Competition

  • Today, life insurers compete directly with non-insurance financial services institutions, such as banks and mutual funds.  (p12)

--  William B. Fisher, Vice President And Associate General Counsel, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, On Behalf Of The American Council Of Life Insurers  (ACLI)

2001 0621 - GOV (House) - Insurance Product Approval: The Need for Modernization - [PDF-208p, VIDEO-?]

  • Thirty-one years ago, Mark S. Dorfman (1972) concluded that workable competition did not exist in the market for life insurance products because of industry marketing practices that tended to exacerbate the insurance consumer’s ignorance and the problem of information asymmetry inherent in the industry.
    • Utterances by both industry representatives and industry critics suggest Dorfman’s assessment may still linger today.

2004 - LR - Workable Competition and the Life Insurance Market: A Quantitative Analysis - 12p

  • 4. Any change in premiums and values is an important management decision and investment yields are only one factor involved.
    • Recent changes may have been influenced more by competition than by a rise in interest rates.

--  B. T. Holmes

1957 - SOA - Life Insurance Policies, Premiums and Dividends, Society of Actuaries - 9p

  • 1996 - SOA - Competitors to the Life Insurance Industry, Society of Actuaries - 26p
  • The life insurance industry competes for agents and in designing unique policies that are often merely sales tools.
  • But as shown in this section, it does not compete vigorously on the basis of price.
  • Without meaningful cost disclosure, effective price competition is impossible.54  (p62)

1979 - FTC - Life Insurance Cost Disclosure - 460p