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RILAs Are Not the Only Annuities With Sizzle

Registered index-linked annuity sales are climbing — and so are sales of the RILA’s older siblings, non-variable indexed annuities. Sales of non-variable indexed annuities climbed 29% between the first quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, to $29 billion, according to new issuer survey data from Wink. “Continued attractive rates benefited the product line,” Wink says in a comment on the data. “It is projected that indexed annuity records will set records again in 2024.” What it means: Relatively high interest, the aging of the baby boomers and lingering investor concerns about market volatility continue to push individual annuity sales higher. Non-variable products vs. variable products: Sales of all types of U.S. individual annuities that Wink has been tracking for at least a year increased 18%, to $100 billion.

How Intel and IBM are helping enterprises accelerate innovation 0

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How Intel and IBM are helping enterprises accelerate innovation

Markham, ON (June 1, 2024) – Historically, enterprises across highly regulated industries have been more hesitant than others to adopt emerging technologies, with concerns around data security and compliance being top of mind. But as customer demands for flexibility and real-time information mount, the speed of technology adoption and innovation have accelerated. To keep pace, it is essential that enterprises adopt technologies that maximize the value of their data and harness the power of AI. This is where a hybrid cloud by design strategy comes into play. Built for performance To modernize and run today’s data and compute intensive workloads, it is critical that enterprises identify technology partners that are committed to helping solve their unique business challenges. And, for regulated industries, assembling individually optimized processors, systems and software uniquely tailored for their requirements only works until workload varieties increase – then you hit a wall. To address this, Intel is announcing that IBM has been named an Intel Foundry Accelerator Cloud Alliance partner, marking a step forward in the collaboration between our two companies to drive innovation and accelerate the deployment of advanced technologies. This alliance is set to offer clients a secured and scalable pathway to integrate their...

AI Expected to Transform Retail Investing, Increase Banking Fraud and Drive New Insurance Market: Deloitte 0

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AI Expected to Transform Retail Investing, Increase Banking Fraud and Drive New Insurance Market: Deloitte

AI expected to transform retail investing, increase banking fraud and drive new insurance market; climate change expected to further increase insurance costs for commercial real estate: Deloitte 2024 Financial Services Industry Predictions reports highlight trends that have the potential to impact innovation and growth as well as risk and resiliency New York, NY (May 30, 2024) – Deloitte is pleased to announce the release of its 2024 Financial Services Industry Predictions report, which outlines some of the most significant emerging trends across the financial services industry over the next three to five years. Among the most significant trends, the report highlights the impact AI could have on transforming retail investing, enabling deepfakes and fraud in banking and driving new insurance offerings. Climate change is also predicted to continue to increase insurance costs for commercial real estate property owners and impact profitability of insurers. “The seismic shifts we will see in financial services as a result of emerging technology and innovation will likely be transformative and provide new opportunities for growth,” said Jim Eckenrode, managing director, Deloitte Center for Financial Services, Deloitte Services LP. “At the same time, financial services organizations will face new risks and resiliency challenges, including market volatility, impact...

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Florida OIR Posts 2024 Catastrophe Claims Reporting Form

Article 0 Comments The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation has posted a new reporting form for catastrophe claims data for the 2024 hurricane season. Florida law requires property insurers to report a wide range of information after storms. The form standardizes the data collection process. The new reporting template can be found here. After Hurricane Idalia hit part of Florida last year, the data collected have shown that more than 25,000 claims were made through mid-November 2023. Some 17,000 of those were for residential property. About 11,540 were closed with payment – about 46% – three months after the storm passed. For Hurricane Ian in 2022, 68% of the 777,000 total claims had been closed with payment 19 months after the hurricane hit southwest Florida, the OIR data reports show. Topics Florida Catastrophe Claims Was this article valuable? Thank you! Please tell us what we can do to improve this article. Submit No Thanks Thank you! % of people found this article valuable. Please tell us what you liked about it. Submit No Thanks Here are more articles you may enjoy. Interested in Catastrophe? Get automatic alerts for this topic.

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The Millennial Guide to Financial Wellness Through Insurance

Hi there. The email you just opened, or link you just clicked, was not sent by FeedBlitz. It was junk, sent by an unknown third party who is not using FeedBlitz to send their emails or manage their RSS feeds. FeedBlitz hasn’t been hacked; we just didn’t send you that email or generate that link. And if you got this link in an email, since we did not send you that email, we can’t unsubscribe you from it. If you’re here and want to stop spam like the email that brought you to this page, or hate hackers tricking you with phishing links at malware sites, we think that’s great and we sympathize. We want that too! But we’re sorry; we can’t help you. We didn’t send that email or make that link. Bottom line: If you’re here, the email you’re looking at isn’t a genuine FeedBlitz email, or the link isn’t a genuine FeedBlitz link. So: How did you get here? But there’s a FeedBlitz link in the email, in the feed, on that web site! Yes. Yes, there is. The spammers who are trying to trick you do not use FeedBlitz. But they are using a bit of...

Canadian CEOs say AI is Fueling New Job Creation and Risk-taking to Compete: IBM Study 0

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Canadian CEOs say AI is Fueling New Job Creation and Risk-taking to Compete: IBM Study

More than half of Canadian CEOs say they are hiring for positions that did not exist last year due to generative AI, but struggle to fill key technology roles. 72% of Canadian CEOs reveal they will take on more risk than their competition to outcompete. 62% of Canadian CEOs say the productivity gains from automation are so great they are willing to accept more risk. Markham, ON (May 29, 2024) – A study by the IBM Institute for Business Value has found that AI is fueling new job creation and risk-taking among surveyed Canadian CEOs as they prioritize generative AI to maintain and enhance their competitive edge in the global market while simultaneously transforming their workforce to meet new demands. Canada was one of 30 countries included in this annual global IBM study of 3,000 CEOs. Key themes dominating the Canadian findings include the willingness of CEOs to accept more risk in an increasingly competitive landscape driven by generative AI. In fact, 64% of Canadian CEOs believe that competitive advantage depends on having the most advanced generative AI capabilities, higher than the global average of 59%. Additionally, 62% of Canadian CEOs say the productivity gains from automation are so great...

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Medicare Plan Pay Confusion Could Wreck 2025 Enrollment, Lawsuits Warn

What You Need to Know CMS wants Medicare Advantage and Medicare drug plan producer comp to include support services costs. Plaintiffs say regulators have refused to clarify how the new rules will really work. FMOs and web brokers warn that continuing uncertainty could cripple upcoming enrollment period marketing. Medicare plan agents, brokers, distributors and trade groups are asking the federal courts to block the new Medicare plan agent compensation rules quickly. Any uncertainty around agent pay that lingers for more than a few weeks could cripple efforts to hire, train and supervise agents and to create and run advertising campaigns, plaintiffs say in three separate, similar lawsuits. The Medicare Advantage plan annual enrollment period for 2025 starts Oct. 15, but months before then, “a long line of dominoes will begin falling, irreversibly,” according to Americans for Beneficiary Choice, the lead plaintiff in one of the suits. “Relief any later than mid-July will be too late.” The plaintiffs want the courts to use stays or injunctions to keep the compensation rules from taking effect this summer, and they also want the courts to issue judgments that would overturn the new regulations. What it means: How smooth the Medicare Advantage plan annual...

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Firefighters Battle California Wildfire with Hot Weather in The Forecast

Article 0 Comments Firefighters battling a California wildfire burning east of San Francisco have increased containment on the fire, but hot weather is in the forecast for the next few days. Nearly 500 firefighters, along with several air tankers from throughout the state are working on the fire in San Joaquin County. Weather conditions became more favorable, allowing crews to make progress constructing and improving control lines. The fire is now 50% contained, according to CalFire. The fire started June 1. The cause is under investigation. The fire quickly spread across hundreds of acres of tall grass, prompting evacuation orders of nearby locales. The favorable firefighting conditions are not expected to last. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for the week warning of “dangerous hot conditions” with temperatures of 95 to 108 possible in Central California. The heat is moving over portions of the Western U.S. this week comes from a massive heat dome parked over Mexico that began to shift northward and into the Southwestern and South Central, according to AccuWeather. Topics California Trends Catastrophe Natural Disasters Wildfire Was this article valuable? Thank you! Please tell us what we can do to improve this article. Submit...

Family Offices’ 10 Favorite Investments for 2024 0

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Family Offices’ 10 Favorite Investments for 2024

Start Slideshow Family office portfolios appear to be moving back into balance, according to UBS’ latest Global Family Office Report.  Strategic asset allocations showed material shifts for 2023 as portfolios appeared to adjust for a world of moderating inflation and declining policy rates. This change in allocations may reflect elevated bond yields as much as active decision making, the report said. A stabilizing macroeconomic environment is at the heart of the rebalancing scenario, UBS said. Inflation and policy rates appear to have peaked in the United States and Europe, and should gradually move lower in what seems a healthy global economy.  Seventy-three percent of family offices said they believe that U.S. real interest rates will remain positive for longer. European and Swiss family offices have different expectations, however. Given their experience of negative policy rates over the past decade, 38% of those in both locations believe that U.S. real interest rates will fluctuate around zero. For its report, UBS conducted an online survey between Jan. 18 and March 22 among 320 of its clients across some 30 countries, a significantly larger sample than in prior years. Where Allocations Are Rising Family offices appear to be strong believers in American exceptionalism,...

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Shilling: ‘Fads’ Fueling Market, Even as Growth Slows

U.S. stocks are being supported by speculation, as equities linked to artificial intelligence and other “fads,” including Nvidia, support the market amid sliding economic growth, according to A. Gary Shilling. Among Shilling’s five investment themes, the investment advisor and economist continues to recommend investors “avoid vastly overpriced speculative stocks such as the Magnificent Seven, AI, SPACs, Nvidia and crypto securities.” Nvidia and the other high-powered Magnificent Seven growth stocks have risen 20.2% this year, Shilling noted. The S&P 500 is up more than 9% year to date, but only 7% without these seven stocks, he said. “With the Nvidia craze, investors are saying that the rest of stocks and the economy are trash. But recall the rise and fall of EVs, green energy, ESG and social investing and other recent fads,” Shilling said in his June “Insight” newsletter, released Friday. Fads in financial markets “are still rampant,” Shilling said. “Some will continue to disappear without a trace, except for huge losses by gullible, overenthusiastic investors. Others will probably survive after excruciating industry consolidation and losses,” Shilling wrote.  “It’s clear that the bloom is off the rose for electric vehicles, green energy, ESG investments, social investing, stay-at-home spending and the Everything Rally. Only AI...