Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

If the Medicare provisions in the act are repealed, the impact on drug prices could be significant. 5. The underlying cost of drugs is still rising. For 40 years, the cost of health care in retirement has continued to rise between one-and-a-half and two times as fast as the overall Consumer Price Index. The Medicare budget has grown from $7.5 billion in 1970 to more than $1 trillion this year. Although Trump has promised to not cut Social Security or Medicare benefits, the math simply doesn’t work. The Biden administration’s plans to add weight loss drugs to Medicare coverage will increase costs to the program, as would Trump’s proposals to provide coverage for in-home care. The elimination of taxation on Social Security (which Trump announced his support for during his campaign) would reduce revenue. And, if tariffs are applied to all goods produced outside the United States, the cost of imported drugs will rise. Eventually there will have to be changes to these programs if they are to continue in their current form and offer promised benefits. More cost-sharing in the form of reduced benefits, higher deductibles and premiums for clients is inevitable. The further a client is from retirement,...

Innovation isn’t necessarily at the forefront of the concept, which doesn’t push the product to the next level, despite the technological advancements. We wanted to challenge the status quo of what the term life insurance application process should look like and, as a result, truly reimagine what not only we could do for our clients but the larger industry itself. This thought process was driven home through an integration of multiple business units, including IT, distribution, operations and underwriting. When a diverse group of departments come together and ideate, the resulting product can reshape the industry. 3. Don’t be afraid of the moment. Our digitized platform was the first of its kind in the U.S. term life insurance market and was essentially launched during the peak of COVID-19. The industry wasn’t able to operate under normal circumstances during the pandemic, because agents weren’t allowed to visit homes or prioritize getting exams completed. Looking back on it, it was a scary moment to dive head first into but the risk taken of launching a system during the pandemic turned out to be for the better and changed the way that life insurance applications look today. 4. Prioritize consumers and agents. When...

Advisors can also use the tool to sets tax and gains budgets for predetermined thresholds, helping to maximize tax-loss harvesting and gains realization, while supporting tax-minimizing rebalancing at both the account and household levels. According to Choreo, the automated assessment of trade-offs eliminates the need for manual tax considerations and adjustments. “Our team appreciates that tax planning is an integral part of comprehensive wealth management,” Matthew Gotlin, Choreo’s chief investment officer and managing director, said in a statement. “With Choreo Tax Advantage, our financial professionals can maximize efficiency and effectiveness, while their clients gain the opportunity to capture tax savings in an improved manner.” Credit: Adobe Stock

There is a persistent difference where households who are guessing tend to overestimate required savings at lower income levels and underestimate required savings at higher income levels. The difference could be due to a variety of factors, but one potential culprit is the progressive nature of Social Security retirement benefits, which replace a higher portion of wages at lower income levels. This effect becomes clearer in the following chart, which compares the ratio of the median divided by the income level, for different income levels. Source: EBRI 2024 RCS, author’s calculations The estimated and guessing trendlines cross at about the $100,000 total household income level. This suggests that lower-income households who are guessing about required retirement savings could be oversaving and those with higher incomes could be undersaving. The following chart looks at the behaviors taken among workers who attempted to estimate required savings. Source: EBRI 2024 RCS, author’s calculations. Trying to figure out required savings had a number of notable positive benefits, in particular saving more for retirement, which 52% of respondents noted doing. Additionally, 29% of respondents noted researching other ways to save, 24% of respondents noted paying down debt, and 22% of respondents noted enrolling in their...