Allianz Life Hires Vanessa Ramirez as Senior Director, Government Relations

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz Life) named Vanessa Ramirez as the new senior director of Government Relations in the Legal department where she is responsible for directing public policy advocacy initiatives for the company. She also leads cross-company coordination of government relations activities while reviewing proposed federal, state and insurance department legislation and rule making initiatives. Ramirez reports to Allianz Life General Counsel Gretchen Cepek.

“I am excited to have Vanessa join our experienced Government Relations team at Allianz Life. She brings deep insurance industry knowledge to this important leadership role,” said Cepek. “Vanessa’s leadership will help us continue strengthening the relationships we have built with regulators and legislators at the state and federal levels.”

Prior to joining Allianz Life, Ramirez worked for The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. in Hartford, Conn. where she served as government affairs counsel. She was responsible for legislative and regulatory advocacy in eight states, including Minnesota and supported the company's life insurance, annuity, and property and casualty insurance businesses. Ramirez oversaw political compliance initiatives across the company, including pre-approving political contributions and serving as Counsel to the company’s political action committees.

Ramirez also served as an attorney for the state of Connecticut for five years, where she worked in various areas, including the Department of Public Works, the Office of Governor M. Jodi Rell, and the Department of Consumer Protection. Ramirez began her career as an associate in the business law unit at the law firm of Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, P.C. in Hartford.

Ramirez holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn. She earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

New York Life Agents Produce Record Sales in 2012

New York Life, America’s largest mutual life insurance company, enjoyed another year of record sales through its primary distribution channel of 12,250 agents across the United States in 2012.

The company’s insurance sales continued to grow, with individual recurring premium life insurance sales through agents up 4% over 2011. Life insurance policies sold through agents also rose 4% in 2012, indicating strong interest in protection products, with 45% of the company’s new life insurance policies produced by agents serving the cultural markets. New York Life’s cultural markets include African-American, Chinese, Hispanic, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese.

Agents also sold $4.7 billion of annuities of all types in 2012, a 9% increase from 2011. Sales of guaranteed lifetime income annuities through agents, including the new deferred income annuity, jumped 20% over 2011, reaching a record $1.6 billion. New York Life’s annuity product suite offers consumers who are years away from retirement and those near or starting retirement the guaranteed income and financial flexibility they seek.

Sales of mutual funds through agents soared 34% over the prior year, to $807 million. The company’s solid mutual fund sales are being driven by consistent investment performance from the company’s investment boutiques in both income oriented and capital appreciation funds, which remain in high demand from customers. Barron’s once again recognized New York Life’s mutual fund complex, MainStay Funds, for delivering long-term results – naming MainStay the #1 fund family for the 10-year period in its annual ranking of mutual fund families. This is the fourth consecutive year that MainStay ranked in the top three for the 10-year period.

Mark Pfaff, executive vice president and head of New York Life’s Agency Operations, credited the outstanding results to the company’s elite field force. “What these sales figures signify is that consumers see the value of advice in these complicated times. It’s equally important for consumers to choose a company with which they can entrust their money and their futures. Our sales growth through the economic recession and beyond has crystallized the value of engaging with a New York Life agent. Our agents are recognized as the most educated and knowledgeable in the industry, and our life insurance products are backed by a company with a 168-year history of delivering on its promises and one with the highest possible financial strength ratings – a reliable combination in these uncertain times.”

In 2012, New York Life led new agent membership in the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) in the United States for a remarkable 58th consecutive year. Membership in MDRT is a distinguishing life insurance career milestone for those demonstrating superior professional knowledge, experience and client service.

New York Life Insurance Company, a Fortune 100 company founded in 1845, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States* and one of the largest life insurers in the world. New York Life has the highest possible financial strength ratings currently awarded to any life insurer from all four of the major credit rating agencies: A.M. Best (A++), Fitch (AAA), Moody’s Investors Service (Aaa), Standard & Poor’s (AA+).** Headquartered in New York City, New York Life’s family of companies offers life insurance, retirement income, investments and long-term care insurance. New York Life Investments
provides institutional asset management and retirement plan services. Other New York Life affiliates provide an array of securities products and services, as well as retail mutual funds. Please visit New York Life’s website at www.newyorklife.com for more information.

Source: Third Party Ratings Report as of 2/1/13. The financial strength and ratings do not apply to the Investment Divisions of any Variable Universal Life insurance and mutual funds because they are subject to market risks and will fluctuate in value.

New York Life Investments is a service mark used by New York Life Investment Management Holdings LLC and its subsidiary, New York Life Investment Management LLC.

Exclusive: Roche joins Life Tech auction; KKR, H&F team up - sources

Roche Holding AG and a buyout group comprising KKR & Co LP and Hellman & Friedman LLC have joined the bidding for Life Technologies Corp, a genetic testing company coveted for its advanced diagnostics and steady cash flow, according to people familiar with the matter.

Roche's interest in Life Tech, a biomedical laboratory equipment maker with an $11 billion market value, signals the Swiss drugmaker's continued interest in gene sequencing a year after its $6.8 billion hostile offer for Illumina Inc failed over price.

The potential bidders are joining what is turning out to be a competitive auction, as cheap financing and growing confidence in the U.S. economy prompt more companies and private equity firms to contemplate deals costing more than $10 billion.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, Danaher Corp and a buyout consortium of Blackstone Group LP, Carlyle Group LP, TPG Capital LP and Singapore's state investor, Temasek Holdings, are among the parties weighing bids, Reuters previously reported.

Healthcare companies have been attracted to Life Tech by the scale and synergies that a tie-up could bring while private equity firms have found the Carlsbad, California-based company's reliable cash flow appealing, people familiar with the matter said.

Bids are due in early April, said the people, who asked not to be named because details of the auction are not public.

Life Tech shares, which were down 1 percent before the news, ended up 1 percent at $63.58 on Tuesday. They are up more than 30 percent since the start of the year on hopes that the company's exploration of strategic alternatives will lead to a sale.

Representatives for KKR, Hellman & Friedman and Life Tech declined to comment. Roche said it does not comment on market speculation.

Analysts see a good fit between the laboratory equipment and scientific instrument businesses of Thermo Fisher and Life Technologies, with the exception of Life Tech's genetic sequencing, which Thermo Fisher could choose to divest after a deal.

Industrial and healthcare conglomerate Danaher, which has a life sciences and diagnostics division, agreed to buy Life Tech's stake in a mass spectrometry joint venture with MDS Analytical Technologies for $450 million in cash in 2009.

Private equity firms have tried to compete in the auction by teaming up, a move that helps them reduce the size of their individual equity commitment but does not improve their returns.

The so-called club deals have become less popular in recent years over concerns about corporate governance in acquired companies and a backlash from some fund investors who see little point in having exposure to a company through more than one buyout fund.

People close to the Life Tech sale process said buyout firms could struggle to achieve internal rates of return of 15 percent or more on the deal based on the leverage Life Technologies could take on to capture a sufficient portion of the financing market in a transaction.

Standard Life Investments' Global Absolute Return Strategies Now Offered to Accredited Investors in Canada

A track record for delivering long-term positive absolute returns with lower volatility than a traditional long-term global equity portfolio.

Global asset manager Standard Life Investments and Standard Life Mutual Funds announced today that they will offer the award-winning Standard Life Investments Global Absolute Returns Strategies (GARS) Private Pooled Fund to Canadian investors who qualify as accredited investors. These investors may be able to benefit from the global expertise of the Standard Life Investments multi-asset investing team in this area and have the opportunity to achieve long-term positive absolute returns with lower volatility than a traditional long-term global equity portfolio.

Roger Renaud , President of Standard Life Investments Inc. in Montreal said: "The absolute return strategy aims to produce consistent, positive investment returns in all market conditions while managing risk levels. What makes GARS truly unique is that it is global and has access to a wide variety of asset classes in a wide array of markets. GARS has been highly successful and has provided investors in the U.K. and worldwide with competitive returns and managed risk. That same opportunity is now available to Canadian investors who qualify as accredited investors."

Standard Life Investments originally launched GARS in the U.K. in 2006 as an innovative solution for Standard Life Group's own staff pension plan. The success was compelling enough to capture the attention of institutional investors in Europe , Asia, Australia , the U.S., and Canada . GARS is now one of the world's largest absolute return funds, with more than $30 billion under management.

During the financial crisis of 2008, while global equity markets fell over 17.4%, the GARS fund in the U.K. fell by only 3.7%. Since the inception of the fund, it has produced a gross annualized return of 8.6% with a volatility of only 5.9%. Over the same period global equities, denoted by the MSCI World Index, returned 5.3% per year with a volatility of 15.4%1.

GARS seeks to deliver consistent, positive returns for investors in all market conditions. To do so, the 27-strong GARS multi-asset team invests in a wide variety of assets such as bonds, real estate and currencies2.  They can also use advanced investment strategies that are not always available to traditional funds, including the use of derivatives to manage risk.

Euan Munro, Global Head of Multi-Asset Investing and Fixed Income at Standard Life Investments said: "The volatility of global equity markets in recent years creates uncertainty among investors about their ability to maintain the long-term value of their portfolios. GARS offers accredited investors the opportunity to reduce the volatility of their portfolios and give the potential of consistent, positive returns. The Standard Life Investments GARS Private Pooled Fund will benefit from the knowledge and experience of our multi-asset investment team, world leaders in absolute return strategies."

Since it was launched in 2006, GARS has won wide recognition in the U.K. asset management industry, including most recently: the Platinum award at the U.K. Portfolio Advisor Fund Awards in 2013; the Absolute Return category at the Investment Week Fund Manager of the Year Awards in 2012; and the Alternative Investment Category at the 100 Club Awards from Investment Advisor in the U.K, also in 2012.

Is your life insurance part piggy bank?

There are two basic types of life insurance: term plans, which provide coverage for a set number of years and usually offer a payout only if the policyholder dies during the term; and permanent policies such as whole, universal and variable life, which can provide a death benefit for as long as you live and also offer a savings component. While permanent plans are generally more expensive than term plans, a major perk is that often you can borrow from the savings reserve or cash it in. It's not always easy to tell if you can treat your policy as a piggy bank. These highlighted keywords and phrases in the sample policy below are giveaways that you can pull money from your life insurance.

Hover over the term to see its definition.

Cash value
Cash value: This is the formal term for the reserve that builds up in a permanent life insurance policy. The premiums are split two ways: Part of your money covers the actual cost of insurance, and part gets invested and accumulates value, tax-deferred, the longer you hold it. The cash value of a policy is determined by how long you've held the policy and how well the policy's investments are performing, says Keith Friedman, founder of FBO Strategies LLC, an insurance and estate planning firm in Stamford, Conn.

Rate of accumulation
Rate of accumulation: Also called "rate of return," it's how fast your policy builds its cash value. Many policies come with guaranteed interest rates, meaning your policy will accrue value steadily for as long as you pay the premiums. Some variable and universal life policies tie their rates of accumulation to the plan's investments, says Damon Bates, a vice president at MassMutual insurance. Policyholders may earn more or less depending on how those investments perform.

Policy dividend
Policy dividend: It's a refund of a portion of your life insurance premiums that's paid when the insurance company's investments have had a good year. This potential spreading of the wealth is a feature of many policies, which might be borrowed from or cashed in.

Surrender value
Surrender value: Before letting policyholders cash out, insurance companies deduct outstanding loans and may charge substantial surrender penalties. "Surrender value would be the amount of net cash value that you could cash in or surrender your policy for" after taking into account the various costs, says Bates. Surrender values are oftentimes significantly lower than the policy's true cash value.

Surrender value
Loan value: This is the maximum amount that can be borrowed from a life insurance plan. Loan values can vary, depending on the type of policy, how long it has been in force and whether the policyholder has kept up with premiums, says Friedman. "Most carriers only allow you to borrow a percentage (of the policy's cash value or surrender value), usually up to 80 percent," he adds.

Russian scientists may have found new life under Antarctic ice

Russian scientists believe they have discovered new life forms sealed off for millions of years in a subglacial lake deep under the Antarctic ice, the RIA news agency reported on Thursday.

After more than a decade of stop-and-go drilling, Russia pierced through Antarctica's frozen crust last year and took back samples of water from a vast lake that has lain untouched for at least 14 million year.

Scientists say the icy darkness of Lake Vostok, under some 12,139 feet of ice, may provide a glimpse of the planet before the Ice Age and clues to life on other planets.

"After excluding all known contaminants, bacterial DNA was found that does not match any known species in world databases," Sergei Bulat of the St Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute told RIA.

"If it (the bacteria) had been found on Mars, then without a doubt we would have said there is life on Mars - but this is DNA from Earth," he said. "We are calling this life form unidentified or unclassified."

Scientists from the United States and Britain are close on Moscow's heels to probe what life may exist in one of the most extreme environments on Earth.
This year, a U.S. expedition said they had seen living cells under a microscope in field samples taken from the shallower subglacial Lake Whillans, but more study is needed to determine what kinds of bacteria they are and how they live.

A British effort to reach a third body, Lake Ellsworth, was called off in December because of problems drilling.

What life is found in the icy depths may provide the best answer yet to whether life can exist in the extreme conditions on Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa.

The Russian discovery came from analyzing water that froze onto the end of the drill bit used to bore through to Vostok - the largest of a network of hundreds of lakes under the ice cap that acts like a blanket trapping the Earth's geothermal heat.

Bulat and other members of Russia's Antarctic mission could not be reached for comment to Reuters on Thursday.

But Bulat told RIA that scientists are waiting for more samples from the lake to confirm their discovery.

Because of the technology used to keep from polluting the pristine lake, Russia will only obtain clean water samples - uncontaminated by drilling fluid - for analysis later this year.

To answer concerns kerosene and anti-freeze from the borehole would seep into the lake, Russian engineers withdrew the drill to allow the water to percolate up into the borehole and freeze there, only returning this year to collect it.
But Bulat said the unknown microbes were found after separating out species of bacteria that are known to exist in the drilling fluid.

"When we tried to identify the DNA, it did not coincide with any of known species. It's degree of similarity was less than 86 percent," Bulat told RIA.
"That is practically zero when working with DNA. A level of 90 percent tells us the organism is unknown."

Frozen samples from deeper in the borehole collected during this year's Antarctic summer season in February are now being carried back by boat and are due in St Petersburg in May.

"If we again identify the same group of organism in that pure sample of water, then we can confidently say we have found new life on Earth," Bulat said.

Sun Life Grows Dental Biz

In an effort to grow its dental business, the life insurer Sun Life Financial Inc. (SLF) has announced it will provide its customer facility on the United Concordia Alliance network. The network has replaced the Advantage Plus Network. The service will be provided by Employee Benefits Group unit of Sun Life Financial.

The United Concordia Alliance network will thereby provide its customers with 27% more dental provider access points than the old network.

Sun Life already has an active presence in the dental insurance markets. It sells dental preferred provider organization (PPO) plans in all states in the U.S., with coverage for employees and dependents.

The plan is packaged in such a way that customers can tailor make it according to their requirements regarding deductibles, benefit waiting periods, coinsurance levels, and plan maximums. Extra benefits offered by the plan are built-in routine care, orthodontia for children and adults, and an annual maximum rollover benefit.

The company will have a braod penetration in the dental insurance markets, given that United Concordia network has 96,000 providers at more than 246,000 access points throughout the U.S.

Other players in the same industry providing dental plans are MetLife Inc. (MET), Humana Inc. (HUM) and CIGNA Corp. (CI).

During the recently reported fourth quarter earnings the company witnessed a strong growth in its Employee Benefits Group business, on the back of increased sales.

Sun Life is a leading Canadian life insurance company, with an active presence in the U.S. Over the long term we believe the company will be able to generate superior returns for its investors given a proactive approach to managing and mitigating fundamental issues.

Does your preschooler need life insurance?

You may need life insurance after getting married or having a child, but do you need it from the day you're born? Advocates of juvenile life insurance say "yes" and hail the policies as financial planning essentials, while critics argue they're a waste of money.

Just like grown-up life insurance, two types of policies are available for kids: juvenile term insurance, which provides coverage until age 23 or 25 and offers the family a death benefit to cover unexpected funeral expenses for the child; and juvenile permanent insurance, which includes both a death benefit and a savings reserve that builds "cash value" as the child ages. Here's what a family needs to know.

Child death benefit pros and cons
Companies offering juvenile term life insurance talk about how the policies can provide a family with "peace of mind" by offering financial assistance -- namely, a death benefit -- "if the worst were to happen" to the child.

Juvenile term policies are sold on the idea that the death benefit is not designed to replace income, as it would be for an adult, but instead is geared toward covering burial and funeral costs if a child passes away.

Pros: Funerals are expensive. According to the most recent survey by the National Funeral Directors Association, the average cost is about $4,300, and that doesn't even include casket and cemetery expenses.

Cons: Chances are remote that a parent would ever need to pay for a child's funeral. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that only 0.03 percent of U.S. children die between the ages of 1 and 4. And then, for children ages 5 through 14, that mortality rate drops by about half.
Since the death of a child is so unlikely, purchasing juvenile life insurance strictly to cover potential funeral costs is "very short-term thinking," says J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
If families are concerned about covering unexpected funeral costs, Hunter says, they'd be better off creating a college savings fund and pulling from that if needed, rather than purchasing a juvenile life insurance policy.

Savings component pros and cons
The real advantage of a juvenile life policy is for saving, says Jack Dolan, spokesman for the American Council of Life Insurers, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group.

"What we see more clearly year after year is that the savings in a cash-value life insurance policy provide a good, solid return. And, particularly when you're in a low-interest-rate environment, it becomes an attractive means of saving," he says.

Pros: Dolan points out that the insurance plans offer tax-deferred growth, and many come with guaranteed returns, meaning your money will increase regardless of what happens in the financial markets as long as you keep making premium payments.

Unlike money kept in other savings vehicles for children, such as 529 college savings plans and Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, a juvenile life insurance policy's cash value doesn't have to be used solely for education but can be used by a grown child for other purposes, such as wedding expenses or to launch a business.

An added bonus is that children who have permanent, cash-value life insurance won't have to worry about qualifying for a policy as an adult, adds James Garfinkel, the founder and CEO of New York-based New Amsterdam Life and a director of the nonprofit Juvenile Life Insurance Foundation.

"(Juvenile insurance) guarantees the future insurability of the child, regardless of their future health, lifestyle or residence," Garfinkel says. "It's issued without any physical exam whatsoever."

Cons: Cash-value life insurance comes with fees, service charges and commissions that can prevent a policy from generating any actual returns for at least a decade, acknowledges Garfinkel. He says the rewards come over the long haul.

Hunter says the fee structure of juvenile policies makes it difficult to understand what a child's policy is really worth.

"It's much better to put money in some kind of an investment account to build to college years," he says. "It's much more understandable. It's much more transparent."

If putting money aside for college is indeed the goal, 529 prepaid tuition and college savings plans can generate returns more quickly than juvenile life insurance, and some of those plans offer state tax incentives or matching grant money that isn't available with the insurance policies.

'Enforcer' to get life in prison in Vegas slaying

A man convicted of being an enforcer for a Taiwan-based criminal gang will be sentenced Tuesday to life in a Nevada prison without parole for murder, but could get more than 100 additional years on other charges in a bloody stabbing and slashing that left one man dead and two people wounded in a Las Vegas karaoke bar in July 2009.

A state court jury in Las Vegas decided in December that 26-year-old Xiao Ye Bai won't be put to death. The remainder of Bai's sentence for crimes including kidnapping, conspiracy, attempted murder and extortionate collection of a debt will be up to Clark County District Court Judge Michael Villani.

Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said Monday that a state presentencing report recommended maximum sentences. Combined, they could top 100 years.

Bai still faces prosecution in California in a separate shooting several months before the Las Vegas attack that left one person dead and another wounded outside a karaoke bar in the city of San Gabriel.

Bai's lawyer, Robert Draskovich, said Monday he's satisfied the Nevada jury spared Bai's life for stabbing and slashing Wen Jun "James" Li at least 32 times in the Forbes KTV bar and restaurant several blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip.

"Our whole case from beginning to end was about keeping him off death row," Draskovich said.

DiGiacomo said Bai was acting to collect a $10,000 gambling debt on behalf of a gang called United Bamboo when his ex-girlfriend, Pei "Nikki" Pei, drove him to the karaoke bar in Las Vegas.

Pei pleaded guilty before trial to reduced felony charges of accessory to murder and testified at trial against Bai. She was sentenced Feb. 7 to two years' probation.

Inside the bar, Bai slashed Jian Guo while approaching Li, and stabbed a woman, Lin Yao, when she tried to intervene to stop the attack on Li.

Does Mitt Romney have a political life after losing the presidency?

Rebuilding your political life after a failed presidential bid is tough under any circumstances – especially so if you don’t have, say, a seat in the US Senate or the governor’s office to go back to, as John McCain, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis did.

It can take months – years – to get something new going, something befitting the ambition and ego of one who thought they should be president. Just ask Jimmy Carter or Al Gore or George H. W. Bush.

Mitt Romney is finding this out.
RECOMMENDED: Election 2012: 12 reasons Obama won and Romney lost
The Republican presidential standard bearer last year not only has to deal with personal political failure after twice shooting for the White House. He’s also the symbol of the GOP’s major problem these days: The failure to connect with an electorate that is becoming younger and more diverse than its membership – certainly more moderate than the party’s leadership.

Mr. Romney may have had a good personal story to tell – an attractive family, a life of quiet good works tied to his Mormon faith – but it came too late in the presidential campaign. Plus, there was no way he could dispel his image as a really, really rich white guy who had trouble relating to working families and less-fortunate Americans – the “47 percent” he derided in talking to campaign donors.

For the record, at least, few Republicans or conservative leaders speak unkindly of Romney these days

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“Certainly he gave a lot for the cause," Tim Phillips, president of the national conservative group Americans for Prosperity, told the Associated Press. "But most of the movement is wanting to look forward. They want to look forward to the next generation of leaders."

"We need as many voices for conservative reform and leadership as possible," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, among those Republicans thought to be weighing a 2016 presidential bid. "I welcome Gov. Romney and anybody else who will help to make that message and help to take that fight."

Whether or not that happens, Romney after four months spent recuperating emotionally at the family’s beach home in La Jolla, Calif., has begun to reemerge to public view.

He and Ann Romney sat down for an interview in the friendly territory of Fox News. Later this month, he’ll give his first post-campaign speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

It’s not exactly a “Romney Revival Tour,” as the Daily Beast’s John Avlon tongue-in-cheeks it. But it’s a start.

Speaking to Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” Romney talked of his loss.
“It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done,” Romney said. "The hardest thing about losing is watching this critical moment, this golden moment slip away…. It’s hard.”

It slipped away early, he learned election night, with the loss of Florida and then Ohio. "By 8 or 9 o'clock, it was clear that we were not going to win," he remembers.

Romney calls his “47 percent” comment “very unfortunate.”
“It's not what I meant. I didn't express myself as I wished I would have,” he told Fox. “You know, when you speak in private, you don't spend as much time thinking about how something could be twisted and distorted…. There's no question that hurt and did real damage to my campaign.”

It didn’t take much twisting or distorting to see the potential damage in the full comment, made at a private fund-raiser in Boca Raton, Fla., last May: “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. … These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” Romney also acknowledges what he describes as a lack of effectiveness in his message to Hispanic and African-American voters. “That was a real mistake,” he told Fox.

Romney dinged President Obama for how the man who beat him in last November’s election has handled the whole sequester fiasco.

“No one can think that's been a success for the president,” he said. “He didn't think the sequester would happen. It is happening.”

"But to date, what we've seen is the president out campaigning to the American people, doing rallies around the country, flying around the country, and berating Republicans,” he continued. “And blaming and pointing. Now what does that do? That causes the Republicans to retrench and then put up a wall and fight back. It's a very natural human emotion."

Today, Mitt Romney has a realistic view of his place in American politics, a view tinged with longing.

"I recognize that I lost, so I'm not going to be the leader of the Republican Party. Other people will take that mantle,” he said. “But I want to have influence on getting our party into a position where we can be successful in solving the problems the country has…. I recognize that as the guy who lost the election, I'm not in a position to tell everybody else how to win, all right? They're not going to listen, and I don't have the credibility to do that anyway. But I still care.”

Gary Taffet: When Purchasing Life Insurance, Discernment Is Key

Life insurance coverage is a significant purchase; not only does it represent a major financial commitment, but, because life insurance is used to protect family members from economic hardship, it is imperative for individuals to obtain high-quality coverage. As such, many individuals are prone to seeking out advice before committing to a particular life insurance plan. According to a recent article from Business 2 Community, however, the quality of life insurance advice can vary greatly -- and it is essential for individuals to make certain that they are only listening to informed and unbiased counsel. This stance has won a comment from Gary Taffet.

Gary Taffet has worked in insurance brokerage and employee benefits administration for years, and currently serves with the New Jersey-based Reliance Insurance Group. Taffet has issued a new statement to the press, in which he offers his own thoughts on the Business 2 Community article, and the need for proper guidance when shopping for life coverage. "Independent insurance agents with vast professional experience make the best life insurance advisors," states Gary Taffet. "Each client is unique. An independent insurance advisor has a fiduciary obligation to provide the best possible recommendations. These valued and trusted professionals are providing unbiased and knowledgeable advice. And that is the most crucial role of any insurance agent."

Gary Taffet's advice for individuals to obtain proper counsel from independent insurance agents dovetails with the Business 2 Community article, which cautions against leaning on the advice of those who have little life insurance experience -- in particular, family members and friends. The article notes that there is nothing at all wrong with seeking insight from friends and loved ones, but cautions individuals to remember that, in most cases, these friends and family members are not life insurance professionals.

The Business 2 Community article continues by noting the crucial distinction between captive agents and independent agents. A captive agent is generally only able to refer clients to a single life insurance carrier, whereas an independent agent is able to provide a range of options. Because the independent agent has greater liberty to endorse different products and services, the independent agent is ultimately better able to meet the particular needs of any given client -- a point affirmed by Gary Taffet.
Ultimately, the article shares the view held by Gary Taffet -- that for individuals seeking the best possible life insurance coverage, speaking with an experienced and independent agent is ultimately the most prudent course of action.

Pan-American Life Insurance Group Names Two New Board Members

Today, Pan-American Life Insurance Group (PALIG), a leading provider of insurance and financial services throughout the Americas, announced the appointments of Jerry Carlisle and Wendell Mottley to the company's Board of Directors.

Jerry Carlisle is a financial consultant for the insurance and oil and gas industries, as well as the public sector.  He is an adjunct professor in the College of Business at Tulane University, and previously served as Deputy Inspector General, Audit & Review with the Office of Inspector General for the City of New Orleans.  For nearly 20 years Carlisle served in various financial management positions with The Louisiana Land and Exploration Company, including as Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer, prior to his retirement in March 1997.   Carlisle is deeply involved in the New Orleans business community, and has served on a number of Boards and committees including with the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, Vistage International and Energy Partners, Ltd.  Carlisle earned a B.S. in Accounting from Mississippi State University and a Master of Business Administration from Loyola University.

Through December 2011, Wendell Mottley served as Managing Director and Senior Advisor at Credit Suisse in New York.  Mottley served as Finance Minister of Trinidad & Tobago between 1991 and 1995.  Most recently, he was named Chairman of the Trinidad & Tobago Unit Trust Corporation.  Mottley earned Economics degrees from Yale and Cambridge Universities.  Additionally, he won 2 Olympic Track and Field medals in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

"We are very pleased with the addition of Jerry and Wendell to our Board of Directors, as their experience will continue to strengthen the diverse and expert understanding necessary to reinforce our leadership position in the Americas," said Jose S. Suquet, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of Pan-American Life Insurance Group.  "Jerry's vast hands-on experience in financial management, accounting and audit will be a valuable addition to our Audit Committee.  The company's growth trend extends into the Caribbean region – an area of focus and significant impact to Pan-American Life's success - just two months following the completion of the MetLife Alico/Algico assets acquisition in 13 Caribbean countries. Wendell's distinguished reputation and his keen understanding of the region, including the investment and regulatory frameworks, will be vital to the Group's expansion to the Caribbean."

Life-saving drug not administered by two NI health trusts

Two of NI's health trusts have not distributed a potentially life-saving drug, despite it being available to them since July 2012.

Naloxone temporarily reverses the effects of heroin overdose, allowing more time for emergency treatment.

The Public Health Agency bought 500 packs of the drug, at a cost of £8,345, and made it available in July 2012.

But neither the Belfast Trust nor the South-Eastern Trust have distributed it to addicts at risk of overdose as yet.

Naloxone saves lives and it's the most simple drug to use. The longer they take to drag their heels with Naloxone the more people are going to die.”

Joanne Brannigan
Naloxone steering group
The BBC has learned that in 2011, the latest year for which figures are currently available, 17 people died of a heroin overdose in Northern Ireland.

Naloxone comes in a pack containing the drug in syringes and the packs were supplied by the PHA to local health trusts.

The packs were then to be given out by the trusts to medical professionals, staff from homeless organisations, pharmacists, drug users and their carers.

Victoria Creasy from the PHA said they wanted to get the drug out "all across Northern Ireland".

"We don't want people to take a heroin overdose, but it is there if that happens to save their life."

So far, the Northern Trust has distributed 63 of the 130 packs they received, while both the Western and Southern Trusts have handed out small numbers of Naloxone packs.

The Belfast Trust received 150 packs of the drug, while the South-Eastern Trust received 100 packs.

Neither trust has yet distributed any to addicts or those living or working with them.

However, the Prison Service, in which healthcare is overseen by the South-Eastern Trust, has distributed 35 packs of the drug to prisoners judged to be at risk of overdose on release.

According to the PHA, about 210 people have also received training in how to administer the drug.

Joanne Brannigan sits on the Naloxone steering group, made up of representatives from the PHA, the trust's addiction teams, the Health and Social Care Board and others.

She claims that lives may have been lost because the drug has not been made widely available.

"Naloxone saves lives and it's the most simple drug to use," she said.

"The longer they take to drag their heels with Naloxone the more people are going to die."

In a statement to the BBC, the Belfast Trust said that they had "established a care pathway" and hoped to be able to distribute the drug shortly.

The South-Eastern Trust also provided a statement in which they said that they are about to commence training to enable the drug to be administered and that they anticipate dispensing 25 packs of Naloxone through their Community Addictions Team in March 2013.

They said that, as prison health was "much smaller with different governance arrangements" they were able to implement distribution to prisoners more quickly.

Ang Lee wins second directing Oscar for "Life of Pi"

Taiwanese-born Ang Lee won his second Oscar for Best Directing on Sunday for "Life of Pi," the adaption of Yann Martel's fantasy adventure novel about an Indian boy who survives a shipwreck but is stranded in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.

"Life of Pi" was nominated for 11 Oscars - including Best Picture - and also won for Cinematography, Original Score and Visual Effects. Starring newcomer Suraj Sharma, the film was lauded by critics for Lee's ability to bring the complex book to life.

"Thank you movie god," Lee said to a big laugh from the audience.
"I really need to share this with all 3,000 - everybody who worked with me on 'Life of Pi'," he said.

Lee won in a year in which the director's race was one of the most controversial for its exclusions, most notably Ben Affleck, the director of "Argo" who picked up the top award from his peers at the Directors Guild and a slew of other awards.

Lee, 58, won his first Academy Award in 2006 for directing "Brokeback Mountain," the story of a complex love affair between two men.
He began directing Chinese-language films and has made 13 films in a diverse career. Those films have included the special effects-laden "Hulk" based on a Marvel comic Book and the adaption of Jane Austen's classic, "Sense and Sensibility."

His 2000 Chinese-language film "Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger," won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was a surprise hit with worldwide ticket sales of $213.5 million.

Lee came to Hollywood's attention after directing three Chinese-language films, including "The Wedding Banquet" in 1993, nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Lee cast Sharma, then a 17-year old student, for the role of a young Pi Patel in 2010 after 3,000 young men auditioned for the lead role.

After his family goes down in the giant ship, Pi spends most of the film on the lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific, trying to avoid being consumed by the 450-pound (200-kg) tiger, a premise that Lee pulled off with heavy reliance on special effects and a digital tiger. The ocean scenes were filmed in a 1.7-million-gallon (6.4-million-liter) tank.

Movie reviewer critic Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, calling it "a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery."
President Barack Obama also gave "Life of Pi" a thumbs up in an interview with People Magazine, saying the film "was good - because we had read that book together."

Work, Life, and the Attempt to Do it All

At one time, the concept of "work-life balance" seemed to promise a holy grail for meeting the demands of modern life. But that ideal of having it all, particularly for women, for whom the pressures of family responsibilities still loom largest, has been increasingly, and publicly, denounced. "There's no such thing as work-life balance," Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said last year in the AOL/PBS video series MAKERS: Women Who Make America. Sandberg said she would pump breast milk during conference calls and dismiss the wooshing noise as a jackhammer outside. "There's work, and there's life, and there's no balance," she said. A few months later, in Anne-Marie Slaughter's tell-all for the Atlantic, she described leaving her "foreign-policy dream job" to tend to her family, particularly a troubled son whom her hectic schedule only permitted seeing on weekends.

These stories sparked plenty of buzz about work-life balance. But they are just examples of a conundrum that affects us all. Given today's tethers of technology, we remain "on call," even as we struggle to slay the eternal to-do list.

"We end up caught in the cycle of responsiveness," says Leslie Perlow, a Harvard Business School professor and author of Sleeping With Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work. "The more we do it, the more others expect it of us, the more we do it. And what is happening is there is no longer any pressure for work to be confined to normal work hours. Rather, people realize they can find each other any time and so there is no pressure to plan and prioritize," she says. Ultimately, the constant connectedness is "undermining the predictability and control we have of our lives and more surprisingly the work process itself."
So, how do we get our lives back?

We have to redraw the boundaries destroyed by technology and the global economy, explains Cali Williams Yost, CEO of Flex+Strategy Group and Work+Life Fit, which help businesses and individuals, respectively, find room for both. But rather than strive for balance, which sets up an elusive ideal of neatly splitting time between work and home, find a personal prescription to make your work and life fit. Yost's book, Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day, released last month, outlines four lessons derived from people who manage life with relative ease. They succeed, she says, by aligning their work and personal calendars for better planning, routinely reflecting on what they are and aren't accomplishing, taking steps to then "close the gap," and, finally, celebrating their achievements, she says. "They don't focus on what they don't get done."

Consider your to-do list a "source of inspiration," and then put priorities on your calendar, Yost says. For example, on a given day, you might want to accomplish the following: complete a work project, make a healthy family dinner, return the long-overdue phone call to whomever, swing by the mall to buy a birthday gift, and make the morning yoga class so you're pumped enough to meet the aforementioned tasks. You might prioritize the family dinner and work project, but buy the birthday gift online and do yoga at home with a top-notch DVD.

Ang Lee’s Life of Pi: Storm and Fang, Water and Wonder

An Indian boy and a Bengal tiger: a tale familiar to children a century ago from Rudyard Kipling’s story of Mowgli and Shere Khan in Jungle Book and, with more unfortunate racial stereotyping, in Helen Bannerman’s The Story of Little Black Sambo. Call the boy Pi and the Bengal tiger Richard Parker, trap them on a small lifeboat in unchartered Pacific waters, set up a boy-vs.-beast battle for territory and survival, and you have the essence of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2002. No question, it’s a (literally) ripping yarn, full of desperation, heroism and a certain spectral awe. But the story poses unusual challenges to the director of a live-action movie.

Ang Lee has often bucked long odds in his films. The Taiwan-born American director mastered the nuances of 19th-century English manners in Sense and Sensibility, set martial-artist adversaries to dancing on tree tops in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and sold the mainstream audience on the love story of two cowboys in Brokeback Mountain. This time, Lee sets out to astound the viewer with the hitherto untapped properties of 3-D. Pi builds on the triumphant innovations in James Cameron’s Avatar, and the advances in motion-capture technology evident in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, to create a tactile, spectacular world of wonder.

A techno-brat like Robert Zemeckis might have been attracted to this tale of the teenage Pi (Suraj Sharma), the only human survivor of a shipwreck that took the lives of his family, stranded on an immense ocean in a confined space with a wild creature who could kill him with one swipe of a paw. Zemeckis has used motion-capture for children’s fables (The Polar Express) and Dark Age dramas (Beowulf), and in his last live-action film, Cast Away, put Tom Hanks through an ordeal of desert-island isolation.

But Lee, in a quieter way, is just as headstrong a pioneer. To tell him that a film project is impossible is just a way of getting him interested in it. Having come to the University of Illinois for college, and settling in New York City, Lee plunged himself into an alien culture for a series of social comedies about good manners (Sense and Sensibility), gay manners (The Wedding Banquet), awkward manners (The Ice Storm) and no manners at all (Taking Woodstock). Plus two Westerns (Ride with the Devil, Brokeback Mountain), a Chinese-language exercise in erotics (Lust, Caution) and a Marvel comics movie (the lumbering Hulk).

Making a film about a teenager who is Noah, Robinson Crusoe and Siegfried (without Roy), and who encounters all manner of sea life, plus an orangutan, a hyena and about a million meerkats, and whose mortal enemy and sole companion is an adult tiger, had a uniquely high degree of difficulty. A decade ago, a Life of Pi movie could not have been imagined, let alone realized — unless Lee had employed a severely sedated tiger, or summoned an endless supply of lookalike actors to play Pi and replace the ones whom a more energetic beast would have clawed or devoured. Now, thanks to advances in technique and a new generation of artist-tinkerers, it can be done.

Life of Pi, from a script by David Magee, isn’t all storm-and-fang; it has recognizable Ang Lee elements. The tensions in a loving family, familiar from Sense and Sensibility, are reprised here in the relationship of young Pi (played at age 12 by Ayush Tandon) to his father (Adil Hussain), who owns a zoo in the Indian city of Pondicherry, and mother (Indian indie icon Tabu). The prickly love stories at the heart of The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution get a more tender, tentative play in the friendship of young Pi and a girl (Shravanthi Sainath) he meets at a dance class.

When Pi’s father is obliged to sell the Pondicherry zoo, he books his family and the animals on a Japanese cargo ship headed for Canada; the storm that sinks the ship, kills his parents and disperses the creatures — another amazing sequence — launches Pi on cross-Pacific journey that lasts seven months. That trek has its analog in Lee’s own itinerary, which has taken him from Taiwan to the U.S. to Britain and finally back to his homeland, where he built a huge tank for the sea scenes. Pi’s quest, which tests his spirit no less than his resolve, will lead him through three religions and a climactic enlightenment — all of which the adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) describes to a skeptical Canadian writer (Rafe Spall). Those present-day scenes are the movie’s only sign of clumsiness, though Khan, so impressive as the displaced widower Sunil in season three of In Treatment, tells the tale with a poised poignance. (Spall replaced Tobey Maguire, who had starred in The Ice Storm and Ride With the Devil, when the director decided that rapport was lacking.)

To prepare for this daunting endeavor — a no-star production whose budget crept toward $100 million — Lee created a 70-minute “pre-viz” of the movie’s central section on the life raft (we can’t wait to see it as an extra on the Life of Pi DVD), then led a team of visual-effects artists to bring the tiger to vivid life on the boat. On the set, of course, there was no tiger, just as, in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, there were no apes, just digital sorcery. Yet the creature is as mean, majestic and as palpable as the one painted by Henri Rousseau in Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) — a title that applies equally here.

The difference is that, in Life of Pi, it’s the audience that’s likely to be slack-jawed. On Lee’s Pacific, the surface is a shimmering mirror; it reflects the sky so clearly that Pi seems to be both underwater and above the clouds. At times Lee follows the hallucinations of the malnourished boy — as in an underwater montage, where fish form a mosaic of his faraway girlfriend’s face. The cinematography of Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) has the pellucid immediacy of a fever dream. Instead of the ecstatic soaring of the cross-species lovers in Avatar, this dream or nightmare is taking place in the remotest part of what we call Earth. We see dire and divine events unfold through Pi’s troubled spirit and, at times, through the eye of the tiger.

To compare Life of Pi with Avatar is not to suggest that the Lee movie will challenge the Cameron for all-time box office supremacy. But Pi is a poem of emotional immediacy — and a giant leap forward, outward and upward in expanding the resources of the evolving medium of movies. Magical realism was rarely so magical and never before so real.

Life insurance from marriage into midlife

Sliding out of your 20s and into your 30s means you're probably about to face some serious life changes. For many people, the next couple of decades are a time to focus on family, whether that means starting a new one or expanding the one you already have.

As your life moves on, your life insurance needs will, too. Here are the life insurance issues you may encounter at the mile markers people reach in their 30s and 40s.

Parenthood
As you add members to your clan, you'll also need to add life insurance to ensure your babies are taken care of if something happens to you or your spouse. For new parents, figuring out how much coverage you'll need isn't easy and means figuring what your family's future costs might be, says Glenn E. Stevick Jr., an adjunct professor of insurance at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

"When (new parents) think about life insurance, most people kind of focus on what we call 'final expenses.' What does it take to bury me or cremate me, pay off my debts, and so on?" he explains.

But what parents typically forget, he says, are the major bills the family will encounter in the future, such as the cost of sending the children to college. You need enough life insurance so the family would be able to cover these sorts of expenses if a breadwinner dies.

Most new parents in their 30s will need "somewhere between 15 to 20 times their income" in life insurance coverage, says Onofrio Cirianni, a partner with New York-based EisnerAmper Financial and Insurance Services LLC. People in their 40s will need 10 to 15 times their income, he says.

Employers provide many families with a head start toward their life insurance needs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 73 percent of full-time workers in the private sector are eligible for some life insurance benefits through their company.

To do a comprehensive analysis of your family's potential expenses in the future and determine how much coverage you need beyond your employer-sponsored life insurance, Cirianni recommends enlisting the help of an insurance agent or financial planner.

Remarriage
Most people get married in their 20s, but it's not uncommon to walk down the aisle again in your 30s or later. A survey released in 2011 by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the median age for second marriage is about 36 for men and 33 for women.

Life insurance needs are different for those in second marriages, especially when stepchildren are involved, says Sonali Virendra, a vice president with New York Life Insurance Co. In addition to examining each spouse's income, assets and debts, couples also must factor in alimony and child support payments they may be making or receiving, and coordinate with their exes to ensure that all children are adequately covered.

"If you have a family that's now a blended family, you need to now redo (a life insurance analysis) you may have already done in the past," Virendra notes.

Aging
Another major life insurance concern facing those in their 30s and 40s is time. Those who are eyeing life insurance, whether to cover a new baby or protect a new spouse, should do so as soon as possible to get the best rates, says Cirianni.

"Unlike investing, insurance always requires someone to be underwritten, and you have to qualify for it," he explains. "There's no better time to look at what amount of coverages you're eligible for than when you're young and healthy."

In most cases, life insurance premiums rise steadily as policyholders age. Plus, the older you get, the more likely you are to develop a condition that could spike your premiums dramatically or even render you ineligible for life insurance altogether, Cirianni says. Conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular issues, high cholesterol and abnormal liver function can increase your insurance rates by up to 50 percent.

"It's really unfortunate because where there may have been an opportunity to set up coverage earlier in life, they (now) may be stuck with a higher premium," he says.

To sidestep higher life insurance charges as you progress through your 40s and 50s, Cirianni says to start the needs-analysis process early and maintain healthy habits.

Danica at a Key Career Moment After Life Changes

For so long, Danica Patrick was just a pretty girl in a fast car surrounded by a crack marketing staff who parlayed a few golden moments on the track into worldwide fame.

Her sexy Super Bowl ads and the revealing magazine shoots quickly outnumbered her actual career accomplishments. They still do, and she routinely takes Twitter broadsides from a fan base that has resented her since she first dabbled in NASCAR three years ago. Her fiercely competitive nature and desire to keep her personal life private created the perception she is cold, standoffish,

Patrick has never flinched, and she's not flinching now on the doorstep of the biggest moment of her NASCAR career. She learned long ago to not care what people think about her, to tune out the critics and plug away at her race craft and at building the Danica empire.

All of that should help her in the pressure cooker of Daytona this week. After all, she's used to the spotlight more than almost any driver in history.

She already has a major accomplishment to tuck in her belt: She is the first woman in history to win the pole at NASCAR's top level. That it came at the Daytona 500, "The Great American Race," is somehow fitting because it is Patrick. The face of auto racing to many casual fans is now going to be the face of NASCAR every day this week leading into Sunday's season-opener.

Cricket-Kaneria's appeal against life ban to resume in April

Banned leg-spinner Danish Kaneria's appeal against a life ban will resume on April 22 after it was adjourned by an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) disciplinary panel in December, the Pakistani player's brother said on Sunday.

The hearing on Dec. 10 had to be adjourned after chief witness and Kaneria's former Essex county team mate, Mervyn Westfield, failed to show up.

Kaneria was banned for life from playing in Britain after the ECB's disciplinary panel ruled last June that he had been involved in spot-fixing.

The 32-year-old, who played 61 tests, was branded a "grave danger" to the game by the ECB who found him guilty of encouraging or attempting to encourage Westfield to underperform in a match in 2009.

"Danish is still in London and he will now decide whether to return to Pakistan or stay there till his appeal is heard," Vicky Kaneria told Reuters.

"Danish wants the appeal hearing to be heard so that he can prove he is innocent."
The ECB could not be reached for comment.

The leg-spinner, who has been suspended by the Pakista Cricket Board (PCB) pending the outcome of the appeal hearing, said he wanted Westfield to appear before the five-man ECB panel.


Westfield was handed a four-month prison sentence last February after pleading guilty in court to spot fixing in a match between his Essex side and Durham in September 2009.

Lincoln Financial Group Offers 2013 Product Trends Impacting Life Insurance and Annuity Markets

Financial security with flexibility, an evolving combination/Long Term Care (LTC) product market, risk managed strategies, and tax deferrals are some of the trends that Mark Konen, President of Lincoln Financial Group's Insurance and Retirement Solutions business, sees driving the individual life and annuities industries in 2013.

"With the realities of today's economic climate and our society's evolving demographics, we see continued interest in financial solutions that offer a level of predictability - whether that's in the form of a death benefit, a living benefit, asset protection, or the elimination of the 'use it or lose it' risk of some products," said Konen. "As the industry works to deliver on these consumer demands, we believe 2013 is primed to see the development of many unique solutions, while also seeing some once-popular products and features reemerge in cases of 'what's old is new again.'"

Among the 2013 trends that we may see:

Innovation and Non-Traditional Life Insurance Solutions

Today, three in ten American households are uninsured and half say they are underinsured1. Competing financial obligations, perceptions about life insurance costs, and lack of understanding about needs often prevent consumers from purchasing a policy. The low interest rate climate has further complicated the problem by making many forms of insurance more expensive / unattainable for the average American. To help bridge this gap between the public's need for life insurance and their ability to secure it, expect to see innovative life insurance alternatives emerge that go beyond the traditional offerings consumers have known. These innovations will balance financial planning needs, flexible coverage and cost efficiencies against the dynamics of today's economic climate.

Variable Universal Life Insurance

Once the industry's life insurance product of choice in the 1990s, Variable Universal Life (VUL) is primed for a comeback. By balancing death benefits with market-driven cash value potential, VUL products can help consumers financially protect their loved ones, while also providing a potential source of supplemental income to keep pace with life's changes. This combination of features in a single solution can be very compelling during these uncertain times. 

Life Combination Products: Flex Pay Premiums, Younger Clients, ABRs

With an estimated 70 percent of people turning age 65 expected to have a long-term care need2, life combination products continue to rise in popularity as alternatives to traditional standalone LTC solutions that carry a "use it or lose it" risk. As this trend continues, expect to see increasing interest in linked-benefit products with LTC riders offering premiums that can be paid over several years. Linked-benefit products with LTC riders have historically appealed to older clients with substantial savings and the ability to pay a lump sum. However, the option to spread premiums over time offers younger clients in their pre-retirement years and still accumulating assets, the opportunity to plan for and protect against the financial impact of a Long Term Care event.

As the combination space evolves, also expect to see increasing demand for life insurance solutions with Accelerated Benefit Riders (ABR). While linked-benefit products with LTC riders are designed for those clients primarily concerned with long term care, ABRs serve a growing market demand for clients who have a primary need for death benefit protection, but are also concerned about the impact that a permanent chronic or terminal illness may have on their financial well-being.

Annuities: Guaranteed Living Benefits, Risk Management Strategies, Tax Deferrals

Americans today face the strong possibility of outliving their retirement assets. This will continue to drive the popularity of Guaranteed Living Benefit (GLB) riders with annuities, as they provide clients a minimum guaranteed lifetime income stream that doesn't require them to give up control of their assets. With this trend, expect to see providers place added emphasis on risk management strategies built into the products and their benefits. These strategies are designed to reduce equity risk during volatile markets and lead to a more consistent pattern of returns. The goal is to protect clients' account values and encourage them to remain invested, which over time may increase the probability of growth for retirement income. These risk management strategies also enable companies to continue providing compelling GLBs.

With the recent changes to the tax landscape, particularly among the affluent population, also expect to see a renewed emphasis on the tax deferral aspect of annuities. Because annuity assets accumulate tax-deferred, there are no tax consequences until clients take money from their contract, often at lower tax rates occurring during retirement, making this annuity value proposition more attractive to clients in 2013.

Disclosure
Variable products are sold by prospectus, which contains the investment objectives, risks, and charges and expenses of the variable product and its underlying investment options. Investors need to read the prospectus carefully before investing.