2017 Life Insurance Conference

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What happens on Social stays on Social — maybe forever — so monitor, monitor, monitor! What kinds of up-front and after-the-fact controls can you put in place? The immediacy of the medium makes it even more critical to apply compliance standards for your company — and to work with employees to help avoid “risk incidents.” Attendees will learn how to review company policy, design pre-active and reactive plans, offer attractive training opportunities, and partner with counterparts in marketing and compliance.

Change in the life insurance industry is nearly overwhelming and this is evident in underwriting and new business practices and trends. This session will feature several individuals holding leadership roles in their organization in underwriting and/or new business, providing insight into the formulation and implementation of strategic responses to the evolutionary changes in underwriting and new business practices.

How do you engage with millennial consumers or millennial employees within your organization? Join us for a unique perspective on being a millennial employee within the financial services industry, as well as a consumer. Two years ago LIMRA created a think tank of millennials to create new and innovative ways to attract millennial consumers and employees to the financial services industry. Two of the millennials on that think tank will review lessons learned and provide insights on how the millennial mind works — as only millennials can.

With all the challenges in the life industry — growth rates, technology disruption, and regulatory scrutiny, how do we continue to achieve success through innovation? How do we stay relevant with our customers at the right time, right product, right channel, and right message? How can business benefit from customer-focused advanced analytics and predictive modelling, at all key lifetime stages: purchase, retention, claim, and recovery? Don’t miss this practical session!

The life insurance industry is rapidly transforming as insurtech start-ups redefine life insurance products, distribution and processes. Benton will provide an overview of the insurtech trends and how digital is transforming the life insurance industry as well as opportunities carriers should consider for change. Blanc will offer a unique perspective as RGAx develops a community of partners to build and accelerate transformational businesses that tackle the industry’s toughest problems. Attendees in this session will gain an understanding of the opportunities for strategic responses to change.

Learn about applying nonconscious methods to provide answers traditional research techniques have not been able to deliver. Hear how a leading financial organization has applied nonconscious methods to learn to engage consumers and motivate action. Understand their methods, stimuli, and key insights. See how they have incorporated their findings into business practices.

This session will cover the range of Life/LTC products, including key attractions of various designs, how to compare them to each other and to stand-alone LTCi, and ways to market them. A consulting actuary and a successful producer who have worked extensively with these products will also identify some of the gaps in the spectrum of potential coverages in this arena. Attendees should learn about what makes these products attractive to producers and consumers, and what new design structures might further stimulate this rapidly-growing market.

Simplified issue life insurance products may be a means for insurance companies to meet the needs of consumers in this world of immediate gratification. This session will include an overview of simplified issue life insurance products available in the market today when considering a simplified issue strategy as well as insight into accelerated underwriting and technology trends to respond to changing demands in the life insurance industry.

Financial transformation is all the rage in the life insurance industry. What does it mean? Why do we care? In this session, attendees will learn about financial transformation from an actuarial system perspective, including high-level philosophical underpinning and some of the nuts and bolts of the transformation process.

Robert A. Kerzner, CLU, ChFC

Consumer demographics, technology, and regulation are the three largest drivers of change for any industry. Kerzner will explore how these forces are impacting the financial services industry, how some have introduced innovation and adapted, and where there is opportunity for the future.

Now that Donald Trump is President, “Trumponomics” are the order of the day. Counter to what the experts predicted, stocks sold off only briefly on election night and since then, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has made a succession of new all-time highs. While the short-run reaction on Wall Street has been positive, we expect downsides as well. A trade war with Mexico and China could lead to a deep recession, and there will likely be faster growth but more inflation. There may be higher rates and a new head of the Fed. What are the long-run implications for Wall Street, Main Street and Washington? Insana will take a deep dive into uncharted waters to help you navigate a new economy that may have islands of prosperity in what may well be very turbulent waters.

U.S. life insurance is a mature market, but changing demographics, strong competition, changing regulation, and a difficult economic environment necessitate continued evolution. This session will explore key regulatory factors facing the market, popular products to meet the market’s changing needs, and innovative distribution approaches to make life insurance more accessible.

The pace and magnitude of change in the life insurance industry is accelerating. These changes are forcing companies to adopt new leadership models, business models, and technology approaches. This can be challenging for traditional companies due to resistance of change, lack of vision, lack of IT investment, or leadership through this tough transition. This presentation will review what is needed to successfully transform in a world of insurtechs, connected consumers, growing competition, and growing security threats. Models on how to embrace change will be shown, as well as data collected from the Gartner/LOMA study on readiness for change.

The evolution of technology has likely had no greater impact in the life insurance industry than in underwriting. This session will feature advances in underwriting technology and opportunities to use new technology to create a better consumer experience by collecting more than initial underwriting data. Attendees in this session will gain insight into opportunities to collect and use data from remote-monitoring devices and sensors including fitness equipment and patient wellness applications that can capture health and fitness behavior data for a policyholder’s lifetime engagement.

Understanding what consumers think, what they want, and what they are willing to do — or not do — when it comes to life insurance and their financial lives is critical in making business decisions. Join us to explore results from two of LIMRA’s most requested studies, the Insurance Barometer Study, which takes the pulse of consumers, and the U.S. Life Insurance Ownership study which tracks household and personal life insurance ownership, as well as related consumer attitudes. Special insights this year: consumers’ attitudes toward simplified underwriting and peer-to-peer business models.

Actuaries should make logical, rational decisions. However, the subconscious will lead us to emotional, illogical decision making. This session will highlight how and why this happens, illustrated by a number of real-life examples. The session will seek to help you have a better understanding of yourself and those around you, enhance relationships and understand how better decisions can be made.

Suppose big-box retailers, online giants, tech companies, or chain drug stores entered the individual life insurance marketplace? Roll up your sleeves and join us for an interactive session where teams collaborate to build, market, and distribute potential individual life products. Walk away with new ideas on who your competition may be tomorrow and how to prepare for potential disruptors in the marketplace.

Secondary guarantees can be tough for consumers to understand and for insurers to explain, but they are more than just the aftermath of an actuarial puzzle contest. We will begin with a summary of the actuaries’ logic and the benefits of secondary guarantees to the insurer and consumer. Then the panel will take an in-depth look at the various secondary guarantee designs, the challenges for approval by various states, and approval requirements under the IIPRC Uniform Standards.

How can the financial services industry encourage consumers to take better control of their household finances? Results from a recent LIMRA can help. This study looks at the roles of wives and husbands as decision-makers. Hear how one company is driving awareness among consumers, and encouraging them to take ownership of their finances.

Digital, straight-through processing and direct to consumer are the future of life insurance acquisition. This presentation will highlight current Celent research into the state of new business digital initiatives within life insurers and where to invest to receive the best payoff. Teachers Life, a 2016 Celent Model Insurer, will showcase their success in transforming their product mix and technology to achieve seamless, end-to-end digital processing from application to policy delivery using an international mix of vendors. This David versus Goliath success will inspire others who are embarking on digital transformation.

The Department of Labor issued its final fiduciary rule on April 8, 2016, with an April 10, 2017 applicability date. Serious concerns have been raised about the final rule and associated prohibited transaction exemptions, and the final rule’s harmful impact on retirement savers. ACLI and others filed suit challenging the rule. The Trump Administration has taken steps to conduct a review to determine if the final rule adversely affects the ability of Americans to gain access to retirement information and financial advice and is proposing to extend the rule’s applicability date. This panel will discuss the final rule and exemptions, the grounds for a legal challenge, the status of the various law suits, and what may be next for the fiduciary rule.

With the current pace of advancement in artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, it is easy to imagine a future where technology enables us to live longer, more independent, and fulfilling lives. This certainly is good news for the human race, but what does it mean for life insurers? AI and IoT are creating new opportunities for carriers to be trusted lifetime partners with their policyholders. Attendees of this session will gain insight into the evolving tech-enabled future and how it can empower life insurers to build lasting connections and greater loyalty with their policyholders.

Principle-based reserves (PBR) for life insurance became effective on 1/1/17. With it comes challenges for companies and regulators. An expert panel will discuss the implementation challenges of PBR and talk about what’s next.

Customer experience continues to receive attention, as it increasingly becomes a coveted source of business differentiation. Phil Brown from LIMRA will highlight experience with customer experience in the life insurance industry. The stage will be set with a discussion of LIMRA’s industry benchmarking program and learnings from the 2016 shopping, purchasing and inforce experience studies. Laura Hahn, Director, Customer Insight and Engagement, will then discuss how Guardian is using this study, along with multiple other data sources, to help them develop more robust views of their customers so they can serve them better.

Presenters for this session will discuss the results of the Actuarial Modeling Governance Survey sponsored by the Society of Actuaries’ Modeling Section. This session will explore the progress that has been made in the industry in developing and implementing actuarial model governance and controls, discuss areas where there are still gaps, and consider how companies are becoming more efficient and effective with their model governance frameworks.

It’s clear that social media has transformed how consumers interact with brands. What is still murky, however, is how companies can glean valuable data from those interactions and use it to increase engagement on social media and generate actionable information for other business units. We’ll explore how companies can use social media to learn about consumer demographics, buying habits, interests and more. Plus, we’ll discuss information gathering via A/B testing with social advertising, Facebook’s Audience Insights, hashtag analysis and more. 

A diverse workforce leads to better decisions and solutions. Diversity has been proven to grow business and profits. However, leaders face the daily challenge of inspiring, communicating, and executing strategy within their diverse teams. How does one motivate and lead groups of people from different backgrounds with different motivations, values, and world views? Join this session to learn key ways in which you can effectively communicate with, guide, and lead associates and colleagues who are not like you.

Come hear a Washington insider’s view on the new political landscape and the effects of a Trump victory on the life insurance industry. With expertise in corporate governance, retirement security, and tax policy, Crawford will discuss how government, public policy, markets and globalism have converged to impact everyday Americans and financial services consumers.

With the increasing focus on the consumer and access to a wealth of customer and consumer data, companies can now identify and reach target market segments like never before. Whether it’s marriage, divorce, buying a home, or having a baby, life events are often triggers for the purchase of life insurance. Come to this session to learn how to not only identify life events as they happen but anticipate them before they do.

Accelerated death benefit riders on life insurance are an area of rapid growth and your Distribution is asking for these riders. Life Insurance professionals will benefit by increasing their understanding of this new and expanding practice area. Learn about the accelerated death benefit rider types, rider structures, and how the rider structures interact with the various base life products. Take away practical knowledge that you can apply tomorrow including pricing structures, policyholder behavior risks, regulatory issues, and supplemental underwriting considerations.

The state insurance regulatory framework continues to evolve at a rapid pace, increasingly impacted by vectors from the international and federal levels. Representatives from the life insurance industry and state insurance regulatory community will offer their dashboard perspectives on the road ahead.

For many, predictive modeling is simply feeding data into a “black box” and getting output, but understanding basic algorithm creation is critical to efficient use of models. Geared towards those who have NEVER built a predictive model, we invite you to delve into the creation of a simple model and the process that underlies it. In addition, we will share the approach and results of UCONN graduate students who developed models based on the same data.

This session will present recent results of an SOA study conducted jointly by LIMRA and RGA on insurer product development processes. Topics include current structure and strategies, variation by company characteristics, process timelines, and strengths and weaknesses of the process. In addition to survey results, commentary will be shared from interviews with North American survey participants as well as product development experts outside North America.

The new principle-based reserve framework for life products became effective in the U.S. on January 1. Much of the discussion on PBR has been from a financial reporting perspective, but product development actuaries will also be on the front lines to answer questions like “Will prices go up or down?” and “Will product designs need to change?” Our panel will discuss research sponsored by the Society of Actuaries into how companies can overcome the logistical hurdles of the new reserve regime and adjust their pricing methods. You’ll learn about the critical assumptions and techniques to consider as your company looks at pricing in this new era.

The life insurance industry is adapting to the digital age to better serve middle market and millennial consumers who desire a more convenient, user-friendly and faster policy application and approval process. The ideal solution is an end-to-end digital process from policy quotation to e-policy delivery with flexibility for both agent-assisted and/or direct-to-consumer distribution. It is cost effective with robust, customizable underwriting procedures and safeguards, along with a powerful suite of analytics for immediate implementation. Industry professionals who have successfully built this platform for non-medically underwritten term life will discuss this truly straight-through-process.

Insurers are striving to employ strategies to manage in-force blocks of business and new business while addressing the constraints and challenges of legacy administration systems and the evolving needs of distribution partners and customers. Attendees in this session will gain insight into how insurers are implementing modern administration systems and simultaneously managing operations during the implementation and transition the new administration system while attaining the desired ROI.

In a perfect world, all ethical and professional issues would be black-and-white and decisions easy to make. In this world, many ethical and professional issues are gray and decisions are difficult to make. This session will be an open-forum discussion of professionalism and the actuary. Questions, examples, and brief case studies will be used to help focus the discussions.

Understanding your policyholder and unlocking insights is the key to driving the maximum value from your in force business. Join us to learn how a reimagined digital experience is delivering more value to your policyholders, your agents, and your business all at once. In this session, you will learn how weekly and monthly engagement with your policyholders can be delivered to improve their lives and the health of your business. Key concepts include digital experience, automated underwriting, advanced analytics, up-sell / cross-sell, and the future of lead generation.