Commentary
#448 | The End of the Road for PHL Variable
If a life insurance company is going to descend, then the way that it should descend is slow and steady. Unfortunately, that’s not usually how things go. Instead, the decline of a life insurer usually follows a very different pattern…
#447 | 7702 Rate Update for 2025
We’ve spilled a fair amount of ink on 7702 rates since the rate regime changed in 2021, starting with #257 | The Section 7702 Christmas Miracle. Symetra was the first carrier to incorporate the new rates into illustrations, which we…
#445 | Making the Market for Life Insurance
Full Article For as long as I’ve been in the life insurance industry, there has been persistent chatter about the life insurance “need-gap” reported by the annual LIMRA/Life Happens Insurance Barometer Study. The need-gap “represents the total level of self-reported…
#443 | Busch v Pacific Life
Image: AP It’s been a very long time since anything related to life insurance has broken into mainstream media. Larry King famously claimed to be scammed by a STOLI transaction that had been executed with his approval and paid him…
#441 | F&G and The Insurance Origination Model
What’s a life insurance company? We’ve asked this question a few times in The Life Product Review because the answer isn’t as clear-cut as it might seem. Life insurers exist on a spectrum. At one end sits the classic, true-blue…
#435 | The Securitization Frontier
A Primer on Securitization Securitization is one of those words that means nothing to the vast majority of humans and yet, unbeknownst to them, their financial lives intersect with securitization on a regular basis. If you have a mortgage, chances…
#431 | The New Risk Free Rate
This is not a political post or commentary on the political environment. This is simply a perspective on the credit quality of life insurers to that of the US Government, independent of any particular party or person in power. On…
#425 | Waking the Japanese Giants
Earlier this month, Legal and General announced that it was selling its US entity, Banner Life, to Japanese mutual company Meiji Yasuda. The sale marks the next chapter of the continuing retreat of European insurers from the United States life…
#420 | A Question of Value
12/16/24 Update - The South Carolina Department of Insurance has also mandated that A-CAP's South Carolina entities, Atlantic Coast Life and Southern Atlantic Re, stop writing new business as of 12/31. This decision was inevitable and probably unavoidable because Atlantic…
#419 | The PHL Variable Plot Thickens
After 6 months of near-silence on the state of PHL Variable, the Connecticut Insurance Department (CID) released updated financial statements last week – and they’re absolutely jaw-dropping. As of Q3 2024, PHL Variable’s surplus position has deteriorated to negative $2.1…
