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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., helped finalize pandemic relief talks.

The legislation will protect patients from being billed in situations such as going to the emergency room and getting care from a physician who is out of network or not covered by the patient’s insurance plan. Consumers have received bills for thousands of dollars when they receive emergency care in an out-of-network facility.
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Bitcoin broke price records a couple of times last week. So, is it time for advisors to add cryptocurrency to the investing toolbox? Although clients might be asking about bitcoin and its cousins, advisors are just peeking over the fence at this point.

Registered index-linked annuities (RILAs) are poised to exhibit robust growth as additional large, reputable insurers enter the space with innovative concepts, the research firm Cerulli Associates found. RILAs are one of the few annuity products showing steady growth in sales.

Transamerica announced this week that it will no longer sell variable annuities with benefit riders or fixed index annuities. The company is also exiting the standalone long-term care market, Aegon executives said in a planning session Thursday.

The Trump administration replacement rule has two main parts: a new prohibited transaction exemption allowing advisors to provide conflicted advice for commissions; and a reinstatement of the “five-part test” from 1975 to determine what constitutes investment advice.

No details are available on any changes to the Department of Labor investment advice rule. The next step is for the DOL to publish the rule. However, any rules published in the final 60 days of an administration, known as “midnight regulations,” can be rescinded by the incoming administration.

The 2021 outlook for the U.S. health insurance industry is stable because the challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated to remain manageable, Moody’s Investors Service said in its annual outlook.

MetLife announced that it will sell Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Co. and certain wholly owned subsidiaries to Farmers Group, a subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group, for $3.94 billion in cash

Not all business is good business. Many advisors take whichever clients come their way at the start of their careers, only to find themselves saddled with exhausting clients and juggling infeasible requests a few years later. These situations threaten to demoralize advisors.

Society needs something different from the life insurance industry in the face of the large and growing gaps in protection and savings, an E&Y report said – life insurers must redefine their role if they want to help address these issues and opportunities.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Executive Committee and Plenary adopted a pair of resolutions Thursday to wrap up work on key issues for life insurers. An effective date was established for AG 49A, and the nonforfeiture rate was dropped from 1% to 0.15%. Conflicts arose with both changes.