Following the Supreme Court decision to uphold the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Peter Lee, the director of the California’s Health Benefit Exchange—which will oversee the marketplace that will start to carry by 2014 subsidized health insurance for Californians—announced that the state is now putting together a system that should…

The recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold all but one provision of President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, has given a major boost to insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare providers. GlobalData, a healthcare intelligence provider, suggests that though it is still premature to tag the political…

It’s not the best news for life insurers and professionals with a life insurance license, but a recent industry survey has found out that over two-thirds of chief financial officers at North American life insurers expect interest rates to stay in the doldrums for at least three more years. Life insurers critically depend on the…

The life insurance industry and professionals who have a life insurance license have good reason to cheer this time of the year. According to insurancenewsnet.com, applications for life insurance are still trending up, increasing in May by 1.3 percent year-over-year (all ages). The figure is based on the popular MIB Life Index, the life insurance…

Seniors need not sit out their years looking solely to their life insurance policy for relief. John W. Homer, president of Oxford Financial Group, suggested instead that they buy a guaranteed income annuity in tandem with a life insurance policy. Homer, in his talk at the annual meeting of Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), observed…

Predictive modeling, a mainstay of some industries for some years now, is coming into favor in life insurance, more precisely, into life underwriting, according to insurancenewsnet.com. Because of its heavy use of consumer data and number-crunching technology, the new, more-accurately predictive approach is expected to reduce underwriting costs, but it’s also giving some life insurance…

Why does an individual need to buy life insurance? That’s the central question that an insurance agent must know the answer to in order to sell life insurance or, for the prospective life insurance agent, to justify a career in the industry’s many life insurance companies. In essence, life insurance is simply providing when the…

If you’re casting about for a career in insurance, there’s no line more in demand come hail (“hell” is too strong a word) or high water than an insurance claims adjuster (adjusted for brevity’s sake to simply “claims adjuster” or just “adjuster”). In fact, even outside disaster areas the adjuster is one professional who gets…

High-risk pools for the medically uninsurable will be an important area in the future of health insurance, according to a May 2012 survey by Communicating for America (CA), a national nonprofit and nonpartisan advocacy group with a long history of helping the medically uninsurable obtain access to health insurance. “Based on the results of our…

The first quarter of 2012 has started well for a number of industries in postrecession America. It’s no different for life insurance. LIMRA, a worldwide research organization, recently reported that total individual life insurance premium improved three percent in the first quarter of 2012 over the same period last year. Overall policy count grew five…

Life insurance is the least understood insurance line among buyers. That lack of understanding, contends InsuranceHotline.com, has led many to wait too long to get coverage (until it was too late) or to pay too much (much to their regret). Unfortunately, it has also spawned a number of myths, much to the disadvantage of insurers—as…

A surprising finding has come out of a recent survey of life insurance buyers: Many individuals don’t have insurance coverage because no carrier has tried to sell them their products. Deloitte LLP, the financial advisory firm that conducted the survey, said that, in fact, even insured individuals who are interested in purchasing new coverage reported…

Health-insurance providers are obligated to inform clients who receive a premium rebate this summer that the check is made possible by the Obama administration’s healthcare law, so require federal guidelines released this May. According to the healthcare law—whose fate hangs in the balance as the Supreme Court deliberates on its validity—insurers that have not spent…

It appears that for many Americans it isn’t the right time to be old. That’s the take-away from a survey, the “Longevity & Preparedness Study,” recently completed by Northwestern Mutual, a mutual company offering financial services, including life insurance. The study endeavored to determine if the adults polled believed they were financially ready to live…

Research done for MetLife, published in the 10th Annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends, has found that only about 50 percent of Gen Y workers (those aged 21 to 31) have income protected by disability insurance. “A disability is not selective — it can happen to anyone, at any time. If you have people who…