In response to the lagging economy and lackluster life sales, many producers are renewing their focus on disability insurance (DI) as an income-bolstering strategy. It’s a good plan because now, more than ever before, American workers understand the serious need for income protection. If you haven’t dipped your toe in the DI pool, now’s the time! If you’re unsure how to get started, here’s a quick rundown on how to choose the perfect DI prospect.

Over half of middle-income women feel dissatisfied with their current financial situation and uncertain about their future financial needs, according to a new survey on reaching women customers.

Furthermore, almost a third of the women didn’t know how to achieve their financial goals, say LIMRA researchers.

After a 26% dive in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, individual life insurance annualized premiums dropped 20% in the second quarter, according to a new survey.

From Bob Pedigo's series discussing the benefits of using the Laser Underwriting Approach, which utilizes an agency-based staff underwriter.

A recent report from LIMRA highlighted the turbulent life insurance market. Ashley Durham, a senior analyst for product research at LIMRA, reported on November 30th that total individual life insurance sales declined 11% in the third quarter of 2009. Total individual annualized premium sales are down 19% year to date in 2009. But not all of the news was disappointing, as whole life grew and term remained flat year-to-date.

U.S. banks sold 32% more life insurance during the first 3 quarters of 2009 than they did during the comparable period in 2008, according to Kehrer-LIMRA.

Kehrer-LIMRA, Windsor, Conn., has published percentage change figures, not figures on the total volume of life insurance products sold. Bank life sales account for just a portion of all U.S. life sales.

But the growth rate for life sales at banks far outpaced the life sales growth rate for the U.S. life insurance industry as a whole, Kehrer-LIMRA reports.

Because the life insurance industry weathered the recession so well, it now has the opportunity to remarket itself to consumers as a reliable and secure place to put their money, says Ted Mathas chairman of New York Life Insurance Company, speaking at the 20th annual executive conference for the life insurance industry in New York.

Agents help prospective athletes insure their future—even before they’re eligible to turn pro.

U.S. life insurers received fewer requests for individual coverage from young applicants in September than they did in September 2007, but activity for older applicants was stronger.

Even this math-challenged editor can define the most famous equation in physics — “energy equals mass times the speed of light squared,” or E=MC2. Did you know that life underwriters operate under a similar principle these days? It’s U=IS2, which stands for “underwriting equals information times the speed of decision-making squared.”

Individual life insurance annualized premiums plunged 20% in the second quarter, according to LIMRA’s U.S. Individual Life Insurance Sales report. For the year to date, sales fell by 23%. In a statement, LIMRA senior analyst Ashley Durham called the drop-off the “steepest six-month decline since the second half of 1942.”

A multi-faceted approach is the best way to enhance advisor performance, according to a major new study of distribution in the life insurance industry recently released by LIMRA and McKinsey & Company. The study, conducted in the fall of 2008, surveyed more than 1,200 advisors across a broad range of distribution channels to identify the challenges facing the industry and practical steps that carriers can take to enhance productivity and retention.

More Americans will lose their health insurance as the economy weakens, health care becomes more expensive and fewer employers offer coverage, the U.S. Institute of Medicine said in a report on Tuesday.

When working with an older client in the planning process, the individual’s health may be a critical component of the underwriting equation. Right from the start, there are certain issues that should be taken into consideration.

As life settlements (or viatical settlements), have grown enormously in popularity and use over the past few years, regulation of this secondary market has become a headline issue for many states, garnering a great deal of attention (and controversy) among national organizations such as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL). Consumers, institutional investors, financial advisors, and the “primary market” insurers, as well as regulators and public policy makers are all very interested in the handling of life settlements.