The total number of individual life insurance policies sold in the first quarter 2019 decreased 3%, compared with the same quarter of the prior year. New annualized premium increased just 1% in first quarter. The data comes from LIMRA’s U.S. Individual Life Insurance Sales Survey.

Pacific Life is partnering with Salesforce on a new initiative it calls the NextGen CRM Program, designed to bridge the gap between Pacific Life’s sales, service and marketing teams and reimagine how they engage with financial professionals, Pacific Life said in a news release.

Health benefits brokers would be subject to disclosure requirements as part of a sweeping health care bill introduced in the U.S. Senate.

A National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ subgroup held an at-times contentious conference call Tuesday to discuss AG 49. Regulators and industry representatives sparred over whether insurers are trying to ‘game the system’ with IUL illustrations, or just being ‘innovative.’

Non-variable universal life sales for the first quarter were over $768.2 million, down 20.4% compared to the previous quarter and down nearly 13% from the first quarter 2018, according to Wink’s Sales & Market Report. New CSO requirements and less time devoted to sales are likely causes of the poor numbers, said Sheryl Moore of Wink.

After a contentious comment period and a listening tour, the commissioners have set June 5 to vote on its Regulation Best Interest rule.

Under a unanimous consent maneuver, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (SECURE) Act could be voted on quickly. That means that the Senate could pass the bill Friday, as long as no senator objects The bill would expand access for annuities inside plans, and allow small employers to band together to offer plans.

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (SECURE) Act is designed to expand access to workplace retirement plans, particularly for small businesses, and will improve the ability for employers to extend greater access to lifetime income options in those plans.

Although the government shutdown is a well-known example of a disruption in income, it’s more likely that Americans will see their income grind to a halt as a result of an illness or disability. So why aren’t they lining up to buy disability insurance?

A group annuity risk transfer product, such as a pension buy-out product, allows an employer to transfer all or a portion of its pension liability to an insurer. These product sales surpassed $4.7 billion in the first quarter 2019, an increase of 240% year-over-year.

Workers who are sidelined by illness or injury are often more worried about their financial health than they are about their physical health, a Cigna survey revealed. More than half (52%) of survey respondents who did not have DI said it took them more than two years to recover financially.

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta testified recently before the House Education and Labor Committee and discussed the late fiduciary rule, which was thrown out by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Acosta was not very clear, one industry expert said, but is likely overseeing efforts to replace the fiduciary rule with a fairer rule.

Overall, U.S. annuity sales were $60.8 billion; an increase of 17% from the first quarter 2018 results. It is the highest first quarter for total annuity sales going back a decade.

Employees are opening their wallets for voluntary benefits, with those sales increasing to $7.2 billion in 2018. According to LIMRA research, since 2010 the percent of employers offering voluntary benefits as part of their overall employee benefits package has increased 11 percent.

At the Insured Retirement Institute’s Action19 conference, a panel of experts shared how new technology solutions and best interest duties are expanding and changing the fee-based space.