U.S. single-premium pension buy-out product sales surpassed $4.7 billion in the second quarter 2019, which is the 18th consecutive quarter of $1 billion+ sales. This also represents the second consecutive quarter of sales over $4.7 billion, according to the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute.

The Life Insurance and Annuities Committee established the Retirement Security Working Group during the NAIC Summer Meeting in New York City earlier this month. The group’s efforts could include working with the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation commissioner to develop new lifetime income products.

Motivation is high to craft advice standards that harmonize as much as possible across the financial services’ landscape, a legal expert told a LIMRA audience during a Thursday webinar. In particular, to harmonize Department of Labor rules with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation Best Interest.

A higher percentage of Gen Xers are looking more like millennials than baby boomers as far as their retirement confidence is concerned, according to a study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. This is troublesome as the oldest members of Gen X are getting very close to retirement age.

Second-quarter annuity sales were up sharply again across the board, continuing a sales rebound that began with the defeat of the Department of Labor fiduciary rule early in 2018. Sales were led by fixed indexed annuities. In the first six months of 2019, FIA sales were $38 billion, an increase of 18%, compared with the first six months of 2018, LIMRA reported.

Only 27% of affluent small-business owners have a formal business succession plan, LIMRA reports. And 70% of family-owned businesses fail to transition to the second generation, the American Bar Association says. As a trusted advisor, you can help clients prepare a plan of succession.

More and more financial advisors are considering a breakaway to start their own firms. However, transitioning to independence can bring about uncertainties regarding administrative tasks and costs that were previously handled by their brokerage or wirehouse.

Some fear that as technology becomes more advanced, the need for benefits brokers will shrink, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, these technological advancements enable professionals to work more efficiently.

Is this it? Is this the last step to recession? It seems we have been asking this question for a few years now. But there might be reasons to think that this time is the real one. The question now might be will it be a blip or something far bigger?

New research finds pre-retirees and retirees are almost evenly aligned on how they anticipate entering into retirement: 56% said they plan to stop working entirely, 17% plan to gradually reduce their hours before stopping and 27% plan to work part-time with no plan to stop working, the LIMRA study finds.

Life insurance or annuity policies sold with a long-term care rider jumped from 228,000 in 2015 to 461,000 in 2018, LIMRA has found. Today, more than 40 carriers are selling these products with a long-term care element. State insurance regulators are hoping the hybrid products stabilize the LTC market while providing consumers with protection.

State insurance regulators moved briskly through four topics as they try to thread the needle between suitability and fiduciary in crafting an annuity sales model law.

Acting Albany County Supreme Court Justice Henry Zwack ruled that the New York State Department of Financial Services was within its authority when it issued Regulation 187. The regulation took effect Thursday for annuity sales in New York, and will extend to life insurance sales in six months.

A National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ working group has accelerated efforts to complete its long-delayed “policy overview” summary to accompany life insurance sales. The policy overview will accompany the Life Insurance Buyer’s Guide and regulators are considering moving up delivery of both.