Few midsize employers offer high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) although employees indicate a robust interest in such plans, a new survey has found. This disconnect provides an opportunity for insurance and benefits advisors.
A look back in history is a good place to start to understand how the Department of Labor came up with its fiduciary rule in the first place.
The American Council of Life Insurers is studying a legal challenge to the fiduciary rule that is likely to be filed in the coming weeks. Does it have a chance?
With new Department of Labor regulations tightening the noose around popular annuities, and insurance companies balking at accepting fiduciary liability, where does that leave independent agents?
MetLife executives say they may wait until the fall to decide on an annuity strategy under the new fiduciary rule landscape. Options are influenced by liability concerns, analysts say.
The question remains whether the manufacturer or distributor is the signer of the fiduciary rule’s Best Interest Contract (BIC) exemption. Executives debated the question over first-quarter earnings’ calls.
Retirement could last as long as three decades for many people. And no money means you can’t get no satisfaction from your golden years.
Lincoln Financial: FIA World Now A ‘Long Bore Through A Hard Board’
Lincoln Financial’s CEO says the variable annuity distribution structure is easier to pivot to meet the Labor Department’s Best Interest Contract standard than the fixed indexed annuities’ system is.
Independent insurance agents and advisors not affiliated with a financial institution can expect to be “disenfranchised,” by the Department of Labor’s new fiduciary rule, a top executive with Voya Financial said.
A recent discussion underscores the uncertainty among some insurance executives about their respective insurance companies’ duties and responsibilities with regard to supervising the sale of annuities and other financial products by independent agents.
Independent agents selling Principal Financial products will be seeing changes to their compensation structure, President and CEO Daniel J. Houston said during a first-quarter earnings call.
About those “concessions” the Department of Labor supposedly made in its fiduciary rule — were they really concessions, or just changes to reward special interests?
The tenuous DI market received a jolt when MetLife announced it will suspend coverage later this year. Agents are split on whether the DI market is stable enough to withstand the move. Some say the DI market is ripe for growth as millennials age.
Carriers might not be interested in assuming the fiduciary rule liability associated with selling fixed indexed annuities through the independent agent channel, said American Equity CEO John Matovina.
Insurers are not as prepared as they should be to meet the April 2017 deadline to operate in a fiduciary world, says Fred Reish of Drinker, Biddle & Reath.
Carriers report first-quarter earnings, with one company citing the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule as a looming drag on future profits.
Some studies cast doubt on the wisdom of using the popular funds. … And some advisors tend to agree.
Will the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule drive up costs for life and annuity carriers? Or will the industry consolidate and adapt enough to have little impact on earnings? Analysts want to know.
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