“What a long, strange trip it’s been.” – Grateful Dead
The first issue of Broker World was September/October 1980. Fifty-two pages, eight feature articles and 27 advertisers. The predecessor of this column was simply titled “Welcome…:” and our illustrious founder and sage William Howard explained the decision to launch the first new insurance magazine for agents in 25 years thus: “Our decision to do so was based on the conviction that a factor already significant in the total marketing equation is destined to increase dramatically in importance during the years to come. The name of that factor is brokerage.” He continued, “At the present time consumer demands and inflationary pressures are both generating unprecedented diversity of product and, some believe, mandating greater efficiency in marketing than traditional systems afford.”
The lead editorial was by George G. Joseph, CLU, president, Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association, titled Brokerage Today And Tomorrow. Other articles covered risk underwriting; a panel of experts predicting where life insurance marketing would go in the next decade, the direction of cash value life insurance, and increasing flexibility in life products; Retired Lives Reserve; the advantages of reaching impaired risk clients; a “moral risks” discussion; and an underwriting look at Epilepsy. Ads in the issue included Retired Lives Reserve products, small group, and impaired risk, impaired risk and impaired risk.
In November 1990 editor extraordinaire Sharon Chace reported on a speech by ACLI President Richard Schweiker to the 101st annual meeting of the Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors of America. Schweiker spoke on the hot topics of the challenges of AIDS and the possible pitfalls of genetic testing. Our intrepid publisher discussed the merits of a BGA serving as many agents as possible and limiting involvement versus nurturing a smaller cadre of agents and providing, as nearly as possible, their every need in the business. The conclusion? The very best went down both roads at once, attempting to gradually gain credibility, agent confidence and finally commitment through superior service. Articles covered a variety of substandard and specialty risks in the life, international and disability markets; survivorship life and estate planning for the 90s; and a LIMRA piece outlining the industry’s growth over the past 50 years and eerily outlining where our industry would be in the next 50 years. Companies were advertising annuities with 9.25 to 9.5 percent first year yields or better with one time bonus up to five percent, universal life interest at 9.25 percent, a plethora of group health plans, and there were a bunch of impaired risk ads.
The November 2000 issue saw Ms. Chace announce the selection of two prominent NAILBA members to the LIFE foundation (now Life Happens) board, outlined NAILBA involvement and commitment to the Life foundation and espoused the benefits to both from their association. Articles again predominantly explored health and impaired risk considerations across the spectrum from agent responsibility to lab results to carrier considerations. Ads featured annuity first year interest rates from 10 to 12 percent, equity indexed annuities, 30 year guaranteed level term, multiple variable product ads, a variety of LTCI ads from carriers who have subsequently exited the business, cigar or pipe as non-smoker…and many impaired risk ads.
November 2010’s underwriting articles focused on the importance of relationships in the impaired risk market, the importance of setting proper expectations, and the ways revamping underwriting and application processing can drive new opportunities. Sharon Chace examined the beginnings of NAILBA in 1981-82 and the key role SUB-Centers (The Society of Underwriting Brokers) played in it’s formation. Advertisers offered annuities with (gulp) 3.20 percent first year interest or 2.35 with a five percent premium bonus, indexed universal life, no lapse universal life, lifetime income benefit riders, tech advances creating ease of doing business with carriers, and ads from impaired risk specialists.
This November issue features articles on financial justification; the importance of field underwriting; medically underwritten SPIAs for financing elder care; living benefits to fund experimental cancer treatment; and the underwriting of settlements designed specifically for long term care. (And this self indulgent stroll down memory lane.) Ads include indexed annuities, fixed annuity with income rider, indexed universal life, variable life, whole life, term insurance, accelerated underwriting, living benefits, DI, contingency coverage, LTCI, asset-based LTC protection…and impaired risk.
So what’s the point? Where exactly brokerage is heading is a topic best left for our industry’s sages rather than this silver spooner, but some questions beg asking: Will our industry see significant recovery from nearly a decade of artificially suppressed interest rates that will allow carriers to again become more aggressive in product design and risk selection? Will SPDAs and SPIAs again enjoy something better than “Yes, but…” status? Will carriers reenter the mostly abandoned markets of stand-alone LTCI and disability income? Will our industry step up and re-develop a financially defensible way for brokers to specialize on the vastly underserved middle market and how? In what ways will the race to speed underwriting via tech advances affect the substandard market? Is brokerage now becoming the dutifully welcomed, increasingly compliant, differently-mothered stepchild of the career system, where comparatively fewer producers means there are enough “just send us your healthy and wealthy” prospects to keep the dedicated more than busy enough to secure a very nice lifestyle and carrier boardrooms comfortable with easily defensible, increasingly conservative risk management? Will the desire to place protection for the families of the impaired grey and fall away like my once-Prince-Valiant-like luxurious black locks? Or will brokerage reinvent itself and make the dedicated pursuit to secure protection for all clients rich and not so…healthy and not so…again a challenging but exciting, rewarding, and satisfying lifelong career choice for a new generation of independent insurance producers?
For now, I just applaud each of the brave grey strands that cling to my scalp for another day.[SPH]
“Together, more or less in line, just keep truckin’ on…”
