Tag: Allison Bell

Blackstone Doubles Insurer Assets, Faces Questions About Role

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/04/22/blackstone-doubles-insurer-assets-faces-questions-about-role/

Excerpt:

Blackstone loves managing assets for insurers, but it has no interest in assuming a large amount of investment risk itself.

Blackstone Executives talked about the skin-in-the-game idea Thursday, during a conference call the company held to go over first-quarter earnings with securities analysts.

Patrick Davitt, an analyst with Autonomous Research, asked Blackstone executives Thursday about reports that some insurance regulators have concerns about independent money managers’ role in handling insurers’ investments.

“Some observers have suggested that an outcome of these reviews could be a requirement of more skin in the game for the managers, particularly those that aren’t consolidated with their insurance counterparties,” Davitt said. “So, first, what is your position on this focus? Do you think there’s a risk that regulators will require more skin in the game?”

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 22 April 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Older Consumers Keep Shopping for Life Insurance

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/03/10/older-consumers-keep-shopping-for-life-insurance/

Excerpt:

Older U.S. consumers were out shopping for life insurance policies in February.

Application activity for shoppers ages 71 and older was 4.2% higher last month than in February 2021, as the overall level of individual application activity dropped 3.8%, according to MIB.

MIB is a Braintree, Massachusetts-based group that helps life insurers share some of the information used in life insurance underwriting. It uses its own application-checking volume data to provide an early look at life insurance shopping activity.

MIB figures reflect the performance of part of the retirement planning market as well as of the protection life insurance market, because many of the applicants expect to use their policies to provide cash in retirement, or to support long-term care plans.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 10 Mar 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Dialysis Provider Expects COVID-19 Mortality to Stay High

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/02/11/dialysis-provider-expects-covid-19-mortality-to-stay-high/

Excerpt:

A company that provides care for people with serious kidney disease is assuming that COVID-19 mortality will be higher this quarter than it was in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Executives from DaVita, a Denver-based kidney dialysis provider, talked about their pandemic mortality outlook Thursday, on a conference call the company held to go over earnings for the latest quarter with securities analysts.

DaVita’s patient population is much older and sicker than any commercial life or health insurer’s enrollees, but the company’s experience could give insurers a preview of what might happen to the mortality level for their highest-risk insureds.

….

“While it’s too early to accurately forecast incremental mortality in 2022, given a significant uptick in infections in January, we expect COVID-driven mortality in the first quarter to be at or above what we experienced in Q4,” Joel Ackerman, DaVita’s chief financial officer, said on the earnings call.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 11 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

COVID-19 Is Increasing Individual Life Claims, Too: Analysis

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/02/14/covid-19-is-increasing-individual-life-claims-too-analysis/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The increase in the number of individual life claims was lower than for group life claims in some quarters but higher in others.

The analysts emphasize that the numbers are incomplete and subject to change.

Early results show that the number of claims was higher in the fall than in the summer both for individual life and group life.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 14 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

New York May Develop Life Policy Disclosure Rules

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/01/24/new-york-may-develop-life-policy-disclosure-rules/

Excerpt:

An NAIC committee formed the Life Insurance Illustrations Working Group in 2016.

The working group chair report said states should become the laboratories for disclosure standards.

The committee disbanded the working group and put the disclosure standards effort back in the hands of the states.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 24 Jan 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

COVID Waves in 2020 Caused Bigger U.S Death Rate Spike Than 1918 Flu: Actuaries

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/01/26/covid-waves-in-2020-caused-bigger-u-s-death-rate-spike-than-1918-flu-actuaries/

Excerpt:

The pandemic led to the biggest U.S. death rate increase from causes other than COVID-19 since 1936.

The death rate in the highest-income counties increased to 736.1 deaths per 100,000 people, from 638.4 per 100,000 in 2019

For people ages 5 through 44, increases in the death rate from causes other than COVID-19 were much bigger than the increase caused directly by COVID-19.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 26 Jan 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Life and Annuity Issuers Watch for Interest Rate Hike Sunshine

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/02/04/life-and-annuity-issuers-watch-for-interest-rate-hike-sunshine/

Excerpt:

Executives are hoping that Fed interest rate increases could increase the yields on insurers’ huge investment portfolios.

Higher rates could be a good thing for Prudential, the company’s vice chairman told analysts.

MetLife’s CEO said higher short-term rates could mean a flatter yield curve that would be less favorable to life insurers.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 4 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

The 5 Highest-Population States’ Current COVID-19 Mortality Picture

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/02/07/the-5-highest-population-states-current-covid-19-mortality-picture/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Life insurers had hoped that vaccination campaigns, social distancing efforts and the effects of past COVID-19 infections on people’s immune systems would start to reduce the impact of the pandemic on people with commercial life insurance and other commercial insurance products.

While the fall 2021 surge was underway, information about deaths and life insurance claims emerged slowly. Some life insurers suggested that the fall surge seemed to be spiking hard but ending quickly.

Now, Unum Group, Lincoln Financial, MetLife and other life insurers are saying that the fall surge did cause big increases in the ratio of death benefits to life insurance premiums. At Unum, for example, the ratio increased to 98.3% in the latest quarter, from 71.7% in the fourth quarter of 2019, before the pandemic began.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 7 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

COVID-19 Hospitalizations Are Soaring for Working-Age People, Too

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/01/12/working-age-covid-19-hospitalizations-soar-34-over-september-levels/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The hospitalization rate for U.S. residents of all ages is about 60% higher than it was during the last hospitalization surge, which lasted from Aug. 10 through Sept. 10.

U.S. COVID-19 patients ages 20 through 59 are doing better than older patients, but they are facing their own, smaller hospitalization surge.

The pandemic put 51,947 people in the 20-59 age group in U.S. hospitals in the week ending Jan. 7.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 12 Jan 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

COVID-19 Hospital Squeeze May Have Killed More Than 7,500 Last Week

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/01/03/covid-19-hospital-squeeze-may-have-killed-more-than-7500-last-week/

Excerpt:

The latest numbers in the early CDC death data are for the week ending Dec. 25.

The early data figures include information about fewer than one-third of the deaths occurring that week.

Those figures imply that the gap between the number of deaths caused directly by COVID-19 and the number caused by indirect pandemic effects narrowed.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 3 Jan 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

5 States Where Dying People Are Most Likely to Be Working Age

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/12/21/5-states-where-dying-people-are-the-most-likely-to-be-working-age/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Whatever the omicron variant of COVID-19 does to U.S. life insurance insurance claims, the delta variant and its siblings have been continuing to drive up the number of deaths of working-age Americans.

Some life and health insurers reported that an enormous surge of COVID-19 deaths appeared in September and then seemed to end quickly.

A look at weekly death count data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that, from 2015 through 2019, about 12,900 people ages 25 through 64 died, from all causes, in a typical week.

In September, the number climbed more than 7,000, or more than 50%, over the median.

That total includes both people killed directly by COVID-19 and by the effects of the pandemic on the health care system, the economy and U.S. society as a whole.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 3 Jan 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

5 Worst Cities for COVID-19 Case Count Trends

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/11/30/5-worst-cities-for-covid-19-case-count-trends/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The latest COVID-19 Community Profile Report, which is produced by public health specialists at the CDC and another federal agency, shows that the overall number of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people fell to 504,056 in the week ending Nov. 28, down 21% from the total for the previous week.

But, at the metropolitan area level, week-over-week changes ranged from a drop of 100% to an increase of 12%.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 30 Nov 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor