Annuities
The use of private annuities to shelter profits from capital gains may no longer be a viable option for affluent individuals...
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Mac' is Back in Town: Bob MacDonald Leaves Retirement to Shake Up Retirement Income
Bob "Mac" MacDonald believes that the eventual winners in the income annuity market will be those who have "skin in the game..."
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Understanding Boomers' View on Retirement Income
According to the FDIC, boomers retirement income will center on Social Security and pension income. While Social Security is intended as a supplemental income, Americans relied on Social Security as the source for at least 80 percent of their income in 2003...
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Benefits And The Bottom Line
Controlling the rising cost of employee benefits is a challenge that never seems to get easier. Though escalating health insurance premiums get the lion's share of attention, business owners must consider the full range of worker benefits, which together comprise 37.2 percent of the average payroll, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce...
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The IRS Comes Down on PATs
Life can be so ironic and cruel. Imagine if you built your entire business on one narrow part of the tax law and then the tax law changed because you became too successful marketing it? That's exactly what happened to the Private Annuity Trust...
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| Top Property & Casualty Headlines |
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Insurers Boost Claims-Paying Capacity As Premium Rates Drop InMost OfU.S., I.I.I. Reports
With elevated hurricane activity predicted over the next 15 to 20 years,insurers took advantage of last year's respite to fix the roof while the sun was shining, setting aside billions to bolster the industry's claims-paying capacity, according to the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.)...
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Top Risk Management Newsmakers Of 2006
Billionaire financier Warren Buffett made many in the insurance industry happy in 2006 with deals to absorb the runoff liabilities of Converium Holding Ltd. and Equitas Ltd...
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BIG "I" Applauds Members For Introducing Natural Disaster Legislation
The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America applaud Reps. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) and Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) for introducing legislation to address the growing problem of natural disasters...
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AIG Selling Insurance Unit; Layoffs Possible
American International Group Inc. is selling an insurance unit that it operates in Neptune in a deal that could lead to layoffs at the Route 66 office...
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Shrinking Coverage, Rising Rates Batter Property Owners
More than two years have passed since the most unprecedented hurricane season in the U.S., and America's commercial property insurance market is reeling in the aftermath of 2005's and 2006's raging winds that swept the country...
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Huge Rate Increases Show Reinsurers Are Fearful Of 2005 Hurricane Repeat
Reinsurers have been reaping significant rate increases of up to 40% for US property catastrophe accounts in the January 2007 renewals, broking group Willis has disclosed...
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NAIC Class Action Working Group Dissolves
The results of a recent Rand Corp. study may have led to the disassembling of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' class-action working group, but the threat such litigation poses to insurance regulation remains, experts said...
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Insurers Profiting From Slow Cat Year
Thanks to a much lighter year for catastrophes, U.S. property/casualty insurers are back on solid financial ground...
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St. Paul Travelers Agrees To End Contingent Commissions
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced that - in another major milestone in his ongoing investigation of illegal practices in the insurance industry - The St. Paul Travelers Companies, Inc. plans to voluntarily stop paying contingent commissions to insurance agents and brokers by the start of next year...
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Democrats' Turn to Delay: Missippi Insurance Bailout Embroiled in Politics
House Democratic leaders failed to take up a Coast insurance-bailout bill, which could have easily passed, drawing accusations of hypocrisy, partisanship and gamesmanship from the GOP, whom the Democrats had blasted a day earlier for blocking a vote on the measure...
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Geico Gecko Coming to NY-NJ Toll Plaza
Thousands of New Jersey motorists will drive past the Geico gecko next week on their way to New York City, part of a new campaign to trade prime ad space for transit security funds...
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Insurance Risk Forecast Called Faulty
The leading computer model used by the insurance industry to justify huge rate increases in coastal areas nationwide relies on faulty science, says an expert credited with helping develop it...
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Winds Of Change Blown By Politics, Not Nature
Risk managers in the new year are contemplating the potential good and bad fallout from what they consider to be last year's most important news stories: the 2006 midterm elections and the hurricane season that wasn't...
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| Featured Press
Releases |
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Colorado Casualty™ Marks 25th Anniversary
Colorado Casualty, a member of Liberty Mutual Group, heads into its second quarter century of providing superior insurance products and services with an eye towards further expansion...
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Annuity Income Products Need "Paradigm Shift"
While annuity carriers and distributors continue to talk about the powerful selling tool of lifetime income, they continue to mistakenly focus on the short-term success of accumulation, Annuity Market News, SourceMedia's leading trade publication covering the annuity industry, reports in this month's issue...
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Global Credit Quality Slips in December to Lowest Point in 2006
Kamakura Corporation announced today that its monthly global index of troubled companies rose in December to 7.3% of the global public company universe, up from 7.0% of the universe in November...
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InsuranceNewsNet Seeks Article Contribution From Industry Experts.Become A Trusted Resource And Reach 600,000 Insurance Professionals
The Web's leading, single-source news portal for the insurance industry, today issued a call to its broad readership of more than 600,000 insurance professionals for original article submissions...
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Lisa Treadwell Assumes Employee Benefits Vice-Presidency at Lawson-Hawks Insurance Associates
John Miller, Chief Executive Officer of Lawson-Hawks Insurance Associates, announced the recent appointment of Lisa Treadwell as the Vice President of Employee Benefits for the Mountain View, CA based insurance intermediary and broker...
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Need Last Minute Gift Ideas?Give An Insider Gift Subscription And Save Over 40%!
InsuranceNewsNet, the Web's leading, single-source news portal for the insurance industry, is providing its readership of more than 600,000 insurance professionals with the opportunity to give special, holiday-discounted gift subscriptions to the Insider premium newsletter...
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Prudential To Share Top-Tier Service Techniques At The LOMA Customer Service Conference
Prudential is recognized as a leading provider of excellent customer service and efficient operations. Patrice Kelly Ellis, senior vice president for Client Services at Prudential will provide insight on how the company provides such top-tier service and why it is critical for organizations to nurture a strong customer service culture, during the LOMA Customer Service Conference...
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2006 Life Settlement Study Indicates Rise in Life Settlement Transactions
More than 400 life, health, and annuity producers across the country recently took part in the second annual Life Settlement Study, co-sponsored by the Life Insurance Settlement Association (LISA) and Agent Media, the publisher of the Agent's Sales Journal and Insurance Marketing magazine...
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A Breakthrough in Retirement Planning: Otar Retirement Calculator, Based On Market History, is Now Available
Otar & Associates is pleased to announce the launching of the 2007 Edition of the Otar Retirement Calculator (ORC). ORC is based on market history since 1900, 107 years of market data...
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Magic Software Enters US$2.5 Million Agreement with Farm Mutual Reinsurance Plan
Magic Software Enterprises, a leading provider of state-of-the-art business integration and development technology, announced an agreement to sell more than US$2.5 million in eDeveloper and iBOLT services to Farm Mutual Reinsurance Plan, Inc...
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