4 Key Indicators To Monitor For Signs Of A Looming Recession

Application Programing Interfaces can help benefits brokers manage their employer-clients’ data. But brokers must be sure the API technology they select will meet their clients’ needs.

Data breaches make a serious dent in the credibility and trustworthiness of businesses and firms, even large ones like Capital One. So, what can firms in the financial services world do better to protect their businesses and their clients’ personal information? It starts with understanding what’s at stake.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is asking Congress to tackle the growing budget deficit. Powell’s remarks before the House Budget Committee Thursday came a day after he told Congress’ Joint Economic Committee that the Fed was likely to keep rates unchanged in the coming months, unless there was a “material” shift in the economy’s outlook.

With a patchwork of policies to navigate, brokers have to provide guidance on the right mix of benefits while staying compliant with current laws. Although most employers offer a baseline of traditional paid leave benefits, such as paid time off and short-term disability, additional benefits can give employers the leg up they need to attract and retain top talent.

Working efficiently has become more important. To work efficiently, advisors must set priorities and delegate responsibilities that take away from their core activities.

Changes are to the Social Security Administration pension program are an annual event and 2020 is no different. Some changes are due to formulas, while others are part of the legislative framework underpinning Social Security. Here are six changes on the books for 2020.

Learn about your client’s personality quickly and adapt to the way they want to have information presented to them. Client personalities typically fall into four distinct categories: the driver, the intellect, the feeler and the amiable.

While strong majorities of consumers support proposals to lower the cost of prescription drugs, Americans are sharply split on “Medicare for All” proposals and on whether such proposals might ever become reality. Fewer than one third (31%) think it likely that such a program would be implemented; 48% consider it unlikely.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is due to testify Wednesday in Congress about the outlook for the U.S. economy, giving his perspective two weeks after the Fed cut interest rates for a third time this year. The three cuts, which lowered the interest rate the Fed controls to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%, were intended to offset drags from slower global growth.

The Protected Lifetime Income Index study, a recent survey of 3,119 adults by the Alliance for Lifetime Income, shows that a mere 28% of non-retired Americans have made an effort to determine their likely monthly income needs in retirement —perhaps the single most important thing people should be planning for.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban became the latest tycoon to criticize Sen. Warren. In a series of tweets criticizing Warren’s socialized-medicine plan and accusing her of Trumpesque snake-oil peddling, Cuban noted that Warren is “filthy rich” and thus a hypocrite in her constant rhetorical bashing of the wealthy.

Part of the difficulty with selling insurance to millennials has to do with this generation’s very real feelings of financial insecurity.

We are in an age when we can get dinner delivered by drone with a click of the thumb, so why is the life insurance and annuity industry’s tech seemingly stuck?

Despite the demand for socially responsible investing, many firms and advisors have yet to adopt the approach, dismissing it as a “fad.”

The health of millennials is deteriorating more rapidly than older generations’ did, and that could have a devastating effect on the economy, according to a new report by Moody’s Analytics and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

Every few years, tech investors and startups will label a new industry “hot,” and insurtech is steaming.

Beijing and Washington have agreed to reduce some punitive tariffs on each other’s goods as talks on ending their trade war progress, a Chinese spokesman said Thursday, removing a possible stumbling block to a settlement.

Consumers still want to have the option to explore coverage online, but they also want to be able to talk to a professional, the survey revealed. More than two-thirds of those surveyed (68%) said they would buy life insurance through an agent, while 38% said they would likely buy coverage online.

Right now, the national economy is poised to grow about 2% in 2020 — a number one economist characterized as “OK.” Last year, economic forecasters had concerns about international trade friction and a slowing global economy. Now, it’s clear those concerns were warranted.

An NAIC working group tentatively approved a new annuity sales model Tuesday. But the rule remains a long ways from the finish line. Next, the parent Life Insurance and Annuities (A) Committee will take up the rule during the fall meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

A Massachusetts bill would expand an existing state program that makes retirement plans available to nonprofit workers and create a new “Massachusetts Secure Choice Retirement Program.” Most businesses would then be required to enroll workers in their own sponsored retirement plan, the new Secure Choice program or an expanded existing program or face a fine.

Industry executives are stepping up lobbying efforts to persuade Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to take action on the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act.

Divorce is emotionally draining, and on top of that, the challenges divorce brings to estate planning can be an added stress. In many cases, one often overlooked tactic can provide tangible solutions for divorcees and blended families: life insurance.

Insurance commissioners tabled a proposal today to create a Life Insurance and Annuity Illustration Working Group to complete a comprehensive and coordinated review of annuity and life insurance illustrations. The proposed working group would coordinate illustration issues, particularly with indexed products, across annuity and life insurance.

The “death tax” (aka estate tax) is the main levy America imposes on accumulated wealth. A new study focuses on the most aromatic of the rich — Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 wealthiest Americans — and finds that state-level estate taxes pay off rather richly for the minority of states that levy them.

State insurance regulators are trying to rein in indexed universal life insurance illustrations via an amendment to Actuarial Guideline 49. The tentative change — which still needs final approval — would bar IUL illustrations with bonuses and/or multipliers from illustrating higher than IUL products without these features.

Who will pay for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s plan to provide “Medicare for All”?

Healthcare costs leave young adults unable to take care of themselves today AND prepare for health and financial needs tomorrow. Lively finds the majority of Gen Zers and Millennials have cut back spending on wellness activities due to healthcare costs, including decreased spending on hobbies and putting off or canceling vacation plans.

The stock market is more concerned with the U.S.- China trade war, the strength of the global and U.S. economy, interest rates and corporate profits than the impeachment inquiry. For instance, on Thursday, analysts pinned the market’s drop largely on a weak report on business activity in the Midwest and worries about the trade war with China.

H.H. Holmes was an American serial killer known for a slew of murders committed during the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. But it was Holmes’ later attempt to defraud Fidelity Mutual Insurance Company that doomed him to a trip to the gallows.

The Annuity Suitability Working Group will hold a two-hour conference call Tuesday that could run longer if that’s what it takes to finish, the group said. According to a call invite, the working group “wants to finish its work and forward the draft to the Life Insurance Committee for its consideration at the end of this call,” which would require a vote.

The Federal Reserve cut short-term interest rates Wednesday for a third time this year to try to support the economy. But it signaled that it plans no further cuts unless it sees clear evidence that the economic outlook has worsened. For now, Chairman Jerome Powell sounded a bullish note about the economy in a news conference afterwards.

The U.S. economy grew by nearly 2 percent between July and October– slower than the first two quarters of 2019, but better than expected, the Commerce Department said in its quarterly report Wednesday. It projects U.S. growth of 3 percent for the rest of the year. Wednesday’s report was released hours ahead of an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

Federal Reserve cuts rates for 3rd time this year but signals it will pause its rate reductions.The Federal Open Market Committee lowered its benchmark funds rate by 25 basis points to a range of 1.5% to 1.75% as expected.

Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen conceded “there is a lot of concern among some regulators that the data that is finding its way” into the wrong hands.

The phrase seems innocuous enough. The Fed’s policymakers, it states, “will act as appropriate to sustain the expansion.”

An appeals court ruling in a major, Texas-led legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act is expected any day, meaning it could come on the eve of open enrollment that runs through Dec. 15, or during the middle of it.

Federal rule changes that take effect in January have the potential to alter traditional employer-provided health care coverage, doing for medical insurance what the 401(k) did for worker pensions four decades ago.

The gap is widely expected to top $1 trillion in the current budget year and likely remain there for the next decade. Forecasts by the Trump administration and the Congressional Budget Office project that the deficit will top $1 trillion in the 2020 budget year, which began Oct. 1.

Three consumers filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that Security Benefit Life Insurance Co. defrauded consumers by implementing a “fraudulent scheme” involving a proprietary index used in two fixed indexed annuities.

Americans have been riding a wave of record high levels of personal financial satisfaction for the last two and a half years. However, decreases in job openings against the backdrop of a recent decline in corporate optimism in the U.S. economy have pushed the AICPA’ s Q3 2019 Personal Financial Satisfaction Index down slightly.

The Federal Reserve finds itself in an unusually delicate spot as it considers how much more to try to stimulate an economy that’s still growing and adding jobs but also appears vulnerable. Will a U.S. manufacturing sector that is essentially in recession weaken the rest of the economy? Will a shaky truce in the U.S.- China trade war hold?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 36% of 65- to 69-year-olds will be in the workforce by 2024. In addition, a 2014 AARP study tells us that 70% of experienced workers plan to work full time or part time in retirement. This whole paradigm shift affects not only seniors, but also those who work closely with this population.

While more than three quarters of Medicare beneficiaries are happy with their current Medicare plan, 79% also intend to review their coverage options during open enrollment season. One-third of respondents say that prescription drug costs are the number one factor they rely upon when choosing a new Medicare plan.

Employer wellness programs are mainstream components of benefit packages for most major companies. However, today’s programs have come a long way from their beginnings nearly 40 years ago.

House conservatives on Tuesday announced a plan that they said is an alternative to “Medicare for All” and other single-payer proposals being debated by Democratic presidential candidates.

But plans remain unaffordable for those who do not qualify for subsidies, a government report announced.

A Wisconsin- based company has been fined $100,000 and barred from selling insurance policies in Washington after it sold policies to gun owners promising to pay legal costs if they were involved in a shooting, according to the Washington state insurance commissioner. The problem: It is illegal in Washington state to insure criminal activity.

A new study from BNY Mellon Investment Management revealed the majority of Americans surveyed have limited understanding about fixed income investing regardless of age, income or education level. For example, only 8% of those surveyed were able to identify the definition of fixed income investments.

Since last year’s Global Factor Study, there has been a notable increase in the proportion of North American respondents who believe factor investing can be extended to fixed income. Invesco found that 61% of institutional investors and 76% of wealth managers now view the approach as being applicable.

For those of us that try to keep up with current economic activity, it seems like it is getting more difficult trying to figure out where this economy is going. There are both positive and negative factors as we get current readings on the overall health of the economy.

In a letter this week to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kent., Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., lobbied for immediate Senate consideration of the bipartisan Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (Secure) Act. The bill passed the House by a 417-3 vote on May 23.

A new Eaton Partners’ survey finds that an overwhelming majority of investors (69%) say they are concerned about the anti-private equity rhetoric by some U.S. presidential candidates, even though most respondents admit any potential action remains unclear. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have railed against Wall Street.

The Annuity Suitability Working Group is making a furious bid to nail down language of an annuity sales model law by the NAIC fall meeting the first week of December. The group took on the heart of the model this week: “The Duties of Insurers and Producers,” starting with “Best Interest Obligations.”

The economists hold out the possibility that world growth will improve if the most important countries, including China and the United States, adopt sensible policies and cooperate with one another. Here’s how IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath summed up the present situation:. Inevitably perhaps, the IMF predicts that global growth will rebound next year.

Retail sales fell 0.3% last month following a 0.6% gain in August, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Consumer spending was strong in the spring and economists had been counting on continued strength to protect the U.S. economy as it is buffeted by the fallout from President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.

The open enrollment period for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, begin on Nov. 1 and last until Dec. 15, a period that has been shortened from 92 days to 45 days under President Donald Trump’s administration. Meanwhile, two Democratic presidential candidates support backing out of private insurance in order to implement a universal plan.

A judge recently ordered the Zurich American Life Insurance Company to place Sandra Kalosky’ s insurance benefit into an escrow account rather than pay it to her husband Robert Kalosky. Judge Victor Bolden said since the March 2018 homicide is unsolved the insurance company is in an untenable position.