Bobby Samuelson
#315 | The Rising Tide of Accumulation VUL
If you were to look at the industry press releases about 2021 sales, you’d probably pick up one big storyline – both Whole Life and Indexed UL had gangbuster years, each notching 20% growth. Indexed UL saw $600M in increased…
#314 | Engineered Index 5 Year Performance
For most folks in the life insurance industry, it probably feels as though the phenomenon of non-standard indices in Indexed UL products has appeared very quickly, almost out-of-nowhere in the wake of AG 49-A. The reality, however, is that these…
#312 | The New Money Tipping Point
With rates making a decisive and sustained move upwards for the first time since 2019, we have to ask an uncomfortable question – at what point will life insurers begin to wall off in-force portfolios and offer new portfolios that…
#311 | The Shifting Winds of AG 49-A
For the third time, the IUL Illustration Subgroup of the Life Actuarial Task Force (LATF) of the A Committee of the NAIC – yes, that’s really how the hierarchy goes – will take up the question of what to do…
#310 | The Proprietary Index Duration Bomb
The conventional wisdom, at the moment, is that bonds are garbage. In a rising rate environment, bonds are set to deliver the worst of both worlds – sub-optimal yields and capital devaluations. Savers who crave the income and stability of…
#309 | Nationwide Advisory VUL
In the early 2000s, a little company in Louisville called Jefferson National began to make a serious splash in the annuity side of the business. Jefferson National – JeffNat – was focused exclusively on selling accumulation-oriented variable annuities with no…
#308 | The New Ohio National
Almost a year ago to the day, Ohio National announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Constellation, an insurance holding company backed by two Canadian pension plans and spearheaded by the former CEO of Prosperity Life. The response…
#307 | The New Indexed UL Narratives – Part 2
The first two narratives dealt with the narrative for the product generically, but these next two narratives deal with specific product features that could potentially become more common. Attractive Guaranteed Participation Limits A few years ago, Penn Mutual famously offered…
#306 | The New Indexed UL Narratives – Part 1
Over the past 15 years or so, the Indexed UL narrative has evolved quite a bit. Early on, the story was all about the characteristics of the product as an asset class – upside potential with downside protection. That story…
#305 | The Specter of Rising Interest Rates
Not withstanding Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine and the potential impacts to the financial system, we are facing – for the first time since 2020 – the specter of a persistently rising interest rate environment. This time feels different. Think…
