Thursday, The Mass Mutual Mutual Life Insurance Company agreed to settle the SEC charges that they violated securities rules by failing to sufficiently disclose the potential negative impact of a “cap” it placed on complex variable annuity products.   The SEC investigation found that MassMutual included the “cap” feature in optional riders offered to investors.  [...]

When boomers find out how much they’re likely to need to cover those medical costs—typically, about a quarter of a million dollars, the experts say—they might wish they hadn’t asked. “All those plans for cruises go out the window if you don’t have adequate coverage,” said Alexis Abramson, a New York based gerontology expert. But [...]

Every state requires some sort of Continuing Education (CE) credits that each producer has to complete to keep his/her life insurance license in good standing. See below for what the Kansas Insurance Department requires.   12 CE hours, including 1 hour of ethics, are required every 2 year license term (see license term below).   Producers planning [...]

Every state requires some sort of Continuing Education (CE) credits that each producer has to complete to keep his/her life insurance license in good standing. See below for what the Oklahoma Insurance Department requires.   24 CE hours, including 3 hours in ethics and 2 hours in legislative updates, are required every 2-year license term (see license term below).   Producers planning to [...]

Sales of annuities tumbled in the third quarter compared to a year ago, reports LIMRA. Nearly all product types saw declining sales, except for indexed annuities, which LIMRA predicts will have a record-setting year in 2012.   Overall, annuity sales fell 10 percent from the third quarter of 2011, dropping from $60.1 billion in Q3 2011 to [...]

As Thanksgiving approaches, one thing that most families dread more than cleaning up the mess, is talking about finances.  Fidelity Investments did a recent survey that highlighted the discrepancies and conflicting expectations families have when discussing elder care, estate planning, retirement and inheritance. Adult children typically underestimate their parent’s estate by more 100,000, on average. [...]

There is a very real possibility that the “fiscal cliff” is just the first of many issues Washington is going to confront in the next few weeks. All three major rating agencies say that cutting the U.S. debt rating is highly likely if Washington doesn’t come up with a budget or if cutting deficits doesn’t [...]

United Kingdom based Aviva confirmed that is planning on selling its U.S. business, Aviva USA, which operates out of DesMoines, IA.   In a letter to produces, Mike Miller, executive vice president of sales and distribution at Aviva USA, stated that Aviva has not disclosed details about the transaction or a timeframe on which a [...]

The past two years have seemed like musical chairs in regards to new names entering the annuity business.  Long standing names such as PacLife, MetLife, and Hartford all became sellers of indexed annuities and/or longevity annuities for the first time.  But the biggest surprise to the annuity industry was all of the hedge funds and [...]

Every advisor and agent in the annuity and life insurance industry will say that the best lead resource is referrals and many have a made a living by continually generating referrals, but how are they doing so? What is the magic bullet? One successful tactic that Marvin Feldman who is president and CEO of the [...]