RiverSource Life has introduced a universal life insurance policy with an accelerated benefit rider for long-term care to help pay for covered long-term care expenses, the company said in a government filing…
The closer the relationship between financial advisor and retirement plan participant, the higher the retirement plan balance and the greater the chances of better investment outcomes for the participant years down the road…
Benefits advisors and consultants that play a critical role in helping companies navigate the private health and benefits exchanges appear to be early winners in the rapidly changing landscape of health care reform…
The number of mergers and acquisitions in the life and health insurance sector dropped nearly 40 percent 2013, according to Deloitte LLP…
A small pharmaceutical company in Connecticut cuts its health care costs by $400,000 in four years. A labeling company in Ohio slashes its benefits costs by 29 percent over the same period…
Financial advisors prospecting for new clients might want to check with their doctor. Even physicians, some of the highest paid salaried professionals in the U.S., could use help when it comes to retirement savings projections, a new Fidelity Investments study finds…
On one side, the Obama administration and proponents of regulation are calling for stricter rules governing stop-loss insurance, coverage purchased by self-insured employers who prefer setting aside their own funds to pay for catastrophic medical claims…
Employees trust their employers by overwhelming margins when it comes to financial advice, according to a survey released by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF)…
For advisors, helping clients move money into individual retirement accounts (IRAs) from a defined contribution plan is fraught with important tax decisions, potential conflicts of interest and suitability considerations…
The use of advisors to dispense retirement-related advice dipped slightly in 2013 for the first time since 2007 as the stock market performed well and volatility eased, according to the Mercer Workplace Survey…
Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co. (VALIC) announced it has launched a deferred income fixed annuity for 401(k), 403(b) and 457(b) deferred compensation plans…
All of a sudden, the benefits world is changing at breakneck speed…
Life insurance companies didn’t exactly find themselves straining to keep up with a huge influx of applications for individual coverage in 2013…
Five months after The American College of Financial Services said it would drop the Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow (LUTCF) designation, the College for Financial Planning (CFFP) announced it would teach the courses…
Moody’s Investors Services said net income at 19 of the life insurers tracked by the ratings service hit $5.6 billion in the fourth quarter, an increase of 56 percent compared with the year-ago period…
Let it not be said that a relatively unknown annuity product cannot make major headway in sales. The object of the lesson here is the deferred income annuity (DIA). In terms of year-over-year sales growth, this product line jumped 113 percent in 2013…
The size of fines for suitability violations levied in 2013 by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) decreased substantially over the previous year, according to a major Washington law firm. So did the number of suitability cases…
Aflac announced it has raised face amounts for its whole and term life policies, and has included a guaranteed-issue option for term life with a face amount of up to $25,000…
A new survey by Aon Hewitt finds that demand for private benefits exchanges will soar in the next three to five years as employees use the exchanges, or benefits stores, to buy everything from health care to life and disability coverage to supplemental insurance…
