InsuranceNewsNet Magazine | September 2025 by InsuranceNewsNet

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IN THIS ISSUE

INTERVIEW

8 The best of both worlds Paul LaPiana, head of brand, product and affiliated distribution with MassMutual, understands both the career agency system and the independent distribution channel. He tells InsuranceNewsNet how both systems can coexist to bring protection and planning to more consumers.

FEATURE My best day in life insurance

By John Hilton

Agents reflect on the moments when life insurance mattered most for their clients and reinforced why they persist in the profession.

IN THE FIELD

26 Fiscal fitness

By Susan Rupe

Jeff Smith is an insurance and retirement advisor. Jennifer Scherer is a fitness coach. Together, they help clients obtain both physical wellness and financial security.

32 How life insurance funds executive benefit plans

By Milo Markovic

The executive benefits marketplace is a $42 billion market and one of the fastestgrowing segments in the industry.

ANNUITY

36 From ‘live on’ to ‘leave on’ By Paul Garfoli

How an annuity death benefit rider can strengthen legacy planning.

HEALTH/BENEFITS

40 The silent threat of disability to ultrasuccessful clients

By Sean McNiff

Protecting clients from the risk of a disability event can save their organizations.

ADVISORNEWS

44 Why financial professionals should enter the 403(b) K-12 educator market

By Jim Kais

Some advisors avoid this space due to misconceptions and criticisms.

BUSINESS

46 The Pied Piper Principle: Why the best leaders attract the best talent By Casey Cunningham

High standards and magnetic energy make you the kind of leader everyone wants to follow.

THE KNOW

What’s next for the Federal Insurance Office?

By Doug Bailey

The FIO’s critics see it as redundant, bureaucratic and an unwelcome intrusion into a state-dominated and decades-old regulatory framework.

Life insurance awareness gets an innovative makeover in 2025

There are a couple of givens when it comes to life insurance: nearly everybody needs it, and not nearly enough people have it.

Every year, insurers confront this problem with strategies and approaches to increase awareness of life insurance. This need is especially highlighted during Life Insurance Awareness Month in September. As consumer expectations evolve and digital transformation accelerates, the life insurance industry is responding with some creative strategies in 2025. From gamification to artificial intelligence, insurers are finding new ways to educate, engage and enroll people in coverage. Here are some of the most notable innovations reshaping life insurance awareness today.

1. AI-driven personalization and smart outreach

Artificial intelligence is transforming how insurers connect with potential policyholders. AI-driven platforms analyze consumer behavior, demographics, health data and even social media activity to deliver highly targeted messages about life insurance.

For example, instead of relying on generic email campaigns or ads, insurers are using AI to predict when someone might be most open to buying life insurance — such as after major life events like marriage or a home purchase. These tools can also recommend policy types tailored to a person’s risk profile and financial goals.

2. Digital-first and flexible policy options

Digital convenience is no longer optional — it’s expected. Modern consumers want to research, buy and manage life insurance online without ever talking to an agent if they prefer. To meet this demand, insurers are creating flexible, digital-first policies that can be easily adjusted as life circumstances change.

For example, consumers can increase coverage after having a child or reduce coverage as debts are paid off — all with a few clicks in a user-friendly dashboard. This self-service model appeals especially to millennials and Generation Z, who make up a growing share of the insurance market.

3. Gamification and financial literacy engagement

To make insurance education more appealing, companies are introducing gamified tools and mobile apps that teach users about life insurance through interactive challenges. John Hancock’s Vitality program, for example, which is available with its life insurance offerings, uses wearable integration and app-based gamification to incentivize healthy behaviors (e.g., steps walked, gym visits, nutrition tracking). Customers earn points and rewards — including premium discounts and gift cards — for meeting daily health goals.

4. Insurance embedded in everyday transactions

“Embedded insurance” refers to offering life insurance as an add-on within unrelated platforms, like mobile banking apps, payroll platforms or e-commerce sites. This approach reduces the need for a dedicated sales pitch and allows users to opt into affordable policies during transactions they’re already making — for example, someone booking a vacation and being offered travel life insurance within the app.

5. Wellness-linked insurance products

Today’s life insurance is often bundled with wellness features. These may include

mental health resources, wearable device integrations, gym discounts and access to holistic health coaching. The idea is to reframe life insurance not just as protection for when you die but also as a benefit that supports you while you live.

This trend appeals to new consumers who value self-care. This approach will help them see insurance as part of a broader lifestyle strategy — not just a grim necessity.

6. Bundled and cross-sold insurance solutions

Another growing strategy is bundling life insurance with other products — such as disability insurance or long-term care or critical illness coverage. These packages are positioned as full-circle protection, covering a person across their entire lifespan and health journey.

For agents and advisors, this bundling approach deepens client relationships and boosts retention while simplifying the conversation about comprehensive coverage needs.

7. Behavior-based discounts and dynamic pricing

Incentives tied to personal health behavior are becoming more common. Using data from fitness trackers, sleep monitors or nutrition apps, insurers are offering lower premiums or cash-back rewards to individuals who demonstrate healthy habits such as walking 10,000 steps a day or maintaining good sleep hygiene.

This model makes life insurance more interactive and gives consumers a sense of control over what they pay — increasing both awareness and appeal.

Only time will tell how successful these new strategies will be, but one thing is certain: The life insurance industry is working to become more agile, engaging and tech-forward than ever before.

John Forcucci Editor-in-chief

Discover why the best annuity rates aren’t always the most important thing, how AI won’t quickly replace humans, and why interest is rising for income for life in 401(k)s

Is the best rate always the best deal?

by Drew Gurley

When shopping for annuities, consumers often focus on one number: the rate. And it’s no wonder — interest rates are plastered across brochures and emphasized in ads promising growth and security.

But for agents working in the real world with real people, the truth is more nuanced. Although a higher rate will most certainly catch a prospect’s eye, it’s not always the best long-term solution when a product doesn’t match a customer’s true needs.

Annuities, like ducks, are simple on

the surface but complex underneath.

At their core, annuities are financial contracts issued by insurance companies and designed to provide guaranteed income. Annuities include a growth component, depending on the type of product. Depending on the type — fixed, indexed or variable — annuities can serve different goals:

» Guaranteed lifetime income

» Market-linked growth with downside protection

» Tax-deferred accumulation paired with guaranteed growth when an income rider is leveraged

On the surface, rates are an easy component to compare. Higher is better, right? And why not, since most clients have had an accumulation mindset their entire lives? Now we are talking about preservation. Fast-forward to a prospect’s golden years. We as agents should help direct the discussion to asset preservation. For some folks, that level of reframing doesn’t happen overnight.

One of the biggest concerns in retirement is living too long and running out of money. Clients want peace of mind. They want predictability, and annuities can be a great option.

But annuity rates aren’t always what they seem. Some are fixed and declared by the insurer. Others are tied to index performance with participation caps or spreads. Many come with bonuses, rollup rates or complex formulas that apply only to the income rider base, not the cash value.

The key for agents is to help clients understand what those rates actually do and whether they align with the client’s financial goals. What is your customer guaranteed to receive with any product they are considering?

Why AI still needs human advisors in insurance

by Rayne Morgan

Artificial intelligence, or ‘AI,’ has become a leading buzzword in the insurance industry, but not all insurance companies are feeling the pressure or buying into the hype.

According to Tanner Hackett, founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based MGU Counterpart, appetite for AI in insurance varies heavily, and actual adoption rates may lag behind reported interest.

“Appetite for AI tools within the industry varies. Forward-thinking brokers are seeking AI tools to differentiate themselves and deliver faster quotes and better risk assessments. That said, pressure to use AI is mounting. What started as a competitive advantage is quickly becoming a necessity,” Hackett said.

Many industry leaders would agree. Companies like Mylo and Embroker suggest AI is not just a trendy new fad but an innovative way to modernize and improve service.

But Michael Silverman, president and CEO of New York’s Silver Lining Insurance, holds a different view. He maintains that while AI has benefits, insurance is and always will be a people-centered industry first and foremost.

“Purchasing insurance is personal, whether it’s for your business or your family or anything else. It is personal, it is emotional, and I haven’t found an AI product or a robot or a system that really gets to that,” Silverman said.

A combination of competitive pressure, client expectation and operational necessity is increasing adoption of AI

among American insurers, Hackett suggests.

“SMBs expect the same digital experience they can get elsewhere. When we can deliver competitive pricing two to five times faster through agentic underwriting, it’s clear that AI is becoming essential to stay competitive,” he said.

He noted that while most insurers have incorporated some form of digital strategy, many still seem to be in an exploratory phase rather than embracing full implementation. In his view, this “lack of urgency and unwillingness to adapt” hurts both insurance businesses and the clients they protect. Read the

Rayne Morgan is a journalist, copywriter and editor with more than 10 years of combined experience in digital content and print media. Contact her at rayne.morgan@innfeedback.com.

Worker interest rises for employer lifetimeincome options in 401(k) plans

by Ayo Mseka

Almost all workers who are saving in 401(k) plans say it is important for their retirement plans to provide options for converting savings into guaranteed monthly retirement income that never runs out. And 87% think employers have a responsibility to help them achieve retirement income security.

This is according to a survey of over 2,000 401(k) participants by Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, and the TIAA Institute. These findings represent a dramatic increase in interest in guaranteed lifetime income, the survey said. When asked in 2021, fewer than six in 10 workers said that their employers had a responsibility to provide access to lifetime income in retirement.

In fact, the survey found that about 90% of 401(k) participants:

» Think it would be valuable for 401(k) plans to include a fixed annuity.

» Would be interested in saving with a fixed annuity if it were included in their plan.

» Would consider using a fixed annuity to provide steady monthly income throughout retirement.

» Agree it would be valuable for their target-date investments to include a fixed annuity component.

The survey added that today, the typical 401(k) plan does not offer a way to convert savings into a consistent monthly income that is guaranteed for a retiree’s lifetime, despite 401(k) plans being the dominant form of retirement savings in the private sector, with 79 million active participants and $6.8 trillion in assets.

In response, innovative 401(k) plan sponsors are exploring how to offer guaranteed retirement income by adding fixed annuities to a retirement plan, the survey said.

“Incorporating fixed annuities into 401(k) plans is a simple, effective and low-cost way to fill the retirement income design gap. With tools like target-date investments that include a fixed annuity component, sponsors can simplify savings and investing, as well as the ability to convert retirement savings into retirement income,” said Brendan McCarthy, head of Retirement Investing at Nuveen. “A well-designed decumulation strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have, it is essential to realizing the full value of a 401(k) plan — and workers agree.”

Read the full story online: https://bit.ly/401koptions25

Ayo Mseka has more than 30 years of experience reporting on the financial services industry. She formerly served as editor-in-chief of NAIFA’s Advisor Today magazine. Contact her at amseka@innfeedback.com.

Insurers want to know the cost of heat waves

When most people think about disasters, they think of fires or floods. But a more dangerous risk could be lurking in the form of heat waves, and insurers want to know how much damage a heat wave would unleash and at what cost.

As doctors and public officials tackle the rise in dangerous health effects, there are early efforts to assess heat’s financial toll. In California alone, the state found in a study published last year that seven extreme heat events over a 10-year period from 2013 to 2022 caused $7.7 billion in economic harm.

Climate risk models don’t typically make detailed projections for extreme heat. For one thing, heat is less of a threat to real estate than it is to health, energy infrastructure and the food supply. But cities, businesses and insurers need the financial risks to be outlined more clearly, and some believe a new market for heat insurance — driven in part by artificial intelligence and the need to cool data centers — is around the corner.

The property information firm Cotality, previously known as CoreLogic, recently started offering heat-hazard modeling on its widely used risk-analysis platform. And Mercer launched a climate health-cost forecaster tool evaluating how extreme heat and other risks could impact companies’ health insurance costs. It draws on historical incidence data, medical claim codes associated with climate events and published research.

WHEN 60 IS THE NEW 40

More Americans than ever are staying in the workforce longer, with more than half of retirement-age Americans saying they have no plans to leave. That’s the word from Asset Preservation Wealth & Tax, which showed a shift in how Americans view their later years.

Between 2015 and 2024, the number of Americans 65 and older still doing the 9-to-5 grew by more than 33%, CNBC reported. Meanwhile, the overall labor force grew by less than 9%. Nearly half of survey respondents (48%) admitted they’re working past the traditional retirement age out of financial necessity. Health care costs bear much of the blame.

Roughly two-thirds of older workers need the income to cover essential costs,

according to CNBC, but others pursue work for entirely different reasons, including mental stimulation, social connections or simply because they enjoy what they do.

FEW EXPECT TO RECEIVE AN INHERITANCE

When it comes to inheritance, a Northwestern Mutual study shows Americans have two opposing thoughts. More Americans say they plan to leave a legacy, while few expect to be on the receiving end of one.

The latest findings from Northwestern Mutual’s 2025 Planning & Progress Study reveal nearly one-third (31%) of U.S. adults anticipate leaving an inheritance or a financial gift or donation to a charitable organization — up from 26% in 2024. Meanwhile, only one-fifth

As we move into the year 2054, we’ll see a crucial demographic shift, as more people will be 100 and over than ever before.”

— Kristi Rodriguez, head of the Nationwide Retirement Institute

(20%) expect to receive an inheritance, a decrease from the 25% who said the same last year.

The study also finds that among those expecting to receive an inheritance, more than half (57%) say it is “critical” or “highly critical” to their long-term financial security. For Generation Z and millennials, it’s even higher — 63% and 69%, respectively.

Six in 10 (60%) Americans who expect to leave an inheritance say they have had a conversation with their family about their plans, according to the research. But 4 in 10 (39%) baby boomers and 6 in 10 (61%) of those in Generation X say they do not have a will.

MIDDLE CLASS CONTINUES TO SHOW FINANCIAL RESILIENCE

Middle-class households’ financial resilience is stabilizing at normal levels, according to the American Council of Life Insurers’ most recent Financial Resilience Index. But although the index showed stability, a few dark clouds are on the horizon.

More than half (55%) of middle-class households are at least somewhat concerned about the risk of a serious decline in their financial situation, and 1 in 5 (20%) are very concerned. These figures closely reflect sentiments captured in 2024.

Almost half (46%) of middle-class households also report they are not confident they will be able to build sufficient retirement savings. And 40% are not confident they will be financially protected in the event of a major medical expense, the need for long-term care or the unexpected death of an income earner.

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THE BEST WORLDS

BOTH

MassMutual’s Paul LaPiana on blending career and independent channels while staying true to core offerings.

An interview with Paul Feldman, publisher

In a world in which everyone is chasing the next shiny object, MassMutual continues to focus its efforts on whole life insurance, disability insurance and annuities while emphasizing holistic financial planning.

Paul LaPiana, head of brand, product and affiliated distribution with MassMutual, started in the industry by joining forces with his college roommate to cold-call on prospects. That was the beginning of a career that has spanned more than 30 years.

In this interview with publisher Paul Feldman, LaPiana describes how the career agency system and the independent channel can coexist and bring protection and planning to more consumers.

PAUL FELDMAN: How did you get into the industry?

PAUL LAPIANA: I was the first person in our family to graduate from college. I come from a blue-collar family — pipefitters and electricians. When I graduated from college in 1992, there wasn’t a robust job market. My college roommate’s father was a general agent or managing partner with Equitable, so my roommate Dave, who is still with Equitable 34 years later, was going to be a financial advisor.

I did not know anything about what being a financial advisor was, so I went in for an interview, and before I knew it, I was hired as a financial advisor with Equitable.

The reaction from my parents was very underwhelming. They were not excited about it. My dad’s first comment was “You’re not going to sell me anything.”

His second comment was “Anytime you want to get in the union, I can get you $6.95 an hour and full benefits.”

Dave and I ended up cold-calling our way into the business. At night, we coldcalled on people who had new babies, people who had just bought or refinanced homes. During the day, we knocked on doors of small to medium-sized businesses for any kind of 401(k), SEP plan or health insurance that owners tried to put into their companies, because all the top advisors at Equitable were focused on the corporate market.

I was an advisor for eight years before someone asked Dave and me to leave our practice and go to the corporate side, but that’s the journey.

FELDMAN: How long have you been with MassMutual?

LAPIANA: I’ve been with MassMutual for nine years. But if you looked at my years of service, it would actually be 23 — I was at Equitable as an advisor for eight years. Our mentor, who is our managing partner, tapped us to start third-party distribution for Equitable AXA in 1999, so we gave up our practice to do that.

I followed some of those folks a couple years later to start a third-party business at MetLife. I was at MetLife for 15 years, about 10 of that on wholesaling and distribution and third parties. Then I was asked to lead the career agency system at MetLife in 2012, and I did that for about 4-1/2 years.

as the solution, or they can go to one of our competitors, who also have great products on the shelf.

We did a brand relaunch in 2017. The foundation was mutuality, trust, protection, financial strength, premier products and solutions. But we’ve seen a transition since then, going down the funnel and talking more about protection, accumulation, retirement income solutions, and the need for advice and guidance. Clients can’t go it alone. They need an advisor or a team or advisors to help them navigate the complexity.

Now as we get into a new era of our brand, it’s still about protection, accumulation and retirement income. But the narrative around advice and guidance is shifting a little bit to more about holistic

Now as we get into a new era of our brand, it’s still about protection, accumulation and retirement income. But the narrative around advice and guidance is shifting a little bit to more about holistic financial planning and wealth management as part of the journey.

As you know, when MetLife made a decision to spin off the retail business, which is now Brighthouse, the first shoe that dropped was they sold the career agency system to MassMutual in 2016. I joined the company in 2016, so I carried my years of service, but I’ve actually been at MassMutual for nine years, and it has been great.

FELDMAN: One of MassMutual’s strengths is its brand. Tell me about the brand, what you are doing with it and how you make it better.

LAPIANA: There are two elements of our brand. One is consumer awareness and consideration for the actual company itself. The other is down the funnel a bit, which is advisor and distributor awareness and consideration, because they have choices. They can use our products

financial planning and wealth management as part of the journey. This is really to help our advisors because they are holistic in nature and it helps them tell their story.

A lot of people don’t know us for wealth management, so this helps us recruit new people to MassMutual’s career system. Finally, I would say this supports the journey for all of our independent advisors who also do holistic planning. It nests nicely into their value proposition that MassMutual is a manufacturer that helps them get there and helps get their clients to the finish line.

It is a complicated dance, though, because it’s not just about consumers, it’s also about the distributor. And guess what? We’re not only in career and third party. We’re multiple products in those channels, and then we also have worksite, and then we’re also institutional. So we’re

Paul

(pictured with his family) says he wants advisors to help families “get to the finish line” with their protection and investment goals.

speaking to different audiences, and that increases the complexity.

FELDMAN: Tell me a little bit about your perspective on career agents and independent agents.

LAPIANA: I spent a lot of time in both worlds. We have this philosophy that you can only get to so many consumers through your career agency system. If you have 6,000-ish advisors, you’re serving a lot of clients. But there are a lot more people in this country in need of protection, accumulation and retirement income. Third-party channels and the right third-party partners are a valuable way to reach those consumers who are doing business with those advisors.

I think both channels are needed. When I think about career advisors, ours are entrepreneurial, and we support their independence, but they represent the company’s brand. They are the individuals who drive the advance and guidance and then use the product to deliver solutions and recommendations.

What I love about career agents is there’s a loyalty; there’s an active feedback loop. They’re the ones who are delivering the advice — because it is about advice; it’s not about product.

The third-party side allows you to grow because you reach more people. The positives of that, if you work with the right

partners, is that there is a value on the relationship, the brand, the financials, the value proposition you bring with your wholesaling team, your product portfolio, your underwriting. It provides you with growth and allows you, again, to reach more consumers.

What I like about having both channels is that it provides not only growth and an additional feedback loop, but it also allows you to keep your ear to the ground. If you can provide growth and you can still manage profitability and risk, it makes everything better.

FELDMAN: How do we get more people into this industry?

LAPIANA: One thing I am concerned about is that right now, the industry’s trading on experienced advisors, because not a lot of career agencies exist, and that has been fuel for new recruits into the industry. The industry has not been as focused on inexperienced recruiting. It is a very expensive investment, but it is an investment.

When you couple that with the need for advice and guidance going up and the number of people retiring from this industry — you’ve seen some of the research that says about one-third of current active advisors will be out in 10 years — there’s a mismatch between demand and supply.

We are fortunate to still be in the affiliated distribution game. We appreciate our partners at Northwestern Mutual, New York Life, Equitable, Guardian, because we’re doing both — we’re recruiting new people to the industry and we’re also recruiting experienced advisors to the business.

One thing we’ve changed in our model over the last couple of years is that we are focusing on fully licensed advisors. What we found is when we bring fully licensed folks in, you have a more committed new advisor. When you provide them with the proper training, you see productivity rates go up, you see retention rates go up. Retention in this industry is around 9%

What I love about career agents is there’s a loyalty; there’s an active feedback loop. They’re the ones who are delivering the advice — because it is about advice; it’s not about product.

LaPiana

after four years. If they’re fully licensed, we see a retention rate of 30% to 35%. The benefit of that is they’re also able to serve clients in a more proper way as opposed to only selling insurance and annuity products. They’re thinking about things more holistically.

The other thing we’re doing with inexperienced hires is strategically hiring new advisors to existing teams. When you think about our aging advisor population, the need for succession planning and the need to expand the scale of their practices, bringing in junior advisors is important. But it also works well for the junior advisor because they get coaching, they get mentorship, they get immediate access to clients in the book of business. It also helps the senior partners deliver on all the promises they made to those families and individuals along the way.

Now they have people serving them and providing the right solutions. With teambased advisors, we’ve seen productivity up and retention up, which is awesome.

FELDMAN: Let’s talk about your distribution. You have the independent side, and you have the career channel. What’s the mix for your organization?

LAPIANA: Our career channel has roughly 6,000 advisors and 55 firms across the country. They are independent contractors. Our goal for that channel is to put the right national and localized resources around them so that they can do what’s the most important part of their profession — serve clients and acquire new clients to grow their business.

Looking at their product mix, we do about $650 million to $700 million of life insurance through the doors of our career agency. That’s about 90% of our life insur-

FELDMAN: I think disability insurance is the most undersold product. MassMutual sells individual DI. Why aren’t more companies selling it?

LAPIANA: The disability industry has been a very slow growth industry. It has been kind of the same for years — around a $500 million to $600 million business.

Many manufacturers aren’t comfortable in that market. A small subset of carriers have dominated the market for years and we’ve been a No. 3 or No. 4 player in disability with a 10% to 12% market share.

It’s not only about the product. It’s also about getting people to understand the reason why you must put this in as a foundational part of financial planning.

If you say you’re doing financial planning and you have credentials after your name, you must do disability planning for your clients

We’re also working on lead generation. The most difficult thing about this business is getting in front of people on a favorable basis. We have a lot of leads coming through from our branding and marketing efforts as well as our in-force books of business. We’re layering on some technology and data analytics and getting those people in the hands of the right advisors so they can serve them.

The last thing we are doing is looking at different models of how we compensate new people coming into the industry. The old-school way is full commission. When you have a career-changer with kids and a mortgage, that way doesn’t work. So how do we take that investment and provide more salary-based options to help people transition into a new career?

I don’t think we have all the answers, but we’re looking to bring between 1,200 and 1,500 new advisors into the industry every year.

ance, and it’s huge. That organization does roughly $12 million a year in annuities. But we as a manufacturer get only about 40% to 45% of that, depending on the year. That organization does about 95% of our fully underwritten disability insurance. Wealth management does about $40 billion in new sales a year, and we have around $300 billion under management.

When you move to the independent channel, it’s a bit of the reverse. Our MassMutual Strategic Distributors channel is doing about 10% of our life insurance business and 5% of DI, and we want that to grow. On the annuity side, they’ve got scale. They’re doing 80% to 85% of our annuities through specialty distributors, independent marketing organizations and broker/dealers, and then mostly through MassMutual Ascend.

We have individually underwritten disability; we also have a multilife. Think of guaranteed standard issue for the executive space. We also have things like business overhead expense as well as buy/sell — we have a full suite. What you’ve seen over the years is that DI has been concentrated in special distributors that have focused a lot of their time in the medical and dental areas. We haven’t seen a broader base of sellers, meaning financial advisors selling it beyond the medical and dental space to white collar and even gray collar and blue collar. One of the issues we face is there’s a fear factor for advisors in selling disability because it crosses the threshold into a lot of health issues. A lot of times advisors know it’s one of the most important things you can do in a holistic plan, but they don’t want to mess up if something goes wrong because the client has a back issue or a shoulder issue. Then there’s an exclusion and the client is disgruntled. The advisor doesn’t want to lose the assets under management and they don’t want to lose the life insurance, so they put off addressing disability. It’s not only about the product. It’s also about getting people to understand the reason why you must put this in as a foundational part of financial planning. If you say you’re doing financial planning and you have credentials after your

name, you must do disability planning for your clients. If you don’t like the conversation, have someone on your team who does or partner with someone who knows how to do it.

FELDMAN: What products are hot, and what products do you see as the future for MassMutual?

LAPIANA: Being a mutual company, we are committed to and we love the value proposition of whole life. We want to continue to make sure that our advisors in our career system, affiliate advisors and folks that sell us as a third-party appreciate and understand the value that product brings to the end consumer or the business owner or the trust for the next generation. That is a product we are always keeping competitive and investing in because we believe in it.

Our affiliated advisors sell a fair amount of variable universal life; they sell a fair amount of universal life. So we are looking in the life insurance sleeve — to continue to appropriately support and grow whole life but also to bring out some adjacent products to give us a shot to earn some more business with our affiliated channel.

FELDMAN: Where do you see the biggest growth?

LAPIANA: We think there is opportunity in both VAs and RILAs, and we think we’ll be able to get really good, comfortable run rates in VAs as well as RILAs.

I am a fan of the traditional VA with living benefits. Those products play a good role and provide a lot of value to consumers looking to provide guaranteed retirement income to themselves and their families.

FELDMAN: MassMutual started a digital life insurance subsidiary, Haven Life, which has since discontinued its direct-to-consumer operation. What

it’s a viable channel for carriers, now and in the future. And it is a very small piece of insurance in today’s market — somewhere between 3% and 5%. At this point, we’re looking at the worksite as the opportunity to get to more consumers who may not be served by advisors.

It’s still somewhat true that these products are sold, not bought, so you need someone to get the consumer to sort through the confusion and take action. Even though you see more people going online to look for life insurance, the bad news is they’re not transacting.

We need to get people to take action, and that’s the key. The landscape is confusing and there’s more activity to search and learn, but there’s not more activity to buy.

I am a fan of the traditional VA with living benefits. Those products play a good role and provide a lot of value to consumers looking to provide guaranteed retirement income to themselves and their families.

We’re bullish on the annuity market because we have an aging population and people undersaved for retirement. A lot of people will have to go it alone for retirement because of the shift from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans and questions about the future of government programs.

We’ve done things to enhance our fixed annuity portfolio. We’ve made some enhancements to our income annuities so that we can compete more favorably. We added a variable annuity and we’re looking at things with our registered index linked annuity product that Ascend has today to make that product more competitive.

are your thoughts about insurance carriers going direct to consumers?

LAPIANA: We as an industry need to reach more people because people are underinsured. You and I also discussed that the advisor population is shrinking right now. That also means more advisors will go up market, not down market, and that means fewer people will be able to have the advice and guidance they need.

So how do you get to the middle-market, lower mass affluent consumer? There are a couple of ways. You can get to them through the group market, through their worksite, and we actively participate in that market. And you get to them through a direct-to-consumer model.

We learned a lot of things by launching Haven — both good and bad. We do think

FELDMAN: Do you have any closing thoughts?

LAPIANA: I would say the need for advice and guidance in this country is maybe at an all-time high. But the industry, in my mind, isn’t at scale, delivering on holistic advice. They’re using financial planning tools to gather assets, put people in a 60/40 portfolio and think they stuck the landing.

There has been some research done that basically says that advisors and teams who use permanent life insurance adjacent to annuities, adjacent to the 60/40 portfolio, deliver the best outcomes for clients in the form of the highest income, longest duration of income, most optimal and efficient wealth transfer and efficiency of accumulation. That is not happening in the industry.

What we think is a differentiator for our advisors is the understanding of wealth but staying true to our protection DNA and understanding how life insurance, disability insurance and annuities bring value to people’s portfolio and help them get to the finish line that’s right for them and their family or their business.

Break out of the crowd

Sell Foresters.

Grow faster. Win big.

Let’s transform your life insurance experience

It’s all about empowering you to succeed. With Foresters Financial™, you can tap into state-of-the-art products, tailored technology, ongoing sales support and more opportunities to make a meaningful di erence for your clients.

Right now, 41% of adults are reporting that they don’t have enough life insurance coverage. That is a huge market of nearly 106 million potential customers.1 When you’re with Foresters, you can cater to these customers with accessible coverage and unique living beneﬁts that will keep clients engaged.

All that’s left is you. This is your opportunity to expand your reach and stand out in ways you won’t ﬁnd with other carriers.

Trust in a secure future

When people buy life insurance, they want an insurer that is strong and well-positioned for the future. With Foresters, you can give them that—and more.

Foresters origins date back to 1874 when The Independent Order of Foresters (IOF) was founded as a fraternal benefit society—a member-based insurance provider for everyday families. Since then, we’ve grown into an international financial services provider with over two million members in the US, Canada and the UK. We are financially strong with assets of $12.9 billion, liabilities of $11.4 billion and a surplus of $1.5 billion.2,3 For 24 consecutive years, the independent rating agency A.M. Best has given us an “A” (Excellent) rating for excellent balance sheet strength and operating performance.4 In 2024, Foresters paid $672 million in insurance claims and benefits.2 In addition, Foresters total dividend payout to eligible participating certificate holders in the US was $25.8 million in 2024. The average Foresters dividend rate over the past 20 years is above 6%.5 The dividend interest rate in 2024 was 5.9%.6 As a fraternal benefit society, we manage our own financial reserves. Our Risk-Based Capital (RBC) ratio exceeds the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) guidelines. Our purpose—enriching family and community well-being—means we are continually redefining our model to help you bring financial security and overall well-being to everyday families.

Risk-based capital ratio of 541%

Discover all our member beneﬁts now!

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In 2024, Foresters paid $672 million 2 in insurance claims and beneﬁts paid

Surplus of

$1.5 billion 2,3

Over the past 20 years, the average Foresters dividend rate has remained above 6%

Explore our di erent underwriting options

From streamlined to more detailed processes, there’s an underwriting option to suit each client’s needs.

The traditional underwriting option involves your clients potentially undergoing medical exams and health questionnaires to qualify for coverage.

A streamlined underwriting process for healthier clients to receive decisions in seven days or less without medical exams and health interviews.

O ers no medical exams and fewer medical questions—perfect for your clients who want a more convenient underwriting option.7

With instant decision, clients are informed immediately of their eligibility and can potentially receive coverage promptly through a digital process.7

Unique o erings for unique clients

Foresters o ers inclusive programs and ﬂexible underwriting to help more families access life insurance—especially those who may not qualify through traditional channels:

ITIN Program

Designed for US residents who have an Individual Taxpayer Identiﬁcation Number (ITIN) and at least three years of residency. This program helps more families—particularly those without a Social Security Number—gain access to life insurance protection.

Coverage for people with diabetes

Foresters is transforming the life insurance experience for people living with diabetes—an often-underserved group in the insurance market. With over 38.4 million Americans living with diabetes, many go uninsured due to limited eligibility or high costs.8

This inclusive approach reflects Foresters broader commitment to meeting clients where they are. By o ering accessible life insurance o erings—like the ITIN program and coverage for people with diabetes—alongside meaningful member benefits, Foresters empowers clients to protect their families, support their well-being and live more confidently.

Beyond life insurance

Real complimentary beneﬁts for real lives

Life insurance contracts typically go from purchased to stored away until the worst happens. It’s di erent with Foresters. Your insured clients 9 become members of a community where people get more out of their coverage with a suite of complimentary member beneﬁts9 they can use right away.

As Foresters members, your clients can give back to their communities through helpful grants and live their best lives with their loved ones. These are real beneﬁts, with no catch! Your clients will love them.

For producers like you, our member beneﬁts can be great tools for referrals. They can help you connect with more

people, expand your reach and grow your business in ways you might not get with other carriers.

Let your clients know that they can go beyond life insurance with beneﬁts that make a real di erence in their lives and communities.

“ Thank you for being part of our purpose. Your work doesn’t just help protect families, it strengthens neighborhoods, fuels generosity and helps shape a brighter future. I’m proud to have you representing Foresters and the values we stand for. Let’s keep building something meaningful, together.”

MARK RUSH , Chief Distribution O cer, U.S. Sales

Community Volunteer and Foresters Care™

Organize volunteer activities in local communities with two yearly grants of up to $1,500 with Community Volunteer, or help support immediate needs with two yearly grants of up to $200 with Foresters Care.

LawAssure 10

An online document preparation service helps members create customizable wills, powers of attorney and healthcare directives.

Competitive Scholarships 11

Hundreds of tuition scholarships, up to $2,000 each, are awarded yearly to member families.

Foresters Member Discounts™ 12

Save on products from top brands and exciting experiences through one easy-to-use online site.

Foresters Go ™ 13

A wellness app where members can earn rewards for big and little healthy choices and giving back.

Orphan Beneﬁt and Scholarships 14

Income support up to $900 per month, per child under 18 years old who lose their parent(s). Up to $6,000 in scholarships per year, per child (up to four years) for post-secondary schooling for orphaned children.

1 Source: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/life-insurance/life-insurance-statistics/ (April 8, 2025)

2 All figures are presented in USD. The figures are based on consolidated financial results prepared in Canadian dollars as at December 31, 2024 and converted into USD using the Bloomberg spot exchange rate of 1.4384.

3 Consolidated financial results as at December 31, 2024. The surplus comprising assets of 12.9 billion and liabilities of $11.4 billion represents excess funds above the amount required as legal reserves for insurance and annuity certificates in force and provides additional assurances to our members for our long term financial strength. Financial strength refers to the overall health of The Independent Order of Foresters. It does not refer to nor represent the performance of any particular investment or insurance product. All investing involves risk, including the risk that you can lose money.

4 The A.M. Best rating assigned on September 6, 2024, reﬂects the overall strength and claims-paying ability of The Independent Order of Foresters (IOF) but does not apply to the performance of any non-IOF issued products. An “A” (Excellent) rating is assigned to companies that have a strong ability to meet their ongoing obligations to policyholders and have, on balance, excellent balance sheet strength, operating performance and business proﬁle when compared to the standards established by A.M. Best Company. A.M. Best assigns ratings from A++ to F, A++ and A+ being superior ratings and A and A- being excellent ratings. See ambest.com for our latest rating.

5 Past performance is not a prediction, estimate, or guarantee of future performance.

6 Dividends are not guaranteed. Past dividends are not an indicator of future performance.

7 Insurability depends on answers to medical and other application questions and underwriting searches and review.

8 Source: https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/php/data-research/ (May 15, 2024)

9 Description of member benefits that your clients may receive assumes they are a Foresters Financial member. Foresters Financial members are insureds under a life or health insurance certificate issued by The Independent Order of Foresters or Foresters Life Insurance Company. Foresters Financial member benefits are non-contractual, subject to benefit specific eligibility requirements, definitions and limitations and may be changed or cancelled without notice or are no longer available.

10 LawAssure is provided by Epoq, Inc. Epoq is an independent service provider and is not a liated with Foresters. Some features may not be available based on your jurisdiction. LawAssure is not a legal service or legal advice and is not a substitute for legal advice or services of a lawyer.

11 This program is administered by International Scholarship and Tuition Services, Inc. Eligible members, their spouse, dependent children, and grandchildren may apply subject to the eligibility criteria. Please visit https://www.foresters.com/en/member-beneﬁts/scholarships for further details.

12 Discounts are administered by BeneﬁtHub Technology Canada Limited.

13 Foresters Go is provided by The Independent Order of Foresters and is operated by dacadoo AG.

14 Orphan Scholarships and Orphan Beneﬁts are available to eligible members with an in force certiﬁcate having either a minimum face value of $10,000 or if an annuity, a minimum cash value of $10,000 or a minimum contribution of $1,000 paid in the previous twelve months.

Foresters products and riders may not be available or approved in all states and are subject to eligibility requirements, underwriting approval, limitations, contract terms and conditions and state variations. Refer to the applicable Foresters contract for your state for these terms and conditions and ezbiz for product availability. Underwritten by The Independent Order of Foresters.

Foresters Financial, Foresters, Foresters Care, Foresters Moments, Foresters Renew, Foresters Member Discounts, Foresters Go, the Foresters Go logo and Helping Is Who We Are are trade names and trademarks of The Independent Order of Foresters (a fraternal beneﬁt society, 789 Don Mills Rd, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3C 1T9) and its subsidiaries.

For producer use only. Not for use with the public.

506680 US 07/25

Don’t blend in. Break through and stand out like never before.

 State-of-the-art products

 One-on-one sales support

 A selection of underwriting options

 Individual Taxpayer Identiﬁcation Number Program

 Coverage for people with diabetes

 Complimentary beneﬁts1 to help members give back to their communities

Scan to learn more

1 Foresters member benefits are non-contractual, subject to benefit specific eligibility requirements, definitions and limitations and may be changed or cancelled without notice or are no longer available. Foresters Financial and Foresters are trade names and trademarks of The Independent Order of Foresters (a fraternal benefit society, 789 Don Mills Rd, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3C 1T9) and its subsidiaries. For producer use only. Not for use with the public. 424862 US 07/25

Behind every policy is a story.

Agents reflect on the life-changing moments that define why they do what they do — and why life insurance matters more than ever.

BY JOHN HILTON

Selling life insurance includes a lot of dry and technical things, like getting licensed and learning about the do’s and don’ts of compliance.

And then there are the products, which can veer into arcane territory. Agents have to learn the details about so many aspects of sales and products, including popular features like riders and index returns.

And, finally, there are the book-building things. The painstaking process of getting leads, making contacts and building a book of business to underpin a career.

Are you fired up to be an agent yet?

We cover all of those issues and many others in InsuranceNewsNet Magazine because they fall under “information our readers need to know.”

But there’s another side to selling life insurance: the private and personal reward — the feeling of helping individuals, couples and families with life insurance products that provide security — and, sometimes, a lifeline.

There are those moments that make all the hours and all the legwork worthwhile. Maybe it doesn’t happen every day, but agents have the unique opportunity to make a tangible difference in people’s lives.

It might be helping a family protect their financial future, guiding a business owner through risk management or ensuring someone’s loved ones are secure no matter what happens. The job isn’t just about selling policies; it’s about building trust, offering reassurance in uncertain times and providing peace of mind.

Agents often develop long-term relationships with clients, becoming trusted advisors over decades. Frequently, that tight bond either starts with or includes a crucial moment when the agent and the life insurance policy rescued a family from a difficult situation.

We asked our readers to share some of those moments so we can celebrate Life Insurance Awareness Month in style. The strong response we received is further evidence that the human-to-human aspect makes selling life insurance worthwhile.

Bob Chitrathorn: Benefits rider to the rescue

One experience that stands out is with a client I’ll call Cheryl. She was retiring from the school district and came to me

for help with her retirement planning.

As we worked together, she mentioned that she was planning to let her term life policy lapse. Her children were grown, and she didn’t think she needed it anymore.

That’s when I introduced her to a life insurance policy that included living benefits. She saw the value and decided to move forward, getting approved for a $150,000 policy. Her premium was around $1,800 a year.

Roughly a year later, Cheryl experienced a significant health issue. She could still enjoy life, but she wasn’t able to afford full-time care — either in a facility or at home. I reminded her about the accelerated benefit rider included in her policy and helped her file a claim.

To her surprise and relief, the insurance company approved monthly benefit payments of about $2,300. She was overjoyed. That income allowed her to move in with her sister, contribute to the household financially and maintain her dignity and quality of life. It not only helped her — but gave her sister the support she needed as well.

That experience reinforced a simple truth: Life insurance isn’t just about death benefits, it’s about protecting quality of life while you’re still living.

— Bob Chitrathorn, CFO/vice president of wealth planning at Simplified Wealth Management and a Forbes Finance Council Member

Life insurance isn’t just about death benefits, it’s about protecting quality of life while you’re still living.

Noel Anderson: Responding to a 9/11 need

In the beginning days of my career in the life insurance industry in the early 2000s, I was struggling to find purpose in my career. I was considering leaving the industry altogether until I had a life-changing (and career-changing) experience by helping beneficiaries of life insurance policies in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

My company at the time had a client in the World Trade Center, and we ran a life insurance split-dollar program for the client’s top key people. The individual would get a death benefit paid to their beneficiary, and the employer would also receive a death benefit if the person passed away while working.

I regularly visited their offices to explain the plan to new hires and help with onboarding, which involved lots of tedious form filling and back and forth. I built real relationships with these people.

Most of the employees accepted this special benefit, but not all of them saw immediate value in the plan.

When Sept. 11 happened, my company was as shocked as the rest of the world. Given that I had relationships with real people who worked in the World Trade Center, I felt intensely passionate about what the outcome would be and how I could play a role in helping some of the victims’ families.

After 9/11, I feared insurers like my own company might deny claims for World Trade Center employees, labeling

Chitrathorn

It was an extraordinary response, and I felt proud to be part of something so meaningful during such a tragic time. That really gave me purpose.

the attack as war or terrorism, grounds at the time for only refunding premiums. (That tragic event ultimately led to policy changes covering such acts.)

I called the CEO’s office to ask if benefits would be paid, and to my surprise, he called me back. Not only were claims being honored, but they were paid out by late October, far earlier than the industry norm. The company even set up sites near Manhattan where beneficiaries — both companies and individuals — could collect checks in person. It was an extraordinary response, and I felt proud to be part of something so meaningful during such a tragic time.

That really gave me purpose.

Life insurance is important, and we have to explain that. Both the company’s and the families’ paths would have changed had this plan not been put in place.

Like I said, I’d been thinking about leaving the industry prior to this. Of course, I never ended up leaving. Now, I work with planners to help their clients understand how life insurance helps their families, their companies and their key employees.

— Noel Anderson, vice president of executive benefits at Vanbridge

Matt

Schmidt:

A lifeline following a heart attack

In my 21-year career as an insurance agent, my favorite experience was letting a longtime client know that he could accelerate

part of his life insurance policy via living benefits.

Most clients tend to forget the specifics of a policy that we provide for them. In this case, the client initially opted for a policy that was $7 a month less expensive than the one I initially proposed.

After explaining that I felt having a policy with living benefit riders would provide better protection, he reluctantly agreed. Fast-forward seven years, this client contacts me about possibly canceling the policy.

After I asked if there was a specific reason for the request, he explained that he can’t afford it due to having a heart attack and being unable to work for an extended amount of time.

I then proceeded to explain that it might be possible to accelerate a “large”

amount of his policy, to help him out with his difficult situation. A few weeks later this client received over $200,000 from the carrier. This client has sent us several referrals and is probably our biggest advocate of what we do for families.

While I never want any client to experience an adverse health issue, this story had a very happy ending and reminds me to this day of how our recommendations impact families in the future.

— Matt Schmidt, CEO of Diabetes Life Solutions

Robert Cullen: A convincing argument saves the day

I’ve been in the insurance world since 2007, and there’s a saying that you never forget your first check that you deliver to a beneficiary. And my first one happened to be a big one.

I live in a rural area of California, a small town of about 13,000 people. And I had been talking to the wife of a man who was the primary breadwinner for the family. The couple had three young kids between the ages of about 3 and 9.

I learned from talking to the wife that they did a needs analysis and that they had a mortgage on their very, very nice home on a big ranch. The home was worth about $1.5 million, and they had a $1.2 million mortgage on it. The husband had plenty of money to pay for it, but I told the wife, “Man, if something happens to your husband, you don’t have the capacity to make as much money as he does. What are you going to do?”

So, we engaged with the husband, and he was resistant at first. It took almost

While I never want any client to experience an adverse health issue, this story had a very happy ending and reminds me to this day of how our recommendations impact families in the future.

Anderson

Schmidt

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and none of such parties make any representation regarding the advisability of investing in such product(s) nor do they have

a year for him to finally agree to life insurance. We ended up doing a $2 million life policy, and then he tragically ended up dying less than a year after the policy was written.

The carrier did pay and the widow received $2 million, and with that, there were several benefits involved. She paid off the mortgage, so now she had the home free and clear, plus had money to be able to put food on the table, and those kids were now able to stay in the home.

And being in a small town, I’m still in touch with the family, and it’s neat to see those kids are now having kids of their own. Just to see that family grow up, and to think that was a major fork in the road. Had the husband not gotten the life insurance, what would have happened to the wife and their home? Where would the kids have been raised? The life insurance money really set the family up for financial success, and it’s being passed to the next generation.

I think the key part of that was the first time that I talked to the husband about it. He said, “No.” The second time he said, “No.” It took several conversations, and that really was because I believe in life insurance.

I teach a lot of classes, and I talk at a lot of conferences, and I tell agents, “There’s going to be some point in your career when you’re going to have a customer die. And that customer is either going to have life insurance or is not going to have life insurance. And if that client doesn’t have life insurance, the last thing I want to be in your head is you thinking, “Oh, I never offered life insurance.”

Had the husband not gotten the life insurance, what would have happened to the wife and their home? Where would the kids have been raised? The life insurance money really set the family up for financial success, and it’s being passed to the next generation.

That is the most awful feeling you’ll ever have.

— Robert Cullen, advisor, Farmers Financial Solutions

Joe Mallee: Taking care of the family

As the oldest of four children in a middleclass family of police officers, firefighters and nurses, I learned early that protecting the ones you love requires more than good intentions.

Early in my career as a financial advisor, my parents asked me to serve as guardian for my three much younger siblings should anything happen to them. I agreed on the condition that they complete comprehensive financial planning together.

With professional help, they established wills, trusts, disability insurance, and life insurance coverage — a decision

Five years later, my mother had risen to executive level at a home health care company, managing approximately 30 offices. Despite battling rheumatoid arthritis, she maintained excellent health habits and had never smoked. When what seemed like a routine cough turned out to be stage 4 lung cancer, our family faced an unimaginable shock. At 55, with an average prognosis of just six months, she was fighting for her life.

The disability insurance they had established provided crucial financial stability during her treatment, allowing my family to focus on her care rather than worrying about bills and finances. When my mother passed away, I found myself processing the first death claim of my career — to my own father.

The death benefit paid off my father’s mortgage and funded my younger siblings’ college education, providing the financial foundation that allowed Dad to grieve while maintaining stability for our family. This experience crystallized my understanding of MassMutual’s purpose and my role in helping people secure their future and protect the ones they love.

— Joe Mallee, head of MassMutual Financial Advisors at MassMutual Financial Group

Ian Freeman: Bringing security to the family of a fallen 9/11 client

One of the most defining moments in my career was delivering a life insurance claim following the 9/11 attacks. I was in Dallas that day, watching the events unfold on television.

The disability insurance they had established provided crucial financial stability during her treatment, allowing my family to focus on her care rather than worrying about bills and finances.

Cullen

Mallee

Trade Center] buildings with multiple clients. Ironically, many of my meetings happened to fall on Tuesdays, and 9/11 was a Tuesday.

As soon as I realized what was happen ing, I started calling my clients. I was able to reach all of them except one.

By Friday, with flights still limited, I flew into Philadelphia and drove into New York. I’ll never forget the smoke rising from the rubble as I crossed the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. That Sunday, I picked up my dad, who happened to be best friends with the victim’s father, and we drove to their home. When we arrived, there were more than 100 people gathered, but I was the only one asked to go into a separate room with his widow. It was in their children’s bedroom, which seemed so poignant.

She asked only one question, and it was the correct question and the only one that mattered: Am I going to be okay?

In moments like that, you are acutely aware of what this profession is really about — protecting lives, families and communities. The rest is noise. And you better have the right answer.

Fortunately, we did. And today, those children are our clients, too.

— Ian Freeman, founder and financial advisor at The Freeman Group, Northwestern Mutual

Todd Weiss: Two generations of security

One of my clients recently passed away in his mid-50s, leaving behind a powerful financial legacy for his family. When I first started working with him in 2015, he had $2.5 million in term insurance.

This experience reinforces my belief in insuring children at an early age — a strategy I’ve implemented with my own kids. I’m always considering adding juvenile policies for all my clients’ kids.

Through strategic planning and foresight, I was able to add another $7 million in whole life insurance and provide his family with absolute financial security if they ever faced a difficult time without him.

What’s truly inspiring about this case is the intergenerational impact of our planning. I helped the client set up policies for his two children, now in their mid-20s. One is building a career and is single, while the other is working and living with a significant other.

Both young adults have continued to fund their whole life policies, fully appreciating the legacy their father began and illustrating the versatility of life insurance planning. Our recent conversations have focused on explaining the policies’ benefits, including their use for liquidity events, and the importance of coverage for their partners or future families.

It’s a powerful reminder of how insurance can create financial security and leave a meaningful impact for generations to come.

She asked only one question, and it was the correct question and the only one that mattered: Am I going to be okay? In moments like that, you are acutely aware of what this profession is really about — protecting lives, families and communities.

This case also highlights the importance of staying vigilant with policy management. When I discovered the client was ill, we quickly converted an expiring term policy to a permanent one in his final months, ensuring his family wouldn’t lose crucial coverage.

This proactive approach not only secured the family’s financial future but also laid the groundwork for continued relationships and future potential opportunities with the adult children. It’s a win-win situation, demonstrating the long-term value of comprehensive insurance planning.

This experience reinforces my belief in insuring children at an early age — a strategy I’ve implemented with my own kids. I’m always considering adding juvenile policies for all my clients’ kids.

The only thing I ever hear from people who own whole life policies is “I wish I had done more and started at a younger age.” By thinking generations ahead with thoughtful life insurance planning, we can create an impact of financial security that spans generations.

— Todd Weiss, wealth management advisor at Summit Financial

InsuranceNewsNet

Senior Editor John Hilton covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at john.hilton@innfeedback.com. Follow him on X @INNJohnH.

Freeman

Weiss

Your Annual “Awareness” Booster

In this year’s Life Insurance Awareness Month Thought Leadership Series, leaders throughout the industry offer perspective on the trending sales, strategies and products dominating an ever-changing life insurance marketplace.

INSIDE

Getting Clients to Act on the Long-Term Care Conversation with Kansas City Life

Page 21

Protective’s Term Life Stands the Test of Time

with Aaron Seurkamp, Senior Vice President and President of the Protecion & Retirement Division at Protective Life

Page 22

Trust and Tech in Tandem with John Borgen and Jennifer Smith of Sapiens and Mike Attewell of Trusted Fraternal Life

Page 24

Getting Clients to Act on the Long-Term Care Conversation

An effective plan will educate clients as to what the three major planning behaviors are in response to long-term care costs. Just lay out honestly how people act. Then they can see where they fall on the list.

The first planning behavior is when people ignore the issue and hope for the best. Sometimes the magnitude of the conversation is just too worrisome to confront. The second planning behavior is that a person accepts the statistics that they will need care but then choose to self-insure.

The consequences are the same for people in each of those first two behavioral categories. The first thing that happens is they must start liquidating assets. They can do this while the assets last. They also must pay all the subsequent taxes. Recall those huge unknown variables of the stock market, interest rates, and inflation; this is the time when people are reminded that those are realities over which they possess absolutely no control.

Do you know how a person can make long-term care costs significantly more expensive than they otherwise would have been? They can get sick and need help during a down stock market or low-interest rate environment. Nobody gets to pick what’s going on in the world when health issues arise.

Then once the assets have been depleted far enough, they can then go sign up for the government plan which is called Medicaid. Looking at this path, when it comes to self-insuring, even if a person can self-insure, why would they want to?

Finally, there is a third planning behavior where people act by choosing to hedge the risk. What does hedging the risk look like? One way to hedge risk is through traditional long-term care insurance. The planning challenges to this approach are that policies often will be “use it or lose it.” The costs can go up, benefits are mediocre, and underwriting is vigorous. Remember that there are plenty of health issues which can make people more likely to need long-term care but that do not necessarily shorten life expectancy.

However, what has proven to be a more popular hedging solution is a hybrid approach using life insurance with an accelerated death benefit rider. This approach turns the previously unattractive value proposition on its head. Now at worst, the client’s beneficiaries are going to receive a tax-free death benefit. Kansas City Life Insurance Company’s applicable solution is the robust Enhanced Living Benefits (ELB) rider.

Can a person own a life insurance policy and be their own beneficiary without dying? Yes, and knowing that fact will significantly increase the chance that they purchase a policy!

Through the accelerated death benefit provided by the ELB rider, a person may be saved from being forced to liquidate retirement accounts. Easing the financial impact is a big deal. So is reducing the physical impact of family members providing care.

Independence can be preserved by staying in their own home. The money can pay for receiving in-home skilled nursing and making necessary home modifications such as widening doorways, installing ramps and rails, or updating their bathroom for easier use. This is why Tom Hegna calls it “anti-nursing home insurance.” The ELB rider may be able to provide the resources to keep clients in their own home.

Perhaps the most crucial benefit could be family harmony. No parent purposefully makes a decision that results in their children never speaking to one another again. When kids are little, they fight, then take a break or a timeout, and are best friends again an hour later. However, when adult siblings fight, they may become estranged. Failing to adequately plan for these expenses makes that outcome considerably more plausible.

In real life here’s how the conversation goes, “You make all the money with your big career, you should be paying for mom’s care, so she doesn’t have to go into a facility,” or perhaps someone yells, “You stay at home while your spouse works; you should be taking care of mom or let her move in with you,” or another could declare, “We had to move away for our jobs, but you still live in the same town as mom. You should be going over to help her every morning on your way to work and again on your way home from work.”

It does not need to be that way. Using a Kansas City Life IUL policy with the added Enhanced Living Benefits (ELB) rider may be the perfect tool for you to change someone’s family legacy.

To find out more about Kansas City Life’s IUL products with the Enhanced Living Benefits rider, visit www.KCLife.com.

Protective’s Term Life Stands the Test of Time

Protective blends time-tested values with modern tools to redefine the term life experience through speed, simplicity, and service without losing sight of its core mission.

With more than a century of history and nearly 17 million customers, Protective is no stranger to stability. But what sets the company apart today, especially in the crowded term life insurance market, is its willingness to evolve.

“A legacy like ours isn’t something we take lightly,” said Aaron Seurkamp, Senior Vice President and President of the Protection & Retirement Division at Protective. “Every generation at this company has built upon the one before it. Our culture is service-oriented at its core, and that guides everything we do.”

Founded in 1907, Protective has long positioned itself as a trusted name in life insurance. Today, the company manages $125 billion in assets and has more than $1 trillion in life insurance in force. Yet despite its size and reach, Protective continues to act with the flexibility and the urgency of a company that knows its customers expect more.

Grounded in Values, Built for Today

Much of Protective’s approach is shaped by four guiding values: do the right thing, serve people, build trust, and aspire for better.

to protect people at the hardest moments in their lives,” said Seurkamp. “Term life is about showing up when it really counts—for a spouse, a child, a partner. It aligns perfectly with who we are as a company.”

Rethinking the Experience

Over the past year, Protective has made a concerted effort to improve how customers and agents engage with term life insurance. The company recently rolled out enhancements to its underwriting and application process, aimed at improving speed, reducing friction, and better meeting modern expectations.

“The reality is, people want things faster and simpler, especially younger buyers under 50,” said Seurkamp. “So, we’ve leaned into automation and data to make decisions more quickly, particularly for coverage under $1 million.”

As a result, more than 30% of Protective’s applicants in that target market are now approved immediately without lab work or lengthy waiting periods. More than 60% go through the process without additional medical requirements.

“That’s a dramatic shift from the traditional model,” said Seurkamp. “And it’s helping our agents, too. When we remove some of the administrative burden, they can focus on what really matters—serving clients and growing their practices.”

We exist to protect people at the hardest moments in their lives.”

— Aaron Seurkamp, SVP and President, Protection & Retirement Division

“They’re simple, but they work,” said Seurkamp. “If you use those four values as your true north, you’re going to find your way to doing the right thing for the customer and for your distribution partners.”

Those principles are especially visible in Protective’s term life business. Often considered the “purest” form of protection, term insurance offers a financial safety net when families or businesses need it most. “We exist

That emphasis on partnership is intentional. Protective relies on a network of independent agents and distribution partners, and has made it a priority to incorporate their feedback into product and process design. Seurkamp said the latest enhancements reflect direct input from the field.

“They told us they needed more speed, more flexibility, and less paperwork,” shared Seurkamp. “We listened.”

Flexibility by Design

While Protective avoids one-size-fits-all solutions, flexibility is baked into its term offerings. The compa-

Faster Term. Smarter Experience.

Historic

Traditional underwriting timeframes

Medical exams required

Manual paperwork

Delayed decisions

Protective

Instant decisions for 30% of applicants

No labs for 60%+ of target segment

Streamlined digital process

Faster decisions for cases under $1M

Four Core Values That Guide Every Protective Decision

ny offers term lengths up to 40 years, simplified issue options, and a variety of riders that support conversion or address chronic illness.

“Our goal is to meet customers where they are today and grow with them,” said Seurkamp. “Maybe someone starts with affordable term coverage in their 20s or 30s. But if their needs change—say they get married or start a business—we want to offer features that let them transition to permanent protection without starting from scratch.”

That kind of long-term thinking is one reason Protective has become a mainstay for independent advisors looking for reliability and responsiveness.

Built to Last

Of course, innovation only matters if the company behind it can deliver on its promises. Protective’s track record offers a reassuring answer.

“We’ve been through world wars, economic downturns, pandemics—you name it,” said Seurkamp. “We’ve paid out billions in claims. We’ve protected millions of families. And we’re planning to be here another hundred years.”

That staying power is reinforced by Protective’s consistently high financial strength ratings from major independent agencies. The company holds an A+ (Superior) rating from A.M. Best, AA- (Very Strong) from both S&P Global Ratings and Fitch, and an A1 rating from Moody’s Investor Services. These strong marks reflect Protective’s financial stability, claims-paying ability, and long-term commitment to the customers and partners who rely on them.

“Third-party validation is important. But for us, trust is built every day—claim by claim, interaction by interaction,” he said. “We want people to feel confident when they choose Protective, whether they’re buying their first policy or working with us for the 20th time.”

A Call to Reconnect

Despite Protective’s progress, Seurkamp acknowledged that the company’s innovations may not yet be fully appreciated by the broader market, particularly those who haven’t worked with the company in recent years.

“If someone reading this hasn’t done business with Protective lately, I hope they’ll take five minutes to give us another look,” he said. “Visit our portal. Check out the updated application experience. See how it feels to work with a company that combines history and heart with modern capabilities. I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

In a time when the life insurance industry is racing to modernize, Protective is showing that doing the right thing isn’t just a value. It’s a competitive advantage.

“We’re not trying to be flashy,” said Seurkamp. “We’re trying to be better—every day—for the people who count on us.”

Find out more about Protective’s simple, affordable term life coverage, visit www.Protective.com today!

Trust and Tech in Tandem

With

Sapiens as a Strategic

Partner, Trusted Fraternal Life Is Blending Purpose, Technology, and Growth to Lead the Next Chapter in Insurance

In a life insurance market hungry for innovation yet steeped in tradition, Trusted Fraternal Life is proving that you don’t have to choose between the two.

Trusted Fraternal Life (TFL) is, paradoxically, both the nation’s newest and oldest fraternal benefit society in the United States. As President and CEO John Borgen explained, “ Our roots go back to 1868, but we created the Trusted Fraternal Life family of brands in 2024 to scale our impact for the future. Today, the member-owned family of brands includes Catholic Financial Life, Degree of Honor, Woman’s Life and Catholic United Financial.”

That combination of deep history and bold reinvention is core to TFL’s strategy. It’s a transformation designed to serve modern members while preserving the unique missions and traditions that have guided fraternals for generations.

“We’re building the next generation of what a fraternal can be,” Borgen said. “That means doing hard things that others avoid — like mergers, modernization, and long-term investments in partnerships and technology.”

Purpose-Driven Growth Meets

Digital Innovation

While each fraternal brand retains its community impact and mission, they now operate under a shared structure designed to simplify operations, expand reach, and deliver more value to members. The goal isn’t only about creating efficiencies — it’s about creating sustainable growth and real impact.

Borgen said today’s consumers are increasingly drawn to purpose-driven organizations. “Some might say we’re the OG purpose-driven company,” he remarked. “But we’re not looking backward. We’re moving forward — blending tradition with modern products and services and new approaches to engagement.”

That future-focused mindset led TFL to deepen its partnership with Sapiens, a global provider of insurance software solutions. Their relationship spans more than 25 years, beginning with the adoption of policy administration, illustration, and eApp tools. Today, Sapiens’ advanced technology continues to play a pivotal role in supporting TFL’s large-scale digital transformation through the recently launched Sapiens Insurance Platform for Life and Annuities, featuring AI-powered digital portals and data-driven insights.

“We’ve been through plenty of challenges together over the years,” Borgen noted. “It’s in navigating those challenges that you see what the other is made of. Sapiens has consistently shown a commitment to doing the right thing.”

For Sapiens, that partnership reflects a shared mission. Jennifer Smith, Vice President of Product Strategy at Sapiens, said, “We don’t approach these projects with a one-size-fits-all mindset. With TFL, it’s about deeply understanding where they want to go and working together to make sure the technology supports that vision.”

Modernizing Fraternal Life Insurance

At the heart of the transformation is TFL’s goal to reduce operational complexity while increasing member simplicity. For the organization’s CIO, Mike Attewell, this means tackling the technical challenge of migrating multiple legacy systems onto Sapiens’ modern platform.

“We have three policy admin systems across our brands — Catholic Financial Life, Woman’s Life and Catholic United Financial — that need to be consolidated onto one core system,” Attewell explained. “That’s how we scale. It’s how we operate smarter and serve more people without duplicating effort.”

Attewell added that Sapiens’ modular, API-first architecture was key to that vision. “It allows us to roll out incremental changes quickly, support multiple brands, and meet our long-term growth strategy — both organically and through mergers.”

Serving Members and Advisors Alike

For TFL, technology is not about new systems for their own sake — it’s about creating superior member and advisor experiences.

“Our insurance brokers and advisors are our frontline,” Borgen said. “When we make it easy for them to serve potential new members, together, we make a greater impact on more people in more communities. Technology, properly designed, can remove friction and positions our partners to shine. We found that in Sapiens’ solutions.”

That philosophy has led to investments in self-service portals, streamlined digital communication, and

Borgen

Smith

Attewell

omnichannel engagement tools. Through Sapiens’ partnership with Cincom, TFL can deliver policyholder correspondence via text, email, paper, or online portals — meeting members where they want to be met.

“It’s about respecting each generation’s communication preferences,” Attewell said. “Whether someone wants a paper statement or to manage everything on their phone, we have to accommodate that.”

Smith agreed, emphasizing that digital flexibility strengthens advisor relationships too. “When you make the experience better for the client, you’re also building the advisor’s brand with that client. That trust loop is critical.”

Balancing Legacy and Innovation

One of the biggest challenges facing life insurance carriers today is balancing legacy commitments with modern consumer expectations. Smith said this is especially true for niche products or older policies.

“We’ve come from an environment where we had to code for every nuance an actuary designed decades ago,” she said. “Our goal is to support those contractual obligations while also enabling flexible, low-code platforms that can evolve with new products and market needs.”

Smith said the feeling is mutual. “Working with leaders and visionaries like John and Mike has been refreshing. This partnership isn’t just about technology — it’s about trust, growth, and the future of life insurance.”

Charting a Path Forward

As the life insurance industry grapples with evolving customer expectations, regulatory complexity, and legacy system constraints, Trusted Fraternal Life and Sapiens are charting a path that prioritizes both human connection and technological evolution.

At its core, this partnership is about more than upgrading software — it’s about redefining the way life insurers serve people.

“We’re not trying to be everything to everyone,” Borgen emphasized. “We’re staying focused on the middle market, on underserved communities, and on helping

“Technology, properly designed, can remove friction and positions our partners to shine. We found that in Sapiens’ solutions.”

Borgen echoed that sentiment. “We’re not managing to a quarter. We’re making promises we intend to keep for generations. That’s why our tech investments aren’t about chasing fads — they’re about becoming the modern standard for how a fraternal should operate.”

Looking Ahead: AI, Data, and Predictive Analytics

Next on TFL’s roadmap is leveraging data for predictive analytics, improving member engagement, and accelerating time-to-market for new products. The Sapiens platform will support these goals, making it easier to configure and launch offerings aimed at underserved markets — a historic priority for the organization.

“The goal is to reduce complexity internally, while increasing simplicity externally — for members, brokers and advisors,” Attewell said. That includes decisions about technology. “These life insurance products are promises,” Borgen added. “We make good on those promises when the insured is no longer here. So how we communicate, how we reassure — it’s not just messaging; it’s service delivery. That is what builds trust.”

A Model for the Future

For Trusted Fraternal Life, the transformation is about more than modernization — it’s about setting a new standard for what a fraternal benefit society can be.

“We’re building scalable infrastructure while preserving unique missions and traditions,” Borgen said. “By choosing the right partner in Sapiens, we’re staying focused on what matters most: serving members and their families.”

— John Borgen, President and CEO, Trusted Fraternal Life

families protect their futures in a way that’s simple, affordable, and aligned with their values.”

Smith said that’s exactly why Sapiens continues to invest in next-generation technology. “Our goal is to help carriers evolve at their own pace without losing what makes them unique,” she explained. “We’re enabling predictive analytics, AI-driven service delivery, and faster product launches, but always with an eye toward the end user — whether that’s a policyholder, an advisor, or a carrier executive.”

Attewell agreed, noting that TFL’s strategy is setting the foundation for future growth. “We’re building infrastructure that will support the next 150 years, not just the next five,” he said. “Whether it’s member portals, new product capabilities, or data-driven decision-making, it’s about scalability and sustainability.”

Both organizations believe the future of life insurance depends on partnerships like this one — where mutual respect, trust, and shared purpose drive innovation.

“This is about life insurance the way it ought to be,” Borgen concluded. “It’s about making promises and keeping them — not just with policies, but with the experience we provide at every step of the journey.”

To learn more about partnering with Trusted Fraternal Life or exploring Sapiens’ insurance technology solutions, visit TrustedFraternalLife.org or Sapiens.com.

JEFF

SMITH and JENNIFER

SCHERER

joined forces to educate clients and the public about financial and physical wellness.

By Susan Rupe

Jeff Smith decided the time had come to commit to a fitness program. He realized he couldn’t do it alone, so he went to a holistic wellness center in his community of Fredericksburg, Va., where he became a client of fitness coach Jennifer Scherer.

“I quickly realized Jeff was a dream client,” Jennifer recalled. “He was committed to the program, he followed everything to a T and he achieved great results.”

Jeff and Jennifer’s professional relationship bloomed into a friendship and then into marriage. Along the way, they also married Jeff’s financial planning practice and Jennifer’s health and fitness expertise to educate clients and the public about financial and physical wellness.

Jeff owns The Retirement Smith, where he helps clients work toward their dreams through a well-thought-out retirement income strategy. Jennifer owns Fredericksburg Fitness Studio, where she is a registered dietitian nutritionist, medical exercise specialist and certified personal trainer. Their two businesses are located in the same building in downtown Fredericksburg, a city of about 29,000 people located 48 miles south of Washington and known for its proximity to Civil War battlefields.

The two teamed up to create the Fitness & Finance Radio podcast, available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube. They discuss a number of topics about keeping healthy and how it can impact overall finances in retirement. Some of the podcast topics have been about fitness, meeting finances, not allowing others to derail your success, whether you are doing enough, return on intensity, overeating and overspending, and childhood food and money habits.

Jeff began his career as a property/casualty insurance agent soon after graduating from the State University of New York at Potsdam.

“I’ve loved insurance ever since I discovered it,” he said.

He eventually went to work for a wellknown insurer, where he obtained his life insurance license and became a top producer. But he wanted to do something different with his career, so he took the $2,500 that he had to his name and struck on his own, founding The Retirement Smith in 2022.

“I love insurance, and I love financial planning,” he said. “But I would like to see less flash and less attitude of a particular way being the only way to succeed. I want to bring some clarity in fundamentally sound moves and decisions.”

Financial planning industry is ‘broken’

Jeff said he believes the financial planning industry is broken and too difficult to navigate on one’s own. Middle-class investors are in danger of falling through the cracks, and most people don’t realize that there are gaps in retirement planning that an advisor must help them navigate.

“I think there’s a lot of confusion regarding retirement planning,” he said, “and when people are confused, they often don’t do anything. When you couple that with the fact that the 401(k) is the primary driver for everybody’s retirement, now there’s no attention to advice. It’s just ‘put your money in this.’ I feel it’s kind of canned, and I think people have to look at planning beyond trying to get the highest return. Everybody’s looking for a silver bullet versus what works.”

Jeff said he wants his practice to be “cutting-edge boring.”

“We want people to do the fundamentals the right way and not have to worry about getting a 10% or 12% return in order to survive when they hit retirement,” he said. “I think a lot of advisors look at working with people who have a million dollars, and folks who are below that line are not even considered. Some advisors require people to have a minimum amount to invest in order to work with them. I find that can be a challenge for people who need the advice and need the help, but maybe they don’t have the assets quite yet. Or they may have income, they have equity in their house but they don’t have the investable assets.”

Fredericksburg has a sizable population of military and federal employees — a population that makes up

much of Jeff’s client base.

“We don’t really necessarily target that group, but that’s who typically needs the most help. These are folks who have kind of flown under the radar, and they quietly save money and then they find themselves within six months of retirement and ask, ‘What do I do now?’ That’s usually who I serve.”

Jeff said he realizes many people find it intimidating to take the first step and meet with an advisor.

“We need to make the process less complicated,” he said. “We try to be as welcoming as we can and break everything down to be understandable. The entry point doesn’t need to be so difficult.”

Helping people with a way of life

Jennifer’s journey began when she decided to pivot from her original plan of going to medical school to follow her passion for fitness. She became a certified personal trainer and began working in a local gym. That atmosphere wasn’t a good fit for her, and she decided to take an entrepreneurial approach.

“I started traveling to people’s homes,” she said. “I bought some equipment and put it in the back of my car. I put up a website with my dad’s help, and the rest is history.”

Jennifer’s company grew to having a staff of 11 employees who work with clients on everything from medical exercise to Pilates. She obtained a master’s degree in nutrition a few years ago and is now a registered dietitian.

“I have more of a holistic wellness center where we’re doing more than just fitness; we’re helping people with a way of life.”

Much like clients may be too intimidated to reach out for financial advice, clients also may be hesitant about beginning to work with a wellness expert, Jennifer said.

“First of all, we meet them where they are. No case is too complicated,” she said. “I let everyone know up front that they’re never too far gone. We create a safe place for them.”

After a client provides Jennifer and her staff with the information they need to help reach their goals, “we put it down on paper and plan it out and say this can be achieved, but here’s what you have to do,” she said. “So it’s a matter of planning,

the Fıeld A Visit With Agents of Change

“First of all, we meet them where they are. No case is too complicated. I let everyone know up front that they’re never too far gone. We create a safe place for them.”

— Jennifer Scherer

similar to what Jeff does with his clients.”

Jennifer’s typical client is someone aged 55 or older who can afford private training. “A lot of them have preexisting health conditions that need a medical exercise approach,” she said. “They’re coming out of physical therapy, maybe recovering from surgery. Most of them are at an age where they realize they might have neglected themselves, and now they want to make the most out of their later years.”

So many things in common

Jeff and Jennifer said the idea of working together “came about by accident.”

“We saw that we do have an overlap of the same types of clients, and we thought a lot of the same principles — planning and executing and accountability — apply on both ends,” Jeff said. “We have so many things in common, plus we love spending time together. Some wonderful things have come out of it, and we continue to dive deeper into these concepts.”

The Fitness & Finance podcast began from conversations that Jeff and Jennifer had about their clients’ concerns and what those concerns have in common.

“Financial strain is a big factor in marital issues, and fitness can be a big factor there too. We want healthier relationships and healthier lifestyles, and we want people to not just make it to retirement but thrive in retirement,” Jeff said. “Also, it can be very expensive if you don’t have your health. Just look at the cost of long-term care.”

Jennifer said one of their most popular podcasts was on the topic of saboteurs in both fitness and finance.

“I find, as a dietitian, there’s often a lack of support in the household, where, for example, one spouse says that they’re going to get healthy and get fit, and they start exercising, and they start choosing

healthy meals, and then their partner says, ‘Oh, come on, it’s just one piece of pizza.’”

Jeff said that on the finance side, he often finds one partner is a spender while the other is a saver. “I’ve become a parttime marriage counselor to my clients in a lot of ways. And I’ve been weaponized a few times. A client will say something like, ‘Jeff, can you please tell him that he can’t buy any more fill-in-the-blank?’”

Another popular podcast topic is childhood messages about money. For Jeff, this hits home, as his mother was the caregiver for his grandmother for several years.

“My grandmother had a stroke and lived in our living room for years. And it had a huge impact on me, seeing this once-dignified woman in our living room and having to be taken care of by my mom. So it was very impactful for me, and I vowed that I would never be in that situation or let anybody in my circle be in that situation.”

Jennifer has plans to expand her wellness practice, perhaps incorporating weeklong wellness retreats or having Jeff create to-go meals for clients based on their dietary needs. The couple has spent the past year and a half deep diving into Pilates, training to become master-level Pilates instructors.

Meanwhile, Jeff plans to eventually hire a junior advisor and continue on a path of growing his practice slowly.

“I want to be fundamentally sound and amazingly boring,” he said.

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents’ association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at srupe@insurancenewsnet.com.

1. “Life expectancy for men in U.S. falls to 73 years – six years less than for women”, per study. Statnews.com. November 13, 2023.

2. “Gender pay gap statistics in 2024”. Forbes.com. March 1, 2024.

3. “Caregiver statistics: A data portrait of family caregiving in 2023”. Aplaceformom.com. June 15, 2023.

Please keep in mind that the primary reason to purchase a life insurance product is the death benefit.

Product features and availability may vary by state.

Life insurance products contain charges, such as Cost of Insurance Charge, Cash Extra Charge, and Additional Agreements Charge (which we refer to as mortality charges), and Premium Charge, Monthly Policy Charge, Policy Issue Charge, Transaction Charge, Index Segment Charge, and Surrender Charge (which we refer to as expense charges). These charges may increase over time, and these policies may contain restrictions, such as surrender periods. Policyholders could lose money in these products.

These materials are for informational and educational purposes only and are not designed, or intended, to be applicable to any person’s individual circumstances. It should not be considered investment advice, nor does it constitute a recommendation that anyone engage in (or refrain from) a particular course of action. Securian Financial Group, and its subsidiaries, have a financial interest in the sale of their products.

Insurance products are issued by Minnesota Life Insurance Company in all states except New York. In New York, products are issued by Securian Life Insurance Company, a New York authorized insurer. Minnesota Life is not an authorized New York insurer and does not do insurance business in New York. Both companies are headquartered in St. Paul, MN. Product availability and features may vary by state. Each insurer is solely responsible for the financial obligations under the policies or contracts it issues.

Securian Financial is the marketing name for Securian Financial Group, Inc., and its subsidiaries. Minnesota Life Insurance Company and Securian Life Insurance Company are subsidiaries of Securian Financial Group, Inc.

For financial professional use only. Not for use with the public. This material may not be reproduced in any way where it would be accessible to the general public.

The sandwich generation may be underinsured

The sandwich generation of adults — those who are caring for older family members while raising children — are already stretching their funds to cover expenses across multiple generations. But this age group also may be underinsured and have a misconception about the cost of life insurance and how it works as a financial safeguard.

Denise McCauley, president, chair and CEO of WoodmenLife, said stress and financial strain may be top reasons why these sandwiched adults aren’t buying life insurance. But they aren’t the only reasons.

Many in this group have a misconception about how much life insurance costs.

The belief that coverage costs more than it does prevents this generation from obtaining the protection they need, she said. Another reason the sandwich generation is underinsured is that they haven’t yet experienced a death in the family.

Members of the sandwich generation also need to have a conversation with their parents about their final expenses and end-of-life wishes, she said.

AI ADOPTION CHANGING THE INSURANCE LANDSCAPE

BRIGHT OUTLOOK FOR THE LIFE INSURANCE SEGMENT

The overall future for the life/annuity segment “looks pretty gosh darn bright,” said Scott Hawkins, Conning’s head of insurance research. Why the rosecolored glasses? An aging population that needs protection products, positive interest rates, higher portfolio yields and competitive products all go into the optimistic prediction.

“However, there are still significant issues that regulators continue to focus on,” he said. “The role that private equity and private credit are playing in the insurance and reinsurance market remains under scrutiny, especially at the state level.”

The insurance industry continues to adopt artificial intelligence, with discussion shifting from what it is to how it will affect the insurance sector and how it’s being used, Hawkins said. “With the looming retirement of the baby boomers, we think AI will be even more important to replace a lot of the vacancies left by retirees.”

The adoption of AI in the insurance value chain has been the biggest factor in transforming the insurance industry in recent times. Manu Mazumdar, director, insurance research, Conning, said AI has already transformed customer service, service delivery, expenditure trends and workforce expectations in the few years since it has become more mainstream in the U.S. insurance industry.

Mazumdar also said the insurance industry appears committed to continued development and adoption of AI based on a trend of “continually increasing expenditures” on technology.

But the rise in AI doesn’t mean less demand for humans. Mazumdar emphasized that a significant need for human oversight will persist as demand from customers for personal human interactions will increase. Therefore, it’s expected that

QUOTABLE

Every insurer should be asking themselves ‘Are we a passive claims payer, or an active risk manager?’”

—

service orientation and customer service will remain a critical skill amid the evolving skills landscape.

THE RETIREMENT EXODUS CREATES A TALENT GAP

The insurance industry is no longer just grappling with a looming talent gap — it is knee-deep in it.

“In the U.S. alone, 400,000 people in the insurance profession are expected to leave by 2026. That’s not a looming crisis — it’s a crisis that’s already here,” said 5189 Limited CEO Tony Tarquini.

“And it’s compounded by the fact that few young people grow up aspiring to enter the industry. Most fall into it by accident. That’s just not good enough anymore.”

The talent crisis is also being shaped by the ambiguous nature of retirement. Some older leaders are not exiting when expected, creating a bottleneck. Others are trying to phase out gracefully while passing down their legacy.

But what skills does the next generation need? With AI rapidly reshaping the insurance landscape, there’s a need to prioritize human-centric capabilities.

Source:

Hanwha Life

Brooks Tingle, John Hancock president and CEO

USE YOUR ADVANTAGE

We’re in the Fixed Index Annuity (FIA) market now and have an immediate advantage.

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How life insurance funds executive benefit plans

The executive benefits marketplace is a $42 billion market and one of the fastest-growing segments in the industry.

By Milo Markovic

Companies have a common but growing problem: how to attract, reward and retain top leaders who drive revenue and ensure long-term prosperity. For decades, businesses used traditional compensation methods such as 401(k) plans, stock options and yearly bonuses to remain competitive. These methods are no longer effective, especially for high earners who quickly reach contribution limits or grow leery of market-based incentives.

This gap has created growth in executive benefits, building a $42 billion market and one of the fastest-growing segments in the industry. To insurance professionals, it’s not a trend; it’s a chance to provide real solutions to employers who need a new strategy.

The price of not planning: Moelis & Co.’s $25M lesson

Few stories illustrate the challenge more clearly than one that made headlines earlier this year. Moelis & Co., a global investment bank, provided founder Ken Moelis with a $25 million bonus granted in the form of partnership units to retain him at the helm though 2029, Bloomberg reported.

The price tag was hefty, but the reasoning was straightforward: Moelis is a rainmaker whose departure can have a material influence on the fate of the firm. Writing a check was the fastest remedy.

This leads one to ask: What if there had been a long-term plan? Would a well-designed executive benefit plan funded with life insurance been able to accumulate those assets over time, creating the same incentive with better tax benefits and less impact on cash flow?

Yes, and that’s why discussions regarding executive benefits are gaining momentum.

The shifting landscape

The executive benefits marketplace is influenced by several important factors. The most significant are the changing rules and regulations.

The Federal Trade Commission’s effort to ban noncompete agreements began in 2023. In April 2024, the FTC issued a final rule that would have banned the majority of non-compete agreements nationwide. But in 2024, a federal judge blocked the rule from taking effect. The FTC appealed the decision, and the case is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Non-compete agreements remain enforceable under existing state laws until a final decision is made. Several states, including California, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Minnesota, have already enacted legislation that substantially restricts or prohibits non-compete agreements. The proposal of the rule and the subsequent legal fight took much of corporate America by surprise. Despite the fact that the rule has been stayed due to a court order, it illustrated a stark reality: Firms cannot simply rely on legal contracts to protect their leaders.

Laws change every few years, and businesses have to scramble to catch up. To most, the removal of non-compete agreements means that there is no longer one surefire legal way to stop top executives from walking out the door with clients, intellectual property or proprietary knowledge.

The result? Financial incentives have become an attractive way to reward executives while protecting a company’s future.

Post-pandemic priority

A further evolution occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Executive priorities altered. These days there is more focus on financial security, long-term wealth creation and the preservation of family legacies.

For most executives, exhausting qual ified retirement plans is not enough. Earnings caps on 401(k)s are reached very quickly for high-income earners, so they look for other tax advantaged means of building their wealth.

Companies are under increasing pressure to offer creative alternatives that are different from the norm — alternatives that cause executives to stay and stake their financial future on the company’s success.

The opportunity for insurance professionals

This is where insurance professionals can really add value. The increasing need for executive benefits is a special chance to provide customized life insurance solutions that solve critical business problems.

All companies are vulnerable, especially ones that rely on employees with specialized knowledge or industries that often lose employees to competitors.

Representatives who know how to identify an opportunity and consult on executive benefits strategies can see themselves as valuable insurance professionals instead of just salespersons.

Starting the conversation

The potential to lose a key executive is usually not obvious until it actually does take place. Then the alternatives are few and costly.

Advisors can help owners and human resource leaders with these discussions by asking probing and considerate questions:

» How many of your leaders are truly irreplaceable?

» Have you lost any executives to competitors recently?

» Are your top performers maxing out their 401(k)s?

» Would you be open to a tax-efficient strategy that rewards and retains your leadership team?

These questions naturally give rise to conversations regarding customized

executive benefit programs — and how life insurance can solve these issues.

Major issues that executive benefits solve

Every business is faced with its own challenges in implementing effective executive benefits, most commonly:

» Keeping good employees, especially when other companies are recruiting in large quantities.

» Addressing the compensation gap — providing substantial additional compensation when executives max out on their 401(k)s.

» Securing the business in case a key leader quits, is injured or passes away.

Properly designed executive benefit plans — most financed through permanent life insurance — accomplish all three simultaneously.

Guaranteed issue: The foundation of executive benefit programs

One of the core strengths of executive benefit programs has always been the ability to secure guaranteed issue underwriting — removing traditional barriers and making implementation seamless for businesses.

Many carriers offer GI coverage based on simple census enrollment, eliminating the need for medical exams. For employer-owned plans, coverage typically starts with five to nine eligible executives, while employee-owned designs may require 10 or more participants.

The maximum face amount varies based on policy ownership and the product selected, and — with some carriers — can increase if their Executive Carve-Out Disability Insurance is also implemented. But obtaining coverage of up to $5 million on a guaranteed issue basis is possible.

Plan design

Executive benefits can be designed to fit the company’s objectives and budget.

Employer-owned options are:

» Deferred compensation plans

» Retention bonus plans

» Endorsement split dollar arrangements

» Key person

Employee-owned options include:

» Executive bonus plans

» Restrictive executive bonus plans

» Loan regime split dollar arrangements

» Cross purchase buy-sell cases using the insurance-only LCC

Employee-owned plans are portable and flexible, which is an excellent advantage for executives.

Product solutions in executive benefits

Product preferences in executive benefits are also shifting. While variable life products once dominated the space, whole life insurance has gained popularity due to its guaranteed cash value accumulation and guaranteed death benefit.

Today, carriers offer GI whole life solutions across a variety of product designs, including regular full pay whole life, limited pay whole life such as ten pay and paid up at 65 whole life, and high early cash value whole life. Certain policies are designed to be nearly balance sheet neutral, offering up to 95% of the premium paid as cash value after the first year, making them highly attractive to businesses, especially a public corporation that prefers not to see a negative hit on its balance sheet due to the premium paid.

Additionally, some carriers have expanded their offerings by providing a long-term care rider that can be added to any employee-owned policy. This indemnity-based LTC rider allows executives to accelerate a percentage of the death benefit dollar for dollar if they are unable to perform two of six activities of daily living.

The LTC rider has become a game-changer in the executive benefits marketplace — offered as GI, it provides both flexibility and added protection without additional underwriting requirements.

Beyond LTC, several riders commonly found in the individual market are also available in executive benefit plans, including:

Waiver of premium rider: Waives premium payments if the insured suffers a qualifying disability, ensuring the policy remains active during a period of income loss. Paid-up additions rider: Allows the policyowner to purchase additional life

insurance and build cash value by using policy dividends or additional premium payments — on a paid-up basis.

Accelerated benefits rider: Provides the insured with early access to a portion of the death benefit if diagnosed as terminally or chronically ill.

Index participation feature rider: Gives the policyholder the option to allocate a portion of their paid-up additions cash value toward receiving a dividend adjustment based on the S&P 500 Index performance — subject to caps and floors. This feature adds growth potential while preserving the guarantees of whole life.

Seizing the moment

The executive benefits market is growing, and if businesses do not keep up, their top workers can be poached by rivals with better benefits packages.

For insurance professionals, this remains a wide-open opportunity. You don’t have to be the expert. That’s what strong relationships are for. When you team up with someone who specializes in executive benefits, you can move cases across the finish line and position yourself as the advisor who solves real business challenges.

The wisest advisors don’t wait for a person to have a $25 million problem like Moelis & Co. before they talk. Instead, they help their clients make plans.

The firms that prosper in the coming decade will be those that plan ahead, make sound plans and invest to retain their competent employees. The same goes for advisors.

Executive benefit planning does not constitute selling a policy — it is resolving real problems and establishing long-lasting relationships that are worthwhile for many years to come.

For those who want to enter this field, the $42 billion market chance is obvious. Now is the time to take it.

Milo Markovic is director of life and disability income brokerage at True Wealth Strategies. Milo may be contacted at milo.markovic@ innfeedback.com.

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ANNUITY WIRES

Annuity sales set another record in Q2

After a flat first quarter, annuity sales roared again to a new record with more than $116 billion in Q2.

QUOTABLE

Total annuity sales hit a record $223 billion in the first half of 2025, 3% above prior-year results, according to preliminary results from LIMRA’s U.S. Individual Annuity Sales Survey, which represents 89% of the total U.S. annuity market.

Fixed-rate deferred annuity sales led the way with $44.2 billion in the second quarter, 9% higher than second-quarter 2024 sales. For the year, FRD annuity sales totaled $83.9 billion, level with prior-year results.

Other sales highlights include registered index-linked annuities setting a new quarterly record. In the second quarter of 2025, RILA sales were $19.6 billion, 20% higher than the prior year. In the first half of 2025, RILA sales jumped 20% year over year to $37 billion.

While traditional variable annuity sales fell 4% to $14.7 billion in the second quarter, the decline largely was due to April’s market volatility. For the year, traditional VA sales were $30 billion, a 3% gain year over year.

SOME PHL VARIABLE POLICYHOLDERS ‘UNLIKELY’ TO BE MADE WHOLE, MAIS SAYS

Some PHL Variable policyholders are “unlikely” to ever receive their full benefits, Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Andrew Mais said in a memorandum filed with the court.

Mais made the admission as part of a request to amend the moratorium on benefits in place since May 2024. The moratorium helped prevent “a run on the bank,” Mais wrote, while regulators created a rehabilitation plan.

That plan, due later this year, is dependent on the outcome of an effort to sell all or parts of the PHL Variable business, Mais explained.

Mais is asking the court to loosen the moratorium on PHL Variable policies to allow for more flexible distributions for universal life and fixed indexed annuity owners.

The rehabilitator team submitted an affidavit from Mark Stukowski, vice president and principal at Lewis & Ellis, an actuarial consulting firm.

There are about 24,000 outstanding PHL fixed indexed annuity contracts, Stukowski said. The average account value of those contracts is $70,000. About 95% of the FIAs have account values at or below $250,000, the state guaranty limit for annuity contracts, Stukowski added.

SURVEY: WORKERS WANT LIFETIMEINCOME OPTIONS IN 401(K) PLANS

And 87% think employers have a responsibility to help them achieve retirement income security.

This is according to a survey of over 2,000 401(k) participants by Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, and the TIAA Institute. When asked in 2021,

We see a slight softening in the market, which could result in a contraction [of annuity sales] in the second half of the year.”

— Bryan Hodgens, senior vice president and head of LIMRA research

fewer than 6 in 10 workers said that their employers had a responsibility to provide access to lifetime income in retirement.

TRADE GROUP APPEALS COURT RULING KEEPING FIDUCIARY RULE ALIVE

The Federation of Americans for Consumer Choice appealed a mixed ruling that keeps alive the Department of Labor’s attempts to reinterpret fiduciary duty.

District Judge Ed Kinkeade accepted the 2023 findings and recommendations of a U.S. magistrate judge, who concluded that portions of the DOL’s guidance under Prohibited Transaction Exemption 2020-02 exceeded the agency’s authority and were “arbitrary and capricious.”

Kinkeade’s order vacated specific rollover-related provisions, including the rule allowing a single IRA rollover to be considered the start of an ongoing fiduciary relationship. Kinkeade did not dismiss the DOL’s entire rule. Other portions remain in effect.

FACC is asking the court to strike the entire rule.

Mais

From ‘live on’ to ‘leave on’

How an annuity death benefit rider can strengthen legacy planning.

By Paul Garofoli

When it comes to insurance products, here’s one piece of advice: The key isn’t what the product is — it’s what the client wants to do with it. We’ve been trained to think each product has one specific purpose. For example:

» An annuity is the “live on” product. It provides a secure retirement by way of income that can’t be outlived.

» Life insurance is the “leave on” product. It provides for legacy and estate planning.

Let’s expand our thinking by considering three current and compelling factors.

1. We’re in the midst of the great intergenerational wealth transfer era. As much as $124 trillion is expected to pass from the baby boom generation to millennials and Generation X by 2048, according to Cerulli Associates.

2. Annuity sales are at record levels. LIMRA reported U.S. annuity sales totaled $434.1 billion in 2024.

3. It’s common for annuity owners to die with an annuity partially or fully intact, given the structure of many annuity contracts.

When live on becomes leave on

At some point, your clients will pivot and decide that some or all their assets — particularly their annuities — are destined for someone else. That’s when live on becomes leave on. When that occurs, there’s a strategic lever within easy reach — annuity death benefit riders.

But first, how can you help a client determine the ultimate purpose of the assets they own? A few simple but probing questions will do the trick.

What is this asset? The answer can help you understand what the client knows about the asset.

At some point, your clients will pivot and decide that some or all their assets — particularly their annuities — are destined for someone else. That’s when live on becomes leave on.

What is this for? This answer helps you determine whether the client understands the benefits of owning the asset. Who is this for? This is probably the key question to help you figure out whether the asset benefits the client while living or someone else when the client dies.

Many consumers easily confuse product and purpose. Don’t assume the client knows the difference. Ask the questions.

Annuity death benefit riders

Let’s circle back to death benefit riders. For some, they may be a good option to enhance an annuity’s legacy value. Although death benefit riders are not as common as income riders, both share similarities in design. These two riders:

» Are usually associated with a fixed indexed or variable annuity.

» Offer some kind of “rollup,” a predetermined rate of growth allowing a guaranteed accumulation of the death benefit value.

» Feature an accumulation period during which the rollup is active and the death benefit grows.

» Come with a fee based on the growing death benefit value and charged against the account value.

» May have a minimum eligibility age.

And much like its income rider counterpart, a “free” death benefit rider usually features an offset in product design to accommodate the feature. Because the benefit does add value to the underlying annuity, there must be a cost. That expense can be covered by an outright fee or it can come in the form of a modification to the policy. Modifications include a lower cap or participation rate, restricted liquidity, or some other benefit give-back.

As you explore the menu of death benefit riders, remember to ask whether the rider pays out in a lump sum or over five years. Both options have a place, but the value of a five-year payout may outpace that of a lump sum. Also, think about how long a rider will have to accumulate value. Some riders have a growth limit of 10 or 15 years. For clients with a longer life expectancy, the value of the benefit with

If you have clients who worry about taking required minimum distributions, that may be a sign that they intend to leave an annuity as a legacy.

this limitation will diminish the longer the client lives.

The ideal client

The ideal clients for a death benefit rider are 65-to-80-year-olds who intend to leave the asset to someone else. That is, they don’t need it for living expenses in retirement. Perhaps, due to health issues, these ideal clients don’t qualify for life insurance or they may want to avoid underwriting. They may also want to preserve their options to enjoy the benefits of the annuity while living. The death benefit rider then becomes a “just in case” outcome.

Here are other prospects for an annuity with a death benefit rider.

THE UNINSURABLE

This is a client who may understand the value of life insurance but may not qualify for it. An annuity death benefit doesn’t have the same attributes as life insurance — namely a tax-free death benefit — but it’s a reasonable alternative. And although you don’t get the immediate leveraging of traditional life insurance, the value can build over time — especially with riders that don’t have a fixed expiration date on the accumulation period.

LIFE POLICY RESCUE

For a variety of reasons — faulty assumptions, underperformance or premium payment fatigue — an individual’s cash-value life insurance policy may lapse. But a policy can be rescued, thanks to a tax-free 1035 exchange. This allows you to exchange a life insurance policy for an annuity, allowing the death benefit value to recover over time with a death benefit rider.

RMD RELUCTANT

If you have clients who worry about taking required minimum distributions, that

may be a sign that they intend to leave an annuity as a legacy. An annuity death benefit rider can effectively allow for “having your cake and leaving it too.” Because most death benefit riders include a dollarfor-dollar offset, qualified account holders can satisfy the RMD requirement and still see the death benefit grow.

SPOUSAL CONTINUATION

Most annuities designate one person as the owner, the same person as the annuitant and the spouse as the beneficiary. When an owner dies, the proceeds are payable to the surviving spouse. Many surviving spouses, however, choose to continue the annuity under spousal continuation.

Many death benefit riders provide up to three options for the spouse-beneficiary.

1. Receive the death benefit value either in a lump sum or over time.

2. Elect spousal continuation and continue the death benefit rider.

3. Step up the annuity’s accumulation value to the death benefit. Here, the rider ends.

Death benefit riders are a small but growing feature in the array of annuity options. By helping consumers identify the purpose of their assets, you can confidently guide clients and prospects toward the legacy outcome they envision.

Paul Garofoli, FLMI, RICP, is a regional vice president of sales in individual annuities at The Standard. Contact him at paul.garofoli@ innfeedback.com.

HEALTH/BENEFITS

How to get younger prospects to consider LTCi

Grappling with financial obligations and professional commitments, many consumers in their 40s and early 50s may not be thinking of purchasing long-term care insurance. But savvy agents and advisors know that it may be in their best interest to take a serious look at LTCi and the many benefits it provides.

Craig Roers, marketing manager at Thrivent, shared some tips on getting younger prospects interested in LTCi.

1. Reinforce the importance of a written strategy: “A written strategy for extended care outlines preferences for where care will happen, who will provide it and how it will be funded.”

2. Show them the risks of longevity: Most financial advisors plan for retirement income to last until age 95 for their clients, even though the average life expectancy in the U.S. is under 78. But the average health span — years lived in good health — is just under 64. “This reinforces the need for extended care planning,” Roers said. “Clients could potentially live with a chronic condition for years, and if not addressed, rising care costs could threaten their financial plan and long-term goals. Personalize the message for your clients — ask them to consider their family history and possible future health risks. This may help them see why planning sooner matters.”

3. Explain how time boosts affordability and insurability: Clients buy insurance with their age and health — two key factors in pricing and eligibility, Roers said. Help younger LTCi prospects and clients “understand that the earlier they apply, the higher the likelihood they’ll benefit from lower premiums and better underwriting. Explain to them that waiting to act can lead to higher costs and a greater risk of becoming uninsurable,” he added.

Financial advisors can also encourage younger LTCi prospects and clients to choose accelerated payment options — like Pay to 65, 10-pay or 20-pay — so that LTCi premiums are paid before they retire.

HEALTH INSURERS VOW TO FIX PRIOR AUTHORIZATION

Two words strike fear into many hearts: “prior authorization.” But health insurers pledged to fix the prior authorization system that has vexed patients and health care providers alike. Insurers told the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that they will focus on connecting patients more quickly to the

care they need while minimizing administrative burdens on providers.

For patients, these commitments will result in faster, more direct access to appropriate treatments and medical services with fewer challenges navigating the health system. For providers, these commitments will streamline prior authorization workflows, allowing for a more efficient and transparent process overall, while ensuring evidence-based care for their patients.

Participating health plans committed to standardizing electronic prior authorization, reducing the scope of claims subject to prior authorization and ensuring medical review of nonapproved requests.

Only 1 in 500 health insurance claims denials is appealed.

Source: KFF

The forecast is clear; Americans will face big brutal health care increases this summer in the individual marketplace.”

— Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA

VERMONT, WEST VIRGINIA ARE MOST EXPENSIVE STATES FOR HEALTH INSURANCE

Residents of Vermont and West Virginia have to dig deeper into their pockets than their counterparts in other states to pay for Affordable Care Act coverage, according to WalletHub.

The average monthly premium for a Silver plan in Vermont is $1,275, representing nearly 20% of the average monthly income in the state. In West Virginia, with an average monthly premium of $908, residents spend nearly 19% of their income on health insurance.

Those who live in New Hampshire have the lowest percentage of monthly average spend on health insurance, spending an average of $471 per month, or 4% of average income.

LOW-INCOME PATIENTS LESS LIKELY TO CHALLENGE DENIALS

Low-income patients are less likely to challenge denials of health coverage than those who have annual incomes above $50,000. That’s according to the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Researchers found low-income patients were 43% more likely than high-income patients to have their health insurance claims denied for such preventive care as cancer, diabetes, cholesterol and depression screenings, as well as contraception administration and wellness visits. And historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups were roughly twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to incur denials.

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The silent threat of disability to ultrasuccessful clients

Why protecting clients from the risk of a disability event can save their organizations.

By Sean McNiff

Whether your client is a corporation, a business owner, a private equity firm or an employee stock ownership plan, their success goes well beyond figures on a spreadsheet. Although the bottom line is undeniably critical, overlooked contractual obligations can bring even the most stable company to its knees.

These silent threats often lie dormant until a triggering event, such as a disability, sends ripple effects through the organization. Without the right planning and protection in place, the financial consequences can be devastating. Sophisticated clients rely on equally sophisticated advisors to navigate these risks and ensure continuity. Here are five scenarios where proactive insurance planning is essential.

1. Disability of a key person

Contractual key person insurance obligations are most often found in the mergers and acquisitions arena. They’re established when one company buys another

company and the acquisition agreement or purchase agreement requires key person insurance. In this scenario, the average advisor will traditionally recommend life insurance on the named key executive, yet statistics have shown us that a person is up to four times more likely to become disabled than die during their working years.

Take, for example, a private equity firm in Chicago that faced a major disruption when the CEO of one of its portfolio companies suffered a stroke. The firm had purchased key person life insurance, but the executive survived, highlighting a critical gap in its risk management strategy. Without key person disability coverage in place, the firm had to absorb the financial strain of keeping the business afloat and finding a replacement leader.

After reassessing its approach, the firm chose to expand its key person insurance requirements to include disability coverage. For a newly acquired portfolio company, the firm expanded its key person insurance requirements to include both life and disability coverage. To create comprehensive protection for the individual driving the success of the investment, the firm secured $6 million in key person disability coverage to mirror its key person life requirement.

This shift helped the firm better protect its investments going forward, offering a more balanced approach to managing the risks associated with losing a key executive, whether temporarily or permanently.

2. Disability of a business owner in a buy-sell agreement

Buy-sell agreements are a staple in business succession planning, ensuring that ownership transitions smoothly if a partner dies. But what if the partner becomes disabled?

Real-world scenario: Three partners in a successful New Jersey paving and excavating company had a buy-sell agreement requiring repurchase of a disabled partner’s $15 million equity stake after 12 months. However, there was no funding mechanism in place.

The partners quickly realized the need for two key protections: (1) financial security for the disabled partner and (2) a reliable, nondisruptive funding solution for the business. Customized “ownoccupation” buy-sell disability insurance provided a lump-sum benefit, above and beyond traditional U.S. coverage. This ensured the agreement could be executed without jeopardizing the company’s financial health.

In cases where equity values exceed traditional market limits, advisors must look

to surplus lines carriers, such as Lloyd’s of London, to design buy-sell disability solutions with the capacity to fully fund the buyout obligation. These carriers can provide benefits exceeding $100 million per person, making them indispensable for high-value partnerships.

3. Disability of a borrower

Many successful entrepreneurs make the strategic decision to take out loans to fuel business growth — whether to expand operations, invest in talent or acquire new assets. But with this leverage comes an often-overlooked critical risk: the personal obligation to repay that loan, even in the event of a disabling illness or injury.

Unlike operational risks that can be mitigated through planning or delegation, a disability can abruptly halt an entrepreneur’s ability to generate income while the loan payments continue. This creates a significant financial vulnerability that deserves careful consideration when evaluating contractual obligations.

Case in point: A successful dermatologist expanded her practice by adding several new clinics and specialized testing labs. To fund the growth, she secured a $2.3 million loan. As part of the lending requirements, the financial institution requested a disability insurance policy to protect the balance of the loan in case she became disabled and unable to meet repayment obligations.

To satisfy the lender and protect her growing business, she secured a loan indemnification disability policy that pays $38,334 per month over five years, matching the loan’s amortization schedule. Through a customized policy with a reducing benefit structure, the coverage mirrors the declining loan balance, delivering adequate protection while helping the doctor conserve premium dollars.

4. Disability during severance

Severance agreements often include continued income promises for a former executive. But what happens if that executive becomes disabled?

Take, for example, a regional bank that recently terminated four senior executives following a merger with a larger partner. As part of their severance packages, each executive was promised post-termination benefits for varied durations. All four had previously been covered under the bank’s

group long-term disability plan, which provided a monthly benefit of $10,000 per month, the plan’s maximum.

At first glance, the bank’s exposure appeared minimal. However, a significant liability emerged when it became clear that the group LTD coverage terminated along with the executives’ employment. One executive, age 45, had been guaranteed extended disability benefits for two years, placing the bank at risk for up to $2.64 million in unfunded liability ($10,000 per month through age 67) in the event of a

is established. As the plan matures, so do the account values of its shareholders. In many cases, long-tenured employees and senior executives accumulate balances well over $1 million. A disabling event for one of these key participants not only removes their contribution to the business but also triggers a potentially large, unplanned repurchase obligation under the ESOP — at precisely the time the company may be least equipped to handle it.

To solve for this, companies are increasingly turning to guaranteed-issue

We live in an era when contractual obligations can either safeguard or sabotage a business, and the difference lies in preparation.

permanent disability. To address this, a severance disability insurance policy was delivered that transferred the risk away from the bank, safeguarding both the executive’s benefits and the organization’s financial stability.

5. Disability of an ESOP shareholder

Employee stock ownership plans are powerful tools for business succession and employee engagement. But they come with an often-overlooked contractual burden: the obligation to repurchase shares upon a participant’s death, retirement or disability.

Many companies protect their ESOP loan structure with key person life insurance on the selling shareholder, but few account for the equally devastating risk of that same key person becoming disabled.

In a leveraged ESOP transaction, if a key shareholder who personally guaranteed a loan or was integral to business operations becomes disabled, the company may be left with both a leadership vacuum and an inability to service its debt. Life insurance offers no protection if the individual is alive but unable to work. This is where key person disability insurance becomes critical — providing liquidity during a period of instability and preserving the ESOP structure from early collapse or forced restructuring.

But the risk doesn’t end once the ESOP

ESOP disability insurance, which provides lump-sum disability benefits specifically designed to fund stock repurchase obligations. These programs can be implemented at the corporate level with simplified census-based enrollment, no medical underwriting and significant premium discounts based on group volume. This ensures that disability doesn’t derail the long-term financial health of the ESOP itself.

We live in an era when contractual obligations can either safeguard or sabotage a business, and the difference lies in preparation. While death is an obvious planning point, disability is often a silent saboteur. Advisors who recognize this reality, and who partner with specialized carriers to solve for it, deliver immense value to their clients.

Your ultrasuccessful clients aren’t just looking for protection; they’re also looking for foresight. They’re looking for you. Because the next step they take might trigger a silent threat buried deep in a contract, and by then, it may be too late.

Sean McNiff is the vice president of business development and marketing at Exceptional Risk Advisors, Saddle Brook, N.J. Contact him at sean.mcniff@innfeedback.com.

Optimism is key to retirement readiness

A successful retirement is about more than accumulating enough savings — it’s also about having the right mindset. That’s the word from the Nationwide Retirement Institute and The American College, which found optimists are 237% more likely than pessimists to be financially prepared to live to 100. Optimists also are 75% more likely to save at least 10% of their income for retirement.

A positive mindset is strongly related to an expected planning horizon, the report revealed. Respondents who held a more positive mindset about their well-being over the next 15 years were far more likely to believe that they need to plan for expenses to at least age 95 in retirement. Although only 7% of those who were pessimistic about their well-being said they would plan to fund their expenses to age 95, more than 1 in 3 of those who were highly optimistic about their well-being planned to fund expenses to at least age 95.

Retirement preparation appears to be motivated by beliefs about longevity and a more positive mindset about the future, according to the report. This may be because those who are more optimistic about their future health believe that they need to plan for a longer period of lifestyle spending in retirement.

The gender gap in financial well-being

Women are significantly more likely than men to report poor financial health (25% vs. 18%) and to experience the emotional and physical toll of financial stress. Though 69% of women rate their financial literacy as “good,” this is accompanied by lower confidence in managing financial change and a greater likelihood of feeling anxious, ashamed or angry about their finances.

Those were among the findings from nudge, a financial well-being program partner. Nudge also found the emotional impact

When clients are caregivers

Most financial advisors (85%) are working with clients who have caregiving responsibilities, and an even greater number of advisors (88%) agree that caregiving is more financially challenging than their clients expected. What are some of caregivers’ most common financial challenges?

13% of women report having no sources of financial education at all, compared to 8% of men.

Source: nudge

According to Ken Cella, principal and head of external affairs at Edward Jones, caregiving is not only emotionally taxing, but it can be financially challenging as well. “Our recent study identified rising costs and inflation (56%) and inadequate retirement savings (42%) as the most common financial challenges that caregivers face today,” Cella said. “A story we hear all too often is that caregivers need to dip into their own retirement savings simply to keep up with these rising expenses, which jeopardizes their financial security.”

Edward Jones found that nearly all caregivers (95%) have some level of financial concern about their retirement. It’s common for caregivers to make financial sacrifices to ensure they are providing the best care possible — the survey found half of caregivers (51%) have had to cut back on personal spending due to their caregiving responsibilities.

of financial insecurity is significantly more profound among women. Nearly twice as many women as men report feeling ashamed (12% vs. 6%), anxious (16% vs. 9%), or angry (12% vs. 8%) about their financial situation. When asked to assess their financial health, 25% of women rated it as poor or very poor, compared to only 18% of men.

Debt is a major contributor to stress among women. More than half (55%) say their debt negatively impacts their stress levels. This stress isn’t only mental — it often manifests itself physically. Women report experiencing stress-related symptoms such as sleep disruption (31%), fatigue (24%) and migraines (21%).

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As incomes increase, the issue and participation limits of traditional Disability Insurance carriers decrease. To properly insure a highly compensated individual at 65% of income, multiple disability income plans are often required and are layered to provide sufficient income protection.

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Why financial professionals should enter the 403(b) K-12 educator market

How to address the criticisms about how this market works and embrace the opportunities that it opens. • Jim Kais

The K-12 educator market, representing less than 10% of 403(b) plan participants, represents a largely untapped opportunity for financial professionals.

Teachers, administrators and other staff in the public school system face a complex set of retirement planning challenges. Therefore, they need professional guidance to navigate their options. However, some financial professionals avoid this space due to misconceptions and criticisms.

Before diving into the criticisms about how this market works and examining the opportunities for financial professionals, it’s important we understand the trends over the past several decades that have made 403(b) plans attractive and necessary in the K-12 public school system, as well as the unique retirement planning needs of educators.

Understanding the 403(b) K-12 educator market

In the K-12 public school system, the 403(b) plan is meant to supplement the pension system, which has been the cornerstone of most educators’ retirement income since it was first established in 1958. However, the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans in recent years has resulted in a changing of the guard, so to speak, with more responsibility for retirement savings shifting to educators due to pensions becoming underfunded.

Two primary trends impacting pension liability are demographics and the state of funding obligations. In terms of demographics, there are more educators

retiring and drawing pension benefits than there are educators entering the profession and helping fund the pensions during their working years. Moreover, 55% of educators say they are thinking about leaving the profession earlier than planned, according to a National Education Association member survey. This could result in fewer teachers staying in the profession long enough to become eligible for a pension. From a pension obligations standpoint, states have been challenged by rising obligations due to the demographic shifts widening the gap in funding liabilities.

Given a significant number of teachers leaving the profession before becoming eligible for their pension, 403(b) plans can play a crucial role in helping close the income gap for educators in retirement. In addition, the side effect of comprehensive retirement benefits for educators is improved fiscal health, which can directly impact both physical and mental health. This leads to better employee satisfaction and productivity and retention of talent.

Educators’ unique retirement planning needs

Educators have unique retirement planning needs that financial professionals entering this market must understand. Most school districts today annualize their salaries for educators, which leads to a consistent pay schedule throughout the year, including the summer months. Yet due to the nature of their daily schedule, educators rarely have breaks throughout the day to consider or plan for their future.

Educators’ time is in constant demand by students, peers, administrators and parents. This means that financial professionals who enter this space must be flexible and strategic about how they engage with educators.

For some financial professionals, this might mean coming into a classroom to meet with a client during their free or flex period during the school day instead of expecting the client to meet with them at their office. It could also mean hosting an information session at the school prior to the start of the school day or in the evenings.

Opportunities for financial professionals

The 403(b) K-12 educator market offers financial professionals a stable client base that is generally committed to long-term relationships, which aligns well with the financial planning process. Educators, regardless of salary, are also motivated to improve their financial security and are seeking clarity about their retirement options and how to manage their 403(b) accounts effectively.

Specifically, educators want help evaluating investment options and understanding tax considerations that could impact their finances when they reach retirement. Financial professionals who can help educators increase their financial literacy, assess the options available within their 403(b) plan and make informed choices are highly valuable. Advisors in this market can create a loyal, stable customer base with new and emerging household financial planning needs over the course of their lives.

With 403(b) plan participation rates for school districts ranging from less than 7.53% to more than 75.69%, according to the National Tax-Deferred Savings Association, the opportunity for financial professionals to add value and change educators’ lives is significant.

Understanding school districts’ goals and objectives when it comes to their employee benefits, having a strong comprehension of teacher retirement systems,

and designing a personalized plan for each educator are keys to having a successful career supporting educators with their retirement options.

Research also shows that educators in 403(b) plans who work with a financial professional have better retirement outcomes. According to an Equitable survey of 1,001 K-12 educators, those who used a 403(b) financial professional had an average annual contribution of $9,000, as opposed to an annual contribution of $5,300 for employees who elected to not work with a financial professional. In addition, the survey found K-12 educators who work with a financial professional were likely to have a higher median retirement account balance of $48,000 compared to $39,000 for those who do not work with one.

Addressing criticisms of how the 403(b) K-12 market works

Despite the growth potential in this market, some persistent criticisms often discourage financial professionals from entering this market.

Criticism: Financial professionals are taking advantage of educators with excessive fees.

Critics of annuities argue these products have high fees and are overrecommended. Like in any industry, there are always bad actors, but the reality is that most financial professionals are reputable, transparent and focused on the financial security of their clients. And while 403(b) plans are not subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, financial professionals are still subject to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation Best Interest, which is enforced by the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and requires all retail securities recommendations to be in the client’s best interest.

Regarding their cost, annuities are long-term investments that offer a variety of benefits and guarantees based on the claims-paying ability of the issuing life insurance company. Annuities will have different fees than, for instance, a mutual fund, which does not offer such benefits or guarantees. Financial professionals who are transparent about fees can help educators make better-informed decisions about which products to choose

and how to avoid unnecessary costs.

This is a market where the need for education is extremely high, so financial professionals must provide clarity on fees and help educators choose options that balance cost with value.

Criticism: School districts should limit provider choices.

Another frequent criticism of the 403(b) structure in K-12 districts is that the number of providers offered

where participants can choose the advisors, investments and providers they most like to work with.

Embracing the market

The 403(b) K-12 educator market is full of potential for financial professionals willing to approach it with integrity, transparency and a focus on service. Financial professionals should not shy away from questions their clients may

The value of an advisor to 403(b) educators

Higher savings: Those working with a financial professional have a higher median account balance of $48,000, compared with $39,000 among those surveyed who do not work with a financial professional. In addition, educators who work with a financial professional have higher average annual contributions ($9,000 versus $5,300) and increase their contributions more frequently. More than 7 in 10 believe they contribute more and started contributing earlier because of a financial professional.

Increased confidence: Educators who work with a financial professional feel better prepared to deal with pressures, such as rising health care costs, a lack of self-preparation for retirement, inflation-fueled increases in the cost of living and reduced spending power.

Improved engagement: More than three-quarters of educators who work with a 403(b) financial professional monitor their account performance (76% versus 57%), and they are almost twice as likely to monitor different investment types (40% versus 21%).

Source: Equitable

is too high. Some critics and adjacent industry experts suggest that limiting retirement plan providers can reduce decision fatigue.

A one-size-fits-all approach misses the mark and has proven to have a negative impact on participant outcomes. Participant choice in providers and financial professionals is key to ensuring that the best products and solutions are competing to drive the right outcomes for educators. 403(b) plans are often compared with their distant cousin, 401(k) plans, in the private sector. The reality is that they are more like payroll deductible individual retirement accounts. As one of the fastest-growing retirement asset vehicles, IRAs thrive because of their open market concept,

have about these common criticisms. Instead, by addressing them when appropriate, providing ethical advice and helping educators navigate complex decisions, financial professionals can become a trusted part of educators’ financial journeys.

Embracing this market can help financial professionals tap into a valuable client base and play a pivotal role in helping America’s teachers secure their financial well-being so they can pursue long and fulfilling lives.

Jim Kais is head of group retirement at Equitable, where he oversees its 403(b), 401(k) and 457 businesses. Contact him at jim.kais@innfeedback.com.

The Pied Piper Principle: Why the best leaders attract the best talent

Attitude makes all the difference in attracting people to follow you.

By Casey Cunningham

You’re running lean. Your top performers are juggling too much. Recruiting feels like fishing in an empty pond. And every week, it gets harder to keep your best people engaged — let alone attract new ones.

You’ve tried incentives, training, team building. Still, something’s missing. Deep down, you know what it is: You need to be the kind of leader people want to follow.

Some leaders walk into a room and immediately elevate it. Their teams follow them — not out of obligation but out of belief. In the insurance world, where talent gaps widen and retention risks grow each year, these magnetic leaders stand apart. They are the Pied Pipers of business — drawing the best people, producing the strongest results and making

it look effortless. It isn’t. But it is simple. At the heart of their influence is attitude. Not the “rah-rah” kind. We’re talking about a leader’s core stance: their standards, their energy, their refusal to settle for average. And when this attitude is backed by a smart, people-first strategy, it turns teams into movements.

So how does a leader become someone everyone wants to work for?

1. Start with clarity: Vision isn’t optional.

Top talent doesn’t follow ambiguity. It follows vision. A Pied Piper leader has a plan — not only for the company but also for the people inside it. That means:

» Defining where the business is going.

» Outlining how each role contributes to that direction.

» Making sure the “why” is louder than the “what.”

A clear, compelling vision acts like gravity. It pulls people in and keeps them centered, even when the market shifts.

And this vision needs to be repeated consistently. Leaders who articulate the same mission in every meeting, memo and milestone build a drumbeat that keeps teams aligned. That consistency is rare. But it’s magnetic.

At the heart of their influence is attitude. Not the “rah-rah” kind. We’re talking about a leader’s core stance: their standards, their energy, their refusal to settle for average.

The best teams don’t only work hard — they also work inspired. And inspiration comes from leaders who insist on better: better effort, better thinking, better results.

Leaders must also connect the vision to real outcomes. A generic mission statement won’t cut it. It must be specific, measurable and felt by the people doing the work. Think of the difference between “We’re a customer-first agency” versus “We aim to resolve 90% of customer claims within 24 hours.” One informs. The other inspires.

The best leaders do both.

2. Elevate the standard: Culture is the differentiator.

Insurance leaders can no longer rely on compensation alone. Today, culture is the currency. The best people want to be part of something that demands more and delivers more. Pied Piper leaders:

» Reject mediocrity.

» Set the bar high for performance and behavior.

» Celebrate improvement as much as achievement.

This kind of culture self-selects excellence. Those who aren’t ready to grow won’t stay. Those who are will thrive.

The best teams don’t only work hard — they also work inspired. And inspiration comes from leaders who insist on better: better effort, better thinking, better results. Not because they’re never satisfied but because they believe in their people’s potential.

That belief is communicated in a hundred micromoments: feedback that challenges instead of placates; recognition that’s earned, not automated; coaching that expects growth. These signals add up. They say, “We believe in you enough to expect more.” And that belief drives performance.

3. Play to strengths: Match talent to timing.

The insurance industry is cyclical. So is talent readiness. Smart leaders don’t hire

only for skills — they align people with the moments when they’re needed most. This requires:

» Understanding each team member’s peak capabilities.

» Timing roles and projects to match energy and potential.

» Avoiding the trap of “one-size-fits-all” management.

When people feel seen and strategically placed, they bring their best. Not only sometimes but also consistently.

It’s not about micromanaging; it’s about orchestration. Just as a conductor brings in the strings or the brass at the right moment, great leaders know when to spotlight talent. That intentional timing can be the difference between a good quarter and a breakout one.

To do this well, leaders need to spend time observing not only performance but also potential. Who lights up when given responsibility? Who shows signs of burnout? The answers often hide in plain sight.

4. Drive ownership: Everyone leads something.

In organizations led by Pied Piper-style leaders, there’s no room for passengers. Everyone owns something. Everyone is accountable. How?

» By setting clear outcomes, not just tasks

» By inviting people to solve, not just do

» By rewarding initiative, not compliance

This shifts the energy from “What do I have to do?” to “What difference can I make?” And that shift is contagious.

When individuals feel they have ownership, they take initiative. They raise

flags sooner, chase opportunities faster and rally others without needing to be asked. That’s how real momentum builds — from within.

Ownership also requires permission to fail. Pied Piper leaders create safety nets — not for excuses but for innovation. When people know they won’t be punished for taking a smart risk, they’ll stretch further. That stretch becomes the difference between predictable growth and exponential impact.

5. Model the attitude: Energy cascades down.

Culture follows the leader. Always. Teams will echo whatever tone the leader sets. If you’re energized, clear and unflinching in your values, so is your team.

Insurance leaders face unique pressures: compliance, market volatility, tech disruption. But those who maintain a composed, forward-driving presence inspire the same in others.

People don’t want perfection. They want to follow someone who knows where they’re going and refuses to lower the bar along the way.

That kind of presence isn’t about charisma — it’s about consistency. It’s about bringing energy on the hard days and optimism in the face of uncertainty.

Leaders who do this build trust fast — and retain it.

Let’s be clear: Energy doesn’t mean high volume. It means high conviction. You don’t have to be loud to be magnetic. You just have to be clear on what matters and live it, visibly, every day.

Stop and reflect

If you’re being honest — are people following your title or your energy?

The difference matters. Because in a market where everyone is competing for top performers, the true advantage isn’t the product. It’s the person leading the team.

Be the one they want to follow. Everything else follows from there.

Casey Cunningham is the CEO and founder of XINNIX. Contact her at casey.cunningham@ innfeedback.com.

the Know In-depth Discussions With Industry Experts

What’s next for the Federal Insurance Office?

Why the FIO continues to face calls for its abolition.

BY DOUG BAILEY

Afederal office of insurance created just 15 years ago, designed to address weaknesses in financial oversight, has been an endangered species since the day it was born.

Despite the U.S. insurance industry being a cornerstone of the national economy and a critical player in global financial markets, regulation of it has been left to individual states. This varying patchwork system of oversight of such a vital segment of the U.S. economy was seen by some as outdated in the worldwide financially interconnected 21st century. And yet the newly christened Federal Insurance Office continually faces calls for its abolition.

The FIO’s mission of “monitoring the insurance industry, collecting data, identifying systemic risks, and promoting global insurance regulation, is already effectively fulfilled by state regulators,” wrote David J. Bettencourt, New Hampshire Insurance Department commissioner, in a December letter co-signed by eight other state insurance commissioners to the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk.

“Since its inception, FIO has fluctuated between ineffectiveness and outright dishonesty in its dealings with the states.”

Several bills aim to shut it down

Several bills to restrict the FIO’s operations or shut it down completely have been introduced over the years, and some are still awaiting action. The FIO’s critics see it as redundant, bureaucratic and an unwelcome intrusion into a state-dominated regulatory framework that has governed U.S. insurance for decades.

“It’s an office that’s looking for a mission,” said Jon Godfread, president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. “You have a federal insurance office that holds itself out as an insurance regulator and it doesn’t regulate anything. And at times, it can get crosswise with a state-based system in terms of what we should be doing on a global stage.”

In May, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., refiled legislation he originally introduced in 2023 that would strip the agency of its subpoena authority and limit the way it can collect data. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., also pushed efforts to abolish the

FIO. And Rep. Troy Downing, R-Mont., who had served in a role as Montana’s insurance commissioner, put forward his own bill this year to end the FIO.

FIO supporters say the department plays an indispensable role in modernizing the country’s fragmented insurance regulatory system, standing for U.S. interests abroad and identifying risks.

Moreover, it is needed now more than ever, they say, as states grapple with a host of challenges in the overall insurance market.

“It is so outrageous that in the midst of a crisis stemming from state insurance markets, the focus of state regulators is to shut it down,” said Douglas Heller, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America.

It’s a turf battle

At its essence, the issue is largely a turf battle, Heller said.

“The insurance industry knows that it controls most states,” he said. “It doesn’t know how much control it would have at the federal level. So, it gets nervous politically.”

What is the FIO? Why was it created?

What has it done, and why are lawmakers and industry heads pushing to dismantle it? And does the case for keeping it outweigh the critiques? The answers lie in the complex interplay of history, regulation and a rapidly evolving global insurance market.

The Federal Insurance Office was set up in the wake of the failure of the world’s largest insurance company, AIG, which threatened a global financial panic. That development exposed deep weaknesses in U.S. financial oversight, including gaps in insurance regulation.

The collapse of AIG, which needed a massive federal bailout, highlighted how vulnerabilities of a giant insurer could threaten the broader financial system. It also exposed the limits and vulnerabilities

» Economic significance and global reach: U.S. insurers operate in an integrated global market. Foreign regulators increasingly demand harmonized standards, and the U.S. needs a coherent federal presence to defend its interests.

» Inefficiencies of state-based regulation: The lack of uniformity among state laws and practices creates inefficiencies, redundancies and barriers that increase costs for insurers and consumers alike.

» Lessons from the financial crisis: State-based regulators were ill-equipped to monitor large, complex insurance holding companies and their systemic risk potential — a weakness revealed during the AIG collapse.

State-based market conduct examinations and product approval processes have long been unduly burdensome, costly and redundant, but states have been unable to resolve these challenges with uniform practices.

of a purely state-based regulatory framework, which struggled to oversee sprawling, globally active firms.

The FIO, which was created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, was designed not to replace state regulators but to complement them by filling key gaps — monitoring the insurance sector for risks to U.S. financial stability, improving access to affordable insurance in underserved communities, representing U.S. interests in international forums and coordinating federal policy on insurance matters that demanded national consistency.

Why federal engagement is needed

As Michael McRaith, the FIO’s first director, argued in congressional testimony, the need for federal engagement stems from several realities.

» Persistent regulatory gaps: Despite decades of debate, states have not fully resolved long-standing issues such as inconsistent product approvals, divergent solvency standards and inconsistent treatment of emerging practices like data analytics.

McRaith advocated preserving the hybrid model of state and federal regulation but modernizing it to meet today’s challenges by strengthening state oversight, while allowing targeted federal standards where necessary.

“State-based market conduct examinations and product approval processes have long been unduly burdensome, costly and redundant, but states have been unable to resolve these challenges with uniform practices,” McRaith said in his testimony. “The status quo will not resolve the problems of inefficiency, redundancy or lack of uniformity.”

Although the FIO does not regulate insurers directly — a responsibility that is still with the states — it has carved out a substantial role in several areas.

Proponents believed the need for federal insurance oversight was prima facie in the face of the industry being a $9 trillion global business. As companies grew internationally, the collaboration and economies became increasingly interconnected, and it was important for supervisory authorities to engage globally. In fact, Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution makes it clear that it is precisely the role of the federal government.

Insurance market has changed since 1945

As McRaith testified, the insurance market today is profoundly different from what it was in 1945, when state regulation evolved. It is now global, highly integrated and exposed to new systemic risks, from climate change to cyber threats. These realities demand a coordinated federal role that state regulators alone cannot fulfill, he said.

Without a federal voice, the U.S. risks being marginalized in international negotiations. The FIO ensures that American insurers can compete globally under fair terms.

As one administrator more bluntly put it, “Do we really want the elected commissioner of the state of North Dakota, or some Midwest state, serving as a president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and facing off against the prudential regulatory authority of the United Kingdom or equivalent authorities around the world? They will ask, ‘Why are we talking to a guy from North Dakota who’s not even authorized in his home-state constitution to represent the state, much less the country?’”

The FIO advises the Financial Stability Oversight Council on systemic risks posed by the insurance sector. It was part of the process that led to designating companies including AIG, Prudential and MetLife as systemically important financial institutions in the wake of the financial crisis, although those designations have since been lifted.

The FIO initially found support from insurers, trade groups and others, including the NAIC. That support slowly

eroded, however, and the issue came to a head when the office released a climate risk report, as per a 2021 executive order, highlighting how increasingly severe weather events and natural disasters imperil insurance affordability and availability — especially in vulnerable communities.

NAIC President Godfread called the report “half-baked.”

“We told them that they didn’t have the complete set of data, and they said, ‘Well, we’re going to release it anyway.’ That to me doesn’t really feel like a partnership,” Godfread said.

The FIO looks at affordability

The office has also issued reports on insurance affordability and accessibility, examining how costs disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities. Its 2017 report on auto insurance affordability was one of the few nationwide studies of its kind, shedding light on equity gaps in the market.

“It released the first-ever set of data about the homeowner’s insurance market in the crisis,” said the CFA’s Heller. “And what thanks did they get for releasing that data? They had all the folks at the NAIC teaming up with the insurance

“When the states are doing so well … why are we messing with it? The idea that FIO is in there trying to scramble everyone’s eggs ... it’s like what the heck, stop it.”

It also proposed collecting ZIP code-level data on property insurance markets to better understand and address gaps in coverage in high-risk areas.

“FIO’s recent push to collect insurance underwriting data under the guise of climate risk is just another example of unelected bureaucrats advancing a political agenda that has no place in insurance regulation,” said Fitzgerald in reintroducing his bill to limit the FIO’s subpoena powers.

Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., chair of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, said the FIO’s use of subpoenas and data collection was unneeded and unnecessary. In an interview with S&P Global Market Intelligence, Flood said the agency should focus on advocating against European regulations, saying those regulations could run insurers out of business.

“When the states are doing so well … why are we messing with it?” Flood said. “The idea that FIO is in there trying to scramble everyone’s eggs ... it’s like what the heck, stop it.”

industry saying, ‘Shut down the FIO,’ which is crazy.”

Many of the efforts to dismantle the FIO come from lawmakers with a philosophical commitment to limited federal government and skepticism of regulatory expansion. For these critics, the FIO is seen as just another bureaucratic layer. Certain segments of the insurance industry — particularly property and casualty insurers — have opposed the FIO, fearing it could morph into a huge federal regulator, adding costs and complicating compliance with conflicting standards.

Many assumed the FIO would fall under the DOGE hatchet, but it has survived — so far — probably due to its tiny niche in the D.C. bureaucracy. The FIO is staffed by roughly one to two dozen full-time employees on a budget estimated at roughly $50 million annually, funded through the Treasury’s appropriations for executive direction and salaries and expenses.

Even some proponents of the FIO believe its current head, Steven E. Seitz, who was assistant general counsel for business and finance, may not be the best person

for the job owing to his lack of experience with insurance. Attempts to reach Seitz and a U.S. Treasury representative were unsuccessful.

A pragmatic, hybrid approach — one that respects state authority while leveraging federal strengths — may offer the best path forward, some believe. Strengthening state oversight, modernizing standards and maintaining a targeted federal role could help preserve U.S. leadership in the global insurance market, protect consumers and strengthen financial stability.

But industry executives, including Godfread, don’t have faith that a compromise solution would work.

“I’d love to get rid of it,” he said. “I think an alternative might be for it to be almost like a chamber of commerce, where they can go out and talk about the U.S. system and try to incentivize capital development and deployment into the United States system. But that’s not the role that we’ve seen FIO take on over the last decade. They’ve been trying to insert itself as a federal regulator over a system that it has no authority over. And so it makes for confusion, especially on the international stage.”

Calls to dismantle the FIO reflect a broader tension between federal and state authority — a tension that has existed for decades in insurance regulation. But as the industry faces unprecedented challenges from climate risk to globalization, the case for keeping the FIO — and indeed enhancing its capabilities — might be stronger than ever.

To some, it is not a question of whether federal engagement is needed but of how to balance it with the proven strengths of the state-based system. The FIO may be a thoughtful step in that direction — a bridge between tradition and modernity, local and global, stability and innovation.

But it is also one more bureaucratic layer of government oversight. The debate remains whether the risks of eliminating it outright could be greater than the risks of keeping and improving it.

Doug Bailey is a journalist and freelance writer who lives outside Boston. He can be reached at doug.bailey@innfeedback.com.

We need to up our game to reach Gen Z

and 32% follow financial influencers on social media. Although this approach is more nuanced than that of other generations, it can create more opportunities to be exposed to misinformation, which feeds misconceptions about life insurance. Creating content to dispel these should be a priority for our industry.

Social media do’s and don’ts from Gen Z

Generation Z seeks information on life insurance from social media. Here’s how the industry must respond.

By Sean Grindall

Two-thirds of Generation Z are now 18-28 years old, representing nearly 50 million adults. While many are delaying key milestones that have traditionally prompted life insurance purchases — such as getting married, buying homes and having children — our research shows they are very concerned about financial security and the COVID-19 pandemic had a more profound impact on this generation. Three in 10 Gen Zers said the reason they purchased life insurance was because of the pandemic — a higher percentage than for any other generation.

Still, this generation remains least likely to own life insurance and most likely to acknowledge living with a life insurance coverage gap. Only 42% say they have coverage and 46% say they need coverage, or more of it. Financially, Gen Zers are more worried than older generations are about meeting their day-to-day financial obligations, which are deterring them from getting life insurance. The top reasons they give for not purchasing are money related: they have other financial priorities (37%) and they believe it’s too expensive (36%).

Lack of knowledge is a barrier

Only one-third of Gen Z adults believe

they are very knowledgeable about life insurance, and many have misconceptions about the role of life insurance in their overall financial security. They are the most likely generation to believe life insurance is just for final expenses and that they won’t personally benefit from life insurance. They don’t understand the process of underwriting, and more than 1 in 10 believe they wouldn’t qualify for coverage.

Most important, given their heightened concerns about finances, our study finds the self-reported healthiest members of Gen Z are likely to overestimate the cost of life insurance tenfold. This substantial misunderstanding about the affordability and accessibility of life insurance is likely the biggest obstacle.

Social media is Gen Z’s primary source for financial information

Gen Zers rely heavily on social media for their financial information. The 2025 Insurance Barometer Study, conducted by LIMRA and Life Happens, finds 84% of Gen Zers say they use social media (most prominently, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram) to get information and recommendations on financial products such as life insurance.

Gen Z consumers say they use a blend of recognized experts, social influencers and online communities to get reliable information on financial or insurance products. LIMRA research shows that of those who use social media for these purposes, 46% of Gen Zers say they follow financial advisors, 33% follow insurance companies

This year, LIMRA asked younger consumers for their advice about how life insurers and financial professionals can be most effective engaging them on social media. Mainly, LIMRA found Gen Z consumers value authenticity on social media. They prefer genuine stories over polished, scripted content and favor recommendations from relatable, credible individuals (including well-known influencers) rather than overt sales pitches. Their recommendations to our industry:

✅ Create visually appealing and engaging content that will help educate them about life insurance.

✅ Make it concise and easily-digestible (keep in mind, the average length of a TikTok video is less than a minute).

✅ Talk about the positives — life insurance offers financial protection and security and is more affordable than people might think.

✅ Encourage testimonials from recent buyers who share their experiences navigating the purchase process. LIMRA’s study reveals insured Gen Z consumers felt a sense of calm, peace and relief after their purchase.

As we commemorate Life Insurance Awareness Month this September, our industry must use all the tools available to solve the life insurance gap that exists in the U.S. There are more than 100 million adults (including 22 million Gen Zers) whose financial security is in the balance.

Sean Grindall is senior vice president and head of life insurance and annuity-North America at LIMRA and LOMA. Contact him at sean.grindall@innfeedback.com.

Independent contractor update: Federal retreat, state gains momentum

New Jersey lawmakers are moving forward with an approach to the independent contractor classification.

By Alex Kim

In a recent development, the U.S. Department of Labor confirmed it will stop enforcing the Biden-era rule on independent contractor classification. This reversal represents a meaningful victory for financial security professionals who prefer the flexibility and autonomy of operating as independent contractors rather than traditional employees. While the federal government steps back, at least one state is moving forward with its own approach — signaling this issue remains far from settled.

On May 1, the DOL issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2025-1, stating that the Wage and Hour Division will cease applying or enforcing the 2024 rule titled “Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standards Act” and instead return to the “economic reality” test previously in effect.

The 2024 rule, introduced by the Biden administration, aimed to address worker misclassification concerns, particularly among gig economy workers such as those working for Uber, Lyft and Instacart. The 2024 rule hoped to provide employee protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act, including minimum wage and overtime pay.

Although the rule did not explicitly target the financial security profession, its interpretation posed potential risks to the industry due to the lack of carveouts, or exemptions, for financial security professionals.

Despite this federal development, New

Jersey has moved in a different direction. The state recently introduced new regulations that apply a stricter “ABC test” to determine worker classification. This signals a more restrictive approach that could impact professionals operating as independent contractors within that state.

The old is new

The 2024 rule, which the DOL will no longer enforce, outlined six primary factors to determine whether a worker should be classified as an employee or an independent contractor. These factors included: (1) the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss, (2) the nature and degree of control, (3) the permanence of the working relationship, (4) investments made by both the worker and the employer, (5) the extent to which the work performed was integral to the employer’s business and (6) the worker’s skill and initiative.

In addition, the rule included a catch-all provision, allowing consideration of any other relevant factors that reflect the economic dependence of the worker on the employer.

Under the 2024 rule, all factors were to be weighed together under a “totality of the circumstances” approach, with no single factor being determinative. This framework made it more challenging for employers to classify workers as independent contractors, potentially increasing the likelihood of reclassification as employees.

However, the DOL’s return to prior guidance under the “economic reality” framework offers greater flexibility in determining independent contractor status. This approach considers a range of factors to assess whether a worker is economically dependent on the employer or operates as an independent contractor. These factors include:

1. The extent to which the services rendered are an integral part of the principal’s business.

2. The permanency of the relationship.

3. The amount of the alleged contractor’s investment in facilities and equipment.

4. The nature of and degree of control by the principal.

5. The alleged contractor’s opportunities for profit and loss.

6. The amount of initiative, judgment or foresight in open-market competition with others required for the success of the claimed independent contractor.

7. The degree of independent business organization and operation.

Additionally, the rule identified two “core factors” that carry the greatest weight: (1) the nature and degree of control over the work, and (2) the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss.

In its bulletin, the DOL also noted that it is currently reassessing the issue and is working toward establishing a new standard for determining independent contractor status under the FLSA.

Court challenges to independent contractor rule

Since the implementation of the 2024 rule, several businesses that rely on independent contractors have filed legal challenges asserting that the rule could significantly disrupt their operations. These lawsuits generally seek injunctive relief to prevent the DOL from enforcing the rule.

In one such case, Frisard’s Transportation, LLC v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently issued a stay in the proceedings. This action was granted after the DOL submitted a status report indicating that it was actively reconsidering the 2024 rule at the center of the litigation. The outcome of this and similar cases will likely be shaped by the DOL’s stated intention to revise the independent contractor classification framework.

New Jersey and the ‘ABC test’

In contrast to the DOL, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development recently issued proposed regulations intended to clarify how employers should apply the state’s ABC test to determine whether a worker is classified as an employee or an independent contractor. Under New Jersey law, the ABC test is used to enforce wage, benefit and labor protections. Misclassification can

lead to significant financial penalties for employers.

The ABC test imposes a more stringent standard than the DOL’s 2024 rule, placing the burden on employers to demonstrate that a worker qualifies as an independent contractor. To meet this standard, all three of the following criteria must be satisfied:

1. The worker is free from control or direction in performing the work;

2. The work is performed outside the usual course of the employer’s business or outside its physical premises; and

3. The worker is engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business.

The proposed updated regulations could significantly impact the ability of individuals in the financial security profession to continue operating as independent contractors. If adopted as written, these changes may result in the reclassification of financial security professionals as employees under New Jersey law, eliminating the flexibility currently afforded by independent contractor status. Such a shift would have the greatest impact on the business and family clients these professionals serve.

In response, Finseca has mobilized grassroots efforts across the state to engage New Jersey legislators to emphasize the importance of preserving independent contractor status for financial security professionals. These professionals serve a critical and distinct role in helping New Jersey residents achieve financial security. Finseca has formally requested that insurance producers, broker-dealers, and investment advisors be exempted from the ABC test under the final rule.

Alex Kim is vice president, public policy, with Finseca. Contact him at alex.kim@ innfeedback.com.

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Retaining top talent – a short-term arrangement?

A retention bonus plan can reward top performers while building a loyal workforce.

By Ernest Guerriero

According to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council Small Business Check-Up Survey released in July:

» 67% of small-business owners rate the current economic climate as positive and 12% rate it as negative.

» 76% of small-business owners are confident about their financial prospects for this year and 22% are not.

» 39% of small-business owners expect better economic conditions in six months, 33% expect worse and 25% anticipate no change.

With that in mind, it is no wonder that employees are feeling confident in their employment and employers are feeling confident in doing more to retain the top talent they have.

Let’s focus on a simple retention strategy with conditions. Before beginning, though, it is recommended that advisors first ask certain questions that may help clients discover the value of this top talent benefit strategy. Here are some examples that can help start the conversation:

» Do you have key employees with unique skills, experiences and leadership qualities; valuable relationships with key clients and centers of influence; and specialized training that makes them difficult, time-consuming and expensive to replace?

» Which executives, managers or salespeople in your firm make substantial contributions to your business’s bottom line?

» What would happen to your business should any of these key people leave your company?

» Is your business stable and well positioned for the future?

» Can you afford to lose any of your top talent to the competition — and if not, what have you done to help prevent that from happening?

One way employers can achieve these objectives is with nonqualified deferred compensation plans such as supplemental executive retirement plans or salary deferral plans. The problem? Most SERP and deferral plans don’t pay a benefit until the key executive has retired. For many top executives, that’s too far into the future to think of it as a meaningful benefit or to consider it enough of an incentive to stay with the company.

The retention bonus plan is like many other nonqualified benefits — designed to attract and retain top talent. But unlike a SERP or salary deferral plan, the retention bonus plan can be designed to provide a reward that is within reach, and one that the executive believes they have a chance of staying long enough to earn.

What is a retention bonus arrangement?

In a retention bonus arrangement, the business agrees to pay the specified

employee a bonus if the employee stays for an agreed-upon period or at a triggering event, such as the retirement, disability or death of the owner. A retention bonus can also be used, for example, by the business owner to have one of the top sales employees mentor the business owner’s child, who is entering the business and has a five-year time frame for hitting various sales goals.

The employee will have more incentive to stay until the end of the period because otherwise the employee will forfeit the bonus. The owner and employee can negotiate the bonus amount and the stay period. For example, a bonus amount can be a set dollar amount or some multiple of salary (e.g., two times salary). The retention period can be one or two years, or some other time frame, although the stay period is not ordinarily longer than 10 years to make the benefit more attainable. The plan is flexible, and after the initial stay period is achieved, a new stay period can be added.

The retention bonus solution is ordinarily created using a retention bonus agreement and is usually funded with permanent life insurance.

The strategy

With the employee’s written permission, the business owner purchases a whole life insurance policy that is owned by the business and insures the employee. If the employee remains with the company

after the time specified in the retention bonus agreement, the employee will receive, from the policy’s cash value, the amount of the bonus that is specified in the retention bonus agreement.

Let’s consider how a 10-year retention bonus, funded with a whole life policy, was the answer for one employer who wanted to retain an extremely valuable employee.

Tom Barbar owns a successful scientific and technical consulting services firm. Elsey Smart is one of his top consultants, and she’s been incredibly instrumental to the success of the firm. Tom is anxious to do what he can to ensure that Elsey will stay with the company for many years to come. So, Tom and Elsey enter into a retention bonus arrangement in which Tom agrees to pay Elsey an additional $250,000 in a single lump sum if she stays with his company for 10 years and continues her outstanding performance.

With Elsey’s written permission, Tom purchases a whole life policy on Elsey to fund the plan. At the end of 10 years, Tom pays Elsey the bonus and uses the policy cash value to recover his cost. At that time, he offers her an additional bonus of

Tax considerations

The business owner should consult an advisor for guidance, but here are some general guidelines you and your client may wish to keep in mind with respect to how this strategy can affect your client’s business taxes.

» Life insurance premiums are not deductible by the business itself.

» Insurance proceeds are received income-tax-free by the business.

» In pass-through entities, such as S corporations, limited liability corporations and partnerships, the death proceeds increase the basis of the owner’s business interest. Premium payments, policy cash values and policy dividends may also impact an owner’s basis.

Protecting the income tax exclusion for the death benefit

To protect the income tax exclusion for the death benefit, there are four general requirements:

1. Notice must be given to the insured,

coverage must be obtained.

2. Either the insured must fit into certain categories, or the proceeds must be used for certain purposes.

3. There must be recordkeeping.

4. Reporting to the IRS concerning these policies must be completed using IRS Form 892.

For the employer, this program builds loyalty, is flexible and cost-effective with the possibility of recapturing the payout, and (within reasonable compensation) is deductible when paid out. For the employee, it is a valuable income benefit and attainable.

Ernest J. Guerriero, CLU, ChFC, CEBS, CPCU, CPC, CMS, AIF, RICP, CPFA, is the past national president of the Society of Financial Service Professionals and currently a board trustee for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. Contact him at ernest.guerriero

Who’s the biggest winner during Life Insurance Awareness Month?

When advisors use LIAM to position themselves as trusted sources of information, everybody wins.

By Brian Steiner

Sometimes we find amazing winwin opportunities in life. For consumers as well as insurance and financial professionals, Life Insurance Awareness Month is a great example.

Life Happens created LIAM and coordinates its celebration each September to educate consumers about the important role life insurance plays in helping families, individuals and small businesses achieve financial security. This education is sorely needed. The 2025 Insurance Barometer Study, conducted by Life Happens and LIMRA, reveals that a lack of knowledge about life insurance products is a major obstacle inhibiting American adults from acquiring necessary coverage.

Life Happens produces a robust suite of this content as a benefit to NAIFA members and corporate partners. Helping consumers clear up misapprehensions about life insurance is a great way to strengthen client connections and increase sales. That’s an obvious win for agents and advisors.

The knowledge gap and the need gap

The Barometer Study found that 4 out of 10 consumers acknowledge that they have a need for life insurance or additional coverage. That represents a need gap affecting about 100 million Americans. This need gap is particularly acute for households with annual incomes of less than $50,000, consumers who identify as Hispanic or Black, adults aged 18 to 60, and women.

LIAM and financial professionals: A winning combination

Life Happens and LIAM help bring agents and consumers together. This is crucial because LIAM by itself doesn’t sell insurance. While a highly successful awareness campaign can help us reduce the knowledge gap, only the community of experienced, licensed professionals can reduce the need gap. Agents and advisors are consumers’ most important resource. LIAM-themed content and educational materials from Life Happens, which include impactful social media graphics and messaging, help make financial professionals even more valuable to their clients and communities.

LIAM addresses this shortfall through a national public outreach campaign that raises awareness of the knowledge gap and provides timely and accurate information about life insurance products. Throughout September, LIAM messaging reaches millions. This is a huge win for American consumers.

The Barometer Study clearly shows that more than three-quarters of young adults do not understand life insurance products or the underwriting process. However, those who do are much more likely to have adequate coverage.

LIAM also offers unique opportunities for agents and advisors to differentiate themselves, market their businesses, and connect with existing and potential clients by participating in LIAM and using LIAM-themed messaging and content.

When Life Happens and LIMRA asked consumers about the reasons for the need gap, the most common answer was that life insurance is perceived as being too expensive. This is where the knowledge gap comes into play. The study shows that consumers significantly overestimate life insurance’s cost.

Young adults aged 18 to 30 estimate the cost of life insurance to be 10 to 12 times higher than the true cost. The knowledge gap shrinks slightly for those aged 31 to 35 but remains substantial, with their perceived cost being five to seven times the real cost.

Many of the other top reasons consumers offer for not covering their life insurance needs — “other financial priorities,” “not sure how much or what type I need” and “no one approached me about it” — also point to the knowledge gap as a significant problem. LIAM’s greatest achievement is that by reducing the knowledge gap, it helps address the need gap.

LIAM places great emphasis on building social media connections. This is by design. The 2025 Barometer Study found that 62% of adults, including 80% of those under age 45, use social media when they research insurance and financial products. As recently as 2019, only 29% turned to social media, so the trend is growing. Today, 45% of young Americans who use social media follow financial advisors, and 33% follow financial influencers. Simply put, social media is where consumers are.

It is a great medium for educating people at their convenience in a sphere where they are comfortable and spend a good deal of time. It’s almost like LIAM and social media were made for each other. Together they help agents build connections and relationships. And when agents and advisors can use LIAM to position themselves as trusted sources of information, everybody wins.

Brian Steiner is the executive director of Life Happens. He also serves as NAIFA’s vice president for business development and partner relations. Contact him at brian.steiner@innfeedback.com.

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