aband

Roger Blease

• 2013 0721 – Obituary – [link]
•  Blease Research
  • Full-Disclosure
• A.M. Best Company – life insurance analyst

• Full Disclosure – Whole Life Edition
  • published Whole Life Edition report annually since 1999

• theinsuranceproblog.com/whole-life-insurance-income-distributions-2013-edition/

• 2000 – Report – AAA to NAIC (LHATF) – Interim Report of the EMO Work Group To the Innovative Products Working Group Life and Health Actuarial (Technical) Task Force, American Academy of Actuaries – 18p
  • III.  Market Profile – Current Types of Extended Maturity Options Overview
    • This section is based primarily on information contained in FULL DISCLOSURE by Blease Research, which reports on insurance industry activities. Company responses to surveys were used to supplement this report information. In total, this section covers 77 products containing EMOs written by 46 companies.
    • See Appendix I for more detailed information 
• 2001 0511 – Insurance-Canada.ca Seminar Outline, Insurance Marketing and the Internet Influence – Hosted by Insurance Canada, the premier Internet reference site for insurance in Canada – Sponsored by Canadian Insurance magazine – [link]
  • Roger L. Blease – Roger Blease is the founder of Blease Research, whose main product is the Full Disclosure competitive intelligence software series, a comprehensive, independent life insurance comparison and analysis system. The company’s products provide agents, brokers, financial planners and advisors active in upper life insurance markets thorough information on variable, whole, universal, and survivorship life products. Over 65 leading life insurers leverage their marketing efforts by participating in Full Disclosure. A separate variable annuity service is planned for 2001.
  • Roger frequently writes and speaks on the importance of adequate product disclosure when performing product analyses, and is a frequent contributor to industry periodicals. He believes that every product is designed for specific objectives, and only a comprehensive approach that uncovers all of a policy’s strengths provides a true measure of its competitive position. Roger works closely with companies and subscribers alike to constantly evolve the Full Disclosure series.
  • He started his insurance career with Mutual of New York in 1986, and was most recently the Manager of Product Analysis at the A.M. Best Company before founding Blease Research in 1997. Roger’s experience with product issues, competitive intelligence, market conduct and distribution, lends a unique perspective to many of the challenges facing insurers, producers and financial advisors today. The Full Disclosure series, as an outgrowth of that experience, is the finest competitive intelligence system in the insurance industry.
• 2002 0901 – California CPA – Getting down to basics. (Life Insurance), by Leonard C. Wright – [link]   
• 2003 – SOA – North and South of the Border-Product Distinctions, Society of Actuaries – 22p
• 2004 – Book – Mutually Beneficial: The Guardian and Life Insurance in America, by Robert E. Wright, ‎George David Smith – [GooglePlay-]
  • … Blease Research’s Full Disclosure survey on a $250,000 policy issued to a male, age forty-five, preferred nonsmoker. The Surrender Cost Index allows for…  
• 2007 07 – JFSP – Tips for Evaluating Existing Life Insurance Policies, Robert Littell, Vol 61, Issue 4 —  Part 1-4p  —  Part 2-6p
  • There is a service provided by Blease Research³ called “Full Disclosure” that compares many different features of policies including these secondary guarantees.
    • Agents need to understand the conditions under which the guarantee of the death benefit can be voided.
    • The software covers all forms of permanent insurance including whole life, UL, VUL, and indexed UL, as well as all forms of survivorship life policies. There is a demo available for trial at www.full-disclosure.com.
  • Also, Profiles (www.profiles.com) offers a product called “Insurance Insight” that not only graphically helps illustrate the sensitivity within permanent life insurance policies inherent with changes in NAR, making it easier to understand, but also utilizes a powerful Monte Carlo simulation engine that uses actuarially certified industry-representative benchmark policy costs.
    • This allows you to do “what-if” scenarios, which are especially valuable in analyzing VUL.
    • [Bonk: Who was www.profiles.com?]
• 2007 0618 – LIMRA – LIMRA Partners with Blease Research to Help Life Insurers Develop, Market Products – [link]
  • For years, LIMRA has helped its members capture market share by providing important data and analysis about the trends and opportunities in the life insurance industry. 
  • Full Disclosure complements LIMRA’s quarterly sales reports as it can help companies to better understand the trends.  
• 2008 0413 – ThinkAdvisor – About Full Disclosure And Blease Research – [link]

• 2011 – Blease Research – Current Whole Life Policy Retirement Income Illustrated Values; As of February 1, 2011 – 1p-theinsuranceproblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/distribution-comparison-wl.pdf
• 2011 – Brian Fechtel – Northwestern’s Deceptive Advertisement and Marketing – 20p 
• 2011 – NML, Northwestern Mutual Life / Blease Research – BEST VALUE – Northwestern Mutual has the highest cash value return among major insurance companies. – as compiled by Blease Research – 1p

  • While other companies tout sales illustrations and advertised rates, there is one important, easy-to-compare and unbiased number to know when it comes to permanent life insurance policy performance: the historic actual cash value return.

• 2019 0704 – theinsuranceproblog – Northwestern Mutual’s Dishonest Sales Tactic, by Brandon Roberts – [link]
  • For a couple of decades, Blease Research compiled copious data on the life insurance industry.  One such collection of data focused on actual whole life insurance performance over a 10 and/or 20 year period.  Blease solicited-and received-data from life insurers about how a real policy unfolded given the actual dividend paid to policyholders.
  • Because there is no regulatory impetus for life insurers and the disclosure of policy results, the data was self-reported.
    • That should raise some red flags, but it was the best crack at creating such a data set so we tip our hats to Roger Blease just the same.
• 2019 1111 – NuWire – Whole Life Insurance: A Good “investment” Everyone Tells You Not To Buy – [link]
  • MassMutual and The Guardian aren’t outliers, either. Reports from independent analysts, like the late Roger Blease (Blease Research’s “Full Disclosure”), show 20-year historical returns on whole life insurance exceed the 1.5% guaranteed return cited by Consumer Reports. And, in many cases, returns on whole life insurance exceed the “possible” 3.5% returns cited by Consumer Reports.
  • Indeed, one such report looked at policies issued in 1984 by 8 mutual life insurance companies. The policies were issued on males, rated non-smokers, aged 45 and males aged 55. Blease Research tracked the actual performance of those policies up to 2004 – 20 years. In every case but one, the participating whole life policies returned no less than 3%, and in most instances, policyholders received an annual compound return on cash values of between 4% and 5%.
  • Blease Research published numerous reports, each with different starting and ending points. The results always showed that the long-term returns on participating whole life insurance were always higher than the guaranteed illustrated rate, but ultimately depended on when the policy was purchased and how long a policyholder held onto it. The 20-year return on whole life, for example, is higher than the 10-year return

• Elinor Friedman: Tillinghast
• It’s a very competitive market currently in the United States. Here are some examples of rates pulled from the full disclosure report produced by the Blease Research Group. This is for a male preferred, non-tobacco user, $250,000 face amount, and these are the annual no-lapse premium guarantees. That’s the premium, if paid, that will keep the policy in force regardless of the performance in the base UL fund. You can see it’s a tightly packed group. The key competitive benchmark in the no-lapse-guarantee market is the level of the no-lapse premium guaranteed. Another key feature is the length of the guarantee. The primary focus in the market is on an attained age 100 or lifetime guarantee. Companies will often offer shorter length guarantees, but the primary focus has been a lifetime guarantee
• Table 1 – Male Preferred Best Non-Tobacco – $250,000 Level Death – Benefit and Annual Premium – Company Product Issue Age 55 /  Issue Age 65
  • American General Platinum Protector $3,100 $5,100
  • Equitable Athena UL 3,062 5,458
  • General American ULSG 3,237 5,300
  • Jefferson Pilot Legend 300 UL 3,283 5,301
  • John Hancock Protection UL 3,228 5,577
  • Manufacturers UL – G 3,313 5,470
  • Mass Mutual UL2G 3,321 5,451
  • Prudential Protector 3,225 5,367
  • Reliastar GPUL 3,061 5,024
  • Sun Life Protector LP 3,333 5,596
  • ⇒  *Source: Full Disclosure by Blease Research

2003 – SOA – North and South of the Border-Product Distinctions, Society of Actuaries – 22p

• 2011 – Brian Fechtel – Northwestern’s Deceptive Advertisement and Marketing – 20p
  • Northwestern’s ad states that Blease Research, run by my very good friend, Roger Blease, “publishes software that enables subscribers to conduct detailed comparisons of cash value policies based on data provided by more than 50 of the nation’s leading life insurance companies.”
  • Clearly, Northwestern wants readers to believe that Roger has the ad’s data on dozens of the nation’s leading life insurance company, and that the results presented are based on comprehensive data.
    • So: How many insurers do you think Blease Research data can be used to calculate the historic actual cash value returns as shown in the ad? 57? 52? Unfortunately, besides Northwestern only six of the nation’s 50 largest life insurers (and only five more of all of the hundreds of other life insurers in the country) provide Roger the data cited to evaluate any of their policies’ historical performances.³
  • ⁴ Clearly, the ad’s implication regarding the comprehensiveness of the data is just poppycock and misleading.