Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

What You Need to Know The Corporate Transparency Act is supposed to take effect in 2024. It will require foreign national investors to report on their U.S. holdings. It could lead to big penalties for some and send others shopping for life insurance. The federal Corporate Transparency Act could soon snap cash out of the vaults of wealthy, poorly advised foreign nationals with large investments in the United States. Starting Jan. 1, 2024, the CTA will require U.S. companies to send reports about their real owners, or “underlying beneficial owners,” to the Internal Revenue Service. Companies that fail to file the reports will face fines of up to $500 per day. Caroline Brooks, head of advanced markets at John Hancock, predicted in an email interview earlier this week that the CTA will help the IRS detect criminal money laundering, efforts to support terrorism — and ordinary efforts to avoid paying U.S. estate taxes. “Today, there is massive underreporting of foreign estate tax due,” Brooks said. “In the past, the IRS had limited ability to determine what U.S. property was owned by foreign nationals or even to know when an underlying owner passed away.” What It Means Brooks, who has a...

The White House began terminating the COVID-19 national emergency declaration in May. That move had deep implications for some of your clients’ health insurance. One emergency declaration mandate required Medicaid to keep people enrolled in Medicaid, even if their family income increased too much for them to meet the program’s usual income limits. Another provision required that COVID tests, the COVID vaccines developed under Operation Warp Speed and many antiviral treatments be offered to patients with no out-of-pocket cost. States are now working to wind down swollen Medicaid enrollment levels. People who earn too much to qualify and want to stay covered will have to try to get an Affordable Care Act Marketplace plan, coverage through an employer-sponsored plan, or coverage through some other type of private arrangement. That could eventually affect as many as 14 million people nationwide. Meanwhile, private plans no longer have to eliminate out-of-pocket costs for COVID tests and treatments.

The firm’s horizontal expansion work “involves meeting advisors and enterprises where they are in the evolution of the business by creating flexibility in our affiliation model, so they can design the perfect practice for themselves and for the client,” he said. During Q2, LPL “saw strong recruiting in our traditional independent market, reaching a new quarterly high of approximately $14 billion in assets,” he pointed out. “At the same time, due to the appeal of our model and the efficacy of our business development team, we maintained our industry-leading win rates while also expanding the breadth and depth of our pipeline.” When it comes to LPL’s new affiliation models and its enhanced RIA offering, the company “delivered our strongest quarter to date, recruiting roughly $4 billion in assets in Q2,” he noted. “In each of these models, we continue to experience growing demand and expanding pipeline which position them for increased contribution for our organic growth.” Shifting to LPL’s vertical integration efforts, he explained: “We are focused on delivering value-added capabilities, services and technology that extend across an advisor’s end-to-end business, all for the purpose of helping them differentiate and win in the marketplace and run thriving business. “In that...

Economist and investment advisor A. Gary Shilling reiterated his “risk off” strategy on Friday, calling current market exuberance irrational. Shilling, anticipating credit tightening and a recession, recommended a risk-off strategy in January 2022, and in May last year expanded its recommendations to a nine-strategy list, given his belief that U.S. stocks had entered a bear market. That list remains in place, he noted in his August Insight newsletter, released Friday. “This strategy still seems appropriate to us. Persistent gains in employment and high inflation only imply further credit tightening by the Fed, which will break the economy if a recession is not already underway,” he said. “Nevertheless, security markets recently have been in a ‘risk on’ state, led by the 19% rise in the S&P 500 index so far this year and investor conviction that a ‘soft landing’ with no recession is likely.