Do you remember the days when MET products dominated the small group market? Trust products, TPAs and TPMs collaborated to fuel the tremendous growth of employer-sponsored group health plans during the last four decades of the twentieth century. Names like Plan Services, National Insurance Services, Coordinated Benefit Plans, Association Life, CBSA, ABI, American Trust Administrators, Allied Administrators, Pacific Life, Brokers Choice, BMA, BEST Life, and many others around the country interacted with health insurance brokers to proliferate employer-sponsored group benefit plans.
Well a reunion is being planned for those dealmakers of yesteryear for a reunion to celebrate good times and great (for the most part) memories. Las Vegas’ Paris Hotel and the adjacent Bally’s will be the headquarter hotels for the event on September 8 and 9. There are no registration or entry fees.
A website has been established—www.123signup.com/insurancereunion—where you can find a description of the reunion events and register. You will also be able to access a list of those who have registered to attend.
Four of the industry’s leading long term care insurance companies have partnered with the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI) to undertake a spring-time consumer awareness campaign.
The campaign involves placement of a special eight-page consumer guide bound into all May editions of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. “The guide will address questions most often asked by consumers considering how to help protect their family and finances against a long term care event,” explains Jesse Slome, AALTCI’s executive director. According to Kiplinger’s readership data, some 2.4 million consumers will see the industry-sponsored insert.
The four insurers participating in the May campaign are Genworth Financial, John Hancock, Mutual of Omaha and Prudential. “This is the association’s latest undertaking designed to educate millions of Americans about the need to develop a plan for long term care with their financial professional,” Slome adds. A prior consumer guide ran in the November 2010 issue of Kiplinger’s during Long Term Care Awareness Month.
Founded in 1998, the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance is the national trade organization established to educate both consumers and financial professionals about the importance of long term care planning.
Ron Verzone, CFP, CIC, CLTC, president of United Underwriters, Inc., Exeter, NH, was named 2010 recipient of the Billy Vogel Award at The Marketing Alliance annual meeting in Tampa.
The Billy Vogel Award, which is TMA’s highest honor, is presented annually to individuals in the financial services industry who distinguish themselves through their business acumen, sense of innovation and, above all, integrity. The award is named for William E. Vogel, the late president of W.S. Vogel Agency, Inc. of Livingston, NJ, who exemplified those qualities.
Verzone, who recently stepped down as TMA chairman of the board, remains a current board member and is one of the three original founders. The Marketing Alliance is a provider of services and distributor of products to independent insurance agencies throughout the United States.
Tim Klusas, president of TMA, said, “Ron is a rare leader who thinks nothing of giving everything and everyone his all but doesn’t expect anything in return. His example is prominent in every part of TMA, where he challenges us to think creatively and consider ways to continuously improve our services to clients.”
Verzone is an internationally recognized speaker on insurance issues ranging from impaired risk and legislation to estate planning and long term care. He is a frequent guest columnist for well-known business and trade publications, and authored “Guide to Underwriting the Impaired Risk,” which has been distributed worldwide.
A former chairman of the National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies, he is a member of that organization as well as the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting, national and local chapters of the Association of Life Underwriters, General Agents and Managers Association, Boston Estate Planning Council, and International and New Hampshire Associations of Financial Planners. [SAC]
