Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

The thinking: Tyler said the two-income-level annuity strategy has been a great niche product and works well for many middle-income clients as well as more affluent clients. “We found a lot of adoption of the Personal Income Annuity in the federal worker space,” he said. At the U.S. Postal Service, for example, many workers can retire at 58, and, especially on the East Coast, they might be in couples with a total household income of about $200,000, he noted. For many of those workers, he said, the dominant view of income and investment risk is, “I need income now; I’d like to give the risk to somebody else.” The median premium paid is about $100,000, and the average is about $155,000. The amount of premium paid tends to correlate with what a worker has saved in a 401(k) plan account, Tyler said. The advice: Tyler said one challenge for Nassau has been persuading financial professionals to consider offering a new type of annuity. When confronted with change, “agents pause, even when it’s something good,” Tyler said. “Agents are used to the concept of selecting one check forever. Now they have to explain two checks.” He said the major challenge for...

They say they meet with the former president approximately every six weeks to brief him on policy ideas, share economic data and suggest names for key political appointee posts. Laffer last month floated himself in a list of names to serve as Federal Reserve chair. In an interview Wednesday, he said he would rather serve as a White House adviser than Fed chair. On the campaign trail, Trump has often said he would pass the “biggest” tax cuts and claims that if he is not elected, taxpayers will see their IRS bills increase under Biden. Trump has not detailed what his tax plan would look like. “President Trump proudly passed the largest tax CUTS in history,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “When President Trump is back in the White House, he will advocate for more tax cuts for all Americans and reinvigorate America’s energy industry to bring down inflation, lower the cost of living, and pay down our debt.” Forbes advocated for no taxes on savings and eliminating the estate tax, both changes that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans. State and Local Taxes The advisers are also advocating to maintain or reduce the $10,000 cap on state...

No court would ever expect that Emma should have remembered it all. Chances are there are lots of these situations out there waiting to emerge, and it’s going to cost carriers a lot of money. The Real Solution So, what is the solution? The main problem is that these products with complicated, nonguaranteed elements are just not “set it and forget it” types of products. They need maintenance. Here’s an outline of what I think is needed: 1. Emphasize simple, short disclosures, both at issue and on an ongoing basis. Pages and pages aren’t going to cut it. The disclosures really need to be read and understood. 2. Make disclosures verifiable and ongoing. We need a method that, as much as possible, can be verified as having occurred. Require a sign-off by the customer, and, if that’s not possible, solid documentation that disclosures and options are delivered regularly. 3. Provide adequate disclosure at issue. This should be a short, simple paragraph that explains, at a high level, that the product the customer bought has nonguaranteed elements that are, to some degree, subject to the discretion of the carrier. Note that even the “index formula” in indexed universal life products usually...

What You Need to Know EBSA is seeking information from plan administrators to establish an online search tool to help workers locate lost retirement savings. Secure 2.0 directs EBSA to establish the online tool by Dec. 29. Enforcement efforts have recovered more than $6.7 billion for missing participants and beneficiaries since 2017, according to EBSA. The Labor Department said Monday that its Employee Benefits Security Administration is seeking information from plan administrators to establish an online search tool to help America’s workers locate lost retirement savings. The Secure 2.0 Act directs EBSA to establish a search tool to help missing participants and their beneficiaries find their retirement benefits by Dec. 29. “The agency needs assistance from plan administrators to populate its online ‘Retirement Savings Lost and Found’ database,” Labor said Monday. Retirement plans, including pension and 401(k) plans, sometimes lose track of people owed benefits due to incomplete recordkeeping, people changing employers and other reasons, EBSA explained. In other cases, “workers may lose track of their retirement plans after their former employer goes out of business or when companies merge. People in these situations are considered ‘missing participants,’” EBSA said. The notice of proposed information collection asks plan administrators to provide the information voluntarily on...