Ruark Consulting will conduct the industry’s first aggregate surrender study for indexed annuity products. Eight companies are currently expected to participate, including most of the major indexed annuity writers. Participating companies will benefit from the extensive analysis of their own data, aggregation of results across the industry, and ability to compare their own results to the aggregate.
The indexed annuity surrender study is an extension of Ruark Consulting’s ground-breaking variable annuity experience studies. Analysis is detailed enough to be helpful when establishing assumptions used in financial modeling. Companies utilize these models to establish appropriate pricing, reserves, and capital. The analysis will include the impact caused by living benefit riders, distribution channel, product bonuses, time period, duration, age, and policy size.
Jan Soppe of Strategic Health Management authored an article in the October 2010 issue of Life Insurance Selling that discussed the path to success for Combo products, addressing annuity & long term care combos as well as life insurance & critical illness combos. The article can be accessed here:
Combo Products: Where is the Path from Potential to Reality
Ruark Consulting works with Strategic Health Management to provide the necessary combo product expertise to our clients, naturally aligning our annuity and life insurance knowledge with Strategic Health Management’s long term care and critical illness knowledge. Let us know if you’d like an introduction to Jan and her colleagues.
2011 is starting off with a bang for the RCL dental practice, as I have plans for three industry studies during the year. First is the ever popular PPO Network Study. This will look and function much as it has in past years. I am expecting largely the same group of participating companies, with some exciting new additions. Details of the data request and timing will go out this week.
I am addicted to the New York Times, especially the magazines. I love looking at the ads for expensive things I would never buy, and pictures of Rockefeller descendents more dressed up for their 10th benefit this month than I will be in my whole life. So I couldn’t resist this Samurai Shopper column on my other big interest – dental care. Little did I realize how much I had to learn about the world of high fashion teeth! It completely blew my mind, and I thought I knew everything that mattered about brushing and flossing.
Tamiko Toland of Annuity Insight has issued an analysis called “Shifting Risk: Hints of Reinsurance Resuscitation”. She discusses the evolving state of the variable annuity reinsurance marketplace. Ruark Consulting’s article “State of the Variable Annuity Reinsurance Market in 2010” is referenced. Rich Tucker is quoted as “I think insurance companies had forgotten that reinsurance is another tool because supply has been very difficult to come by. It’s still not cheap and it’s not able to fulfill all the risk management demands of the industry (not even majority at this point), but why not blend it in as a second risk management strategy when it is available?”
A few months ago, I completed RCL’s sixth annual DPPO Network Study. The study looks at network value – from discounts and network usage – across the industry based on claims from almost 20 carriers. After pulling together specific reports for each company participating in the study, I stepped back to take a look at the broader picture of developments across the industry and nationally with dental networks.
I’ve just returned from Seattle, where I attended the National Association of Dental Plans’ very successful CONVERGE conference. I’ve been to several NADP conferences now, and think they do a great job lining up a variety of interesting speakers and topics. Maybe I’m biased because I was a speaker – but I enjoyed other sessions and believe I’d make that statement anyway! The extremely high attendence this year also backs me up. The NADP staff also did a great job handling the logistics with such a large crowd; everything seemed to go off without a hitch.
I am very excited to be presenting two workshop sessions at the National Association of Dental Plans’ annual CONVERGE conference, in Seattle September 20 – 23, 2010. In “Drilling Out from the Recession: Has the Economy Had an Impact on Dental Claims?” on Tuesday the 21st at 10:30, I will discuss how utilization and cost patterns changed in 2008 and 2009 as the recession took hold. This topic has been of great interest to all dental carriers for the last two years, and I’ve found both noteworthy common patterns and interesting variations among companies’ experiences.
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” – Mark Twain
Reinsurance for variable annuity guarantees (VA GMxBs) has often been characterized as unavailable over the last few years. In fact, this is not the case. Reinsurance is available, but the terms required by reinsurers are often inconsistent with the pricing of direct writers. Success with VA reinsurance requires an understanding of the critical reinsurance design points discussed below.
Work is well underway on the latest update to RCL’s annual Dental PPO Network Study, the only tool in the industry providing carriers with competitive benchmarks. The study measures in-network discounts, network utilization rates, and overall network savings from the combination of the two (effective discounts). When the study is complete, I will also publish an update on national discounts and trends in networks over the past few years, looking at such questions as whether networks are still growing while also increasing discounts, and whether plan designs continue to increase incentives for patients to use a network dentist.
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