Investment-Oriented Products

  • In contrast, many of the investment-oriented products marketed in the last decade have shorter duration and require greater liquidity than was needed in earlier …

1992 – World Bank – The Life Insurance Industry in the United States:  An Analysis of Economic and Regulatory Issues, by Kenneth M. Wright – 54p

  • 1987 – SOA – Investment-Oriented Products, Society of Actuaries – 38p
  • 1990 – GAO – Tax Treatment of Life Insurance and Annuity Accrued Interest – 56p
    • Chapter 3: Favorable Tax Treament of Inside Buildup Encourages Investment-Oriented Products
  • 2003 0718 – CRS – Taxation of Life Insurance Products: Background and Issues (RL32000 / 2003-07-18) – 37p
    • This discussion illustrates how cash value life insurance can operate as … life insurance status to overly investment-oriented products without …
  • The Changed Nature of the Insurance Industry
  • “In 1980 the life insurance industry was 150 years old. In 1990 . . . [it] was ten years old.”
    • This is how Gary Schulte (1991, p. 88), a Senior Vice President of Executive Life of California, summarized the impact on the life insurance industry of the growth in investment-oriented products in the 1980s.
  • At the beginning of the decade, investment-oriented products were a promising sideline in an industry whose main product was still insurance against abnormally early or late death.
  • By the end of the decade, the industry was probably generating over half its annual revenue from investment-oriented products, which typically featured high fixed or quasi-fixed rates of return and little or no insurance aspect. (p2)

1992 – FRB Quarterly Review – SPDAs and GICs: Like Money in the Bank?, Richard M. Todd, Neil Wallace – [link]

  • …universal life and investment-type products (collectively, investment-oriented products)….. (p53)
  • Update of Actuarial Assumptions
    • The life insurance companies review and update actuarial assumptions at least annually, generally in the third quarter.
    • Assumption setting standards vary between investment-oriented products and traditional long-duration products. (p123)

2018 – AIG Annual Report – 372p

  • Everyone is entitled to his opinion.
  • I think if I had done this session in 1977, the first year that Executive Life brought out the Irreplaceable Life contract with an 8% guaranteed cash value, your comments at that time would have been very similar to what they are today.
    • Not only did it have an 8% cash value but it was truly a no-load life insurance product: 100% of the money went into cash value.
    • Irreplaceable Life now pays 11-1/4% which is somewhat low in comparison to some Universal Life contracts that are being offered by the industry today.
    • However, last year we sold just a shade under 200 million dollars of Irreplaceable Life first year premium, and people who bought the contract at 8% this year were also credited with 11-1/4%.
    • I think the industry has moved more towards us than we towards them.

—  Frank Sieni, not a member of the Society, is Secretary/Treasurer of MSM Marketing Corporation

1984 – SOA – Distribution Systems for Investment-oriented Products, rsa84v10n316 – Society of Actuaries – 22p