{"id":19072,"date":"2020-07-23T13:48:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T17:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insurancenewsnet.com\/?post_type=innarticle&p=5673032"},"modified":"2020-07-23T13:48:08","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T17:48:08","slug":"insurers-back-off-age-restrictions-make-pricing-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/07\/23\/insurers-back-off-age-restrictions-make-pricing-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurers Back Off Age Restrictions, Make Pricing Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Several life insurers are reversing COVID-19 restrictions on underwriting, even as the pandemic continues to infect record numbers of Americans.<\/p>\n

On June 25, John Hancock resumed issuing policies up to and including age 90. The insurer paused issuance of policies for anyone between ages 80 and 90 for three months, a spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Pacific Life reinstated underwriting for applicants (in a standard or better risk class) up to age 81. A spokesman declined comment on the decision.<\/p>\n

On April 7, Pacific Life temporarily limited underwriting to age 75 and below. The insurer was among many who restricted underwriting as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the United States.<\/p>\n

Those decisions were very difficult for insurers because the age 60+ group is a big potential customer pool for life insurance. And the tightened underwriting hurt overall policy counts.<\/p>\n

\n
Advertisement<\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

According to MIB Group data, 60+ policy application activity was down 2.3% year over year at the conclusion of June. However, 60+ applications were up 3.4% in January and February saw a whopping 6.4% increase.<\/p>\n

Prudential is the only insurer known to have completely pulled a product, suspending all sales of its 30-year term offerings in mid-April. Those products returned to the market Monday, along with some rate significant changes.<\/p>\n

‘An Outlier’<\/h2>\n

According to two sources, Prudential relaunched Term Essential 30 and Term Elite 30 with across-the-board rate increases in New York, as high as 20% on the 30-year term, and a mix of rate increases and decreases across the shorter-term products.<\/p>\n

Prudential is the nation’s largest insurer by assets.<\/p>\n

“Prudential\u2019s repricing was something of an outlier relative to term competitors,” said Andrew Berman, chief intelligence officer for Wink Inc.<\/p>\n

Protective Life reduced premiums slightly on Classic Choice on Monday, John Hancock did increase rates on their term products, but not as sharply as Term Essential 30, Berman said.<\/p>\n

Banner\/Legal and General America\u2019s OPTerm repricing in June was “a mixture of increases and decreases that vary all over the place with no distinct pattern,” he added, while AIG\u2019s Select-A-Term repricing back in May was “primarily a price decrease.”<\/p>\n

Insurers have said rate increases are enabling them to survive financially in an extreme low-interest-rate environment. The 10-year Treasury rate continues to set new record lows, settling in at 0.58% this week.<\/p>\n

There is reason to believe insurers could sell plenty of life insurance absent the age restrictions. MIB data shows application activity up 3.4% for ages 44 and younger, and up 0.5% for ages 45-59.<\/p>\n

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at [email protected]<\/span><\/a>. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Entire contents copyright 2020 by InsuranceNewsNet.com Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted without the expressed written consent from InsuranceNewsNet.com.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the original article at insurancenewsnet.com <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several life insurers are reversing COVID-19 restrictions on underwriting, even as the pandemic continues to infect record numbers of Americans. On June 25, John Hancock resumed issuing policies up to and including age 90....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}