Life Is Short; Enjoy Every Sandwich

In a former life, I sometimes counseled small business owners who were going through a difficult time in their business. The circumstances would be so desperate and the prognosis so dire that the person on whom this business's buck stopped would be close to being unable to function.

Having been there myself and calling upon what I had learned about what really matters, I would begin a visit with, "How are your children?"

To which they would ask, incredulously, "What?!"

When I asked the same question again, they would invariably respond, "They're fine. I'm about to lose my business. Why are you asking me about my family?"

To which I would respond, "Does anything else REALLY matter?"

The late 20th century rock star and malcontent, Warren Zevon, succumbed to lung cancer at 52. If poets were punctuation, Zevon was a great, big, bold, in-your-face exclamation point in a world with too many pedestrian periods. 

He was also a small business owner.

Having penned songs like my favorite, "Werewolves of London," and the now ironic, "Life'll Kill Ya," Zevon was an independent artist working without a net, passionately creating products in hopes of finding customers who would appreciate and pay for his wares. And we did.

In preparing for death, Zevon had one very important thing to say, especially to small business owners. In an interview with David Letterman, both knowing Zevon's days were numbered, Letterman asked what he had learned about life: Looking straight through the camera lens into every soul watching, Zevon said, "Enjoy every sandwich!"

Zevon didn't mean life is short; go get more sales.  The man whose life's work was the definition of sardonic was saying, "This just in: You're not going to get out of this alive!!"

We sometimes get so wrapped up in our business that we risk losing our grip on the things that really matter:  health, happiness and those who love us. "Enjoy every sandwich" was Zevonese for "Slow down to the speed of life! Listen to a bird! Smell a rose! Hug your kids!"

Surviving these tough economic times is important, but not at the expense of love. Financial security is a good thing, but it's not more important than health. And all the credentials in the world can't begin to move the scales when weighed against having joy in your life.

Jim Blasingame  is one of the world's leading experts on small business and entrepreneurship. He is the creator and award-winning host of the nationally syndicated radio program, The Small Business Advocate ® Show.  In addition to his weekly columns, Jim is the author of two books; Small Business  is like a Bunch of Bananas and Three Minutes to Success .

Life insurance premium income down 1.5% in 2011-12

Premium income in the life insurance sector declined 1.57 per cent at Rs 2.87 lakh crore in 2011-12 compared with Rs 2.91 lakh crore the previous year.

According to the Annual Report of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority for 2011-12, released recently, while private sector insurers registered a 4.52 per cent fall, Life Insurance Corporation posted a mere 0.29 per cent decline.

It was the growth in renewal premiums that saved the industry. These were up 4.77 per cent even as first-year premiums dipped 9.85 per cent, IRDA said.

Another divergent trend between the private and public sectors was the contribution of single-premium products.

Though they continued to be major drivers of LIC’s total premium growth, their contribution to the private life business declined during the period under review.

UNIT-LINKED PRODUCTS

Unit-linked insurance products (ULIPs) suffered a sharp slide of 36 per cent, because of a new set of regulations brought into force by IRDA over two years ago. Their share in total premiums came down to 24.2 per cent (37 per cent). The premium from traditional products showed a corresponding growth.

During 2011-12, life insurers issued 442 lakh new policies, of which LIC’s share was 358 lakh.

The decline in business was also reflected in a decrease in the number of agents. Their number had come down to 23.59 lakh from 26.39 lakh. Private life insurers were hit by a higher dip in agent force. The state insurer still had the highest number of individual agents, at 12.78 lakh.

ATTRITION RATE

“One major concern that emerges from the data on agents’ numbers is the high percentage of attrition,” the report said.

While private insurers appointed 3.68 lakh agents, 5.89 lakh were terminated.

There was also a perceptible shift away from the individual agency channel, the report said.

Reliance Life launches career agency distribution channel

Reliance Life Insurance Company (RLIC) has announced the launch of ‘Career Agency’, a new distribution format aimed at enhancing the company’s reach and footprints across the country.

This is the third new distribution channel introduced by the private life insurer this year. The earlier launched two new distribution formats were ‘Life Plaza’ and ‘Face-to-Face’.

The ‘career agency’ format offers a fixed stipend structure to prospective advisors , looking at insurance as a long-term professional career, during the training period.

With this move, RLIC has adapted to the Indian market the highly successful Sales Advisor model of Nippon Life Insurance in Japan. Nippon Life currently has 26 per cent stake in RLIC.

‘Career Agency’ is a first-of-its-kind distribution channel based on stipend and variable commission pay-out structure by any private insurer in the domestic insurance Industry, according to a RLIC statement.

Malay Ghosh, President and Executive Director, Reliance Life Insurance, announced the launch of the new distribution format today.

‘’The main aim of Career Agency distribution format is to support new recruits during the learning phase so that they can concentrate on training and learning the ropes rather than being under the pressure of generating business to earn commission from the very first instance.

We will help them devote the requisite time and effort to develop a good understanding of the industry and look at it as a long-term career option,’’ Ghosh said.

Under the new distribution channel, Reliance Life Insurance will hire 5,500 career agents across 220 branches by the end of 2012-13, with a view to expanding and strengthening its existing distribution network.

RLIC has already recruited around 2,500 career agents and deputed them in over 150 branches across the country and will hire about 3,000 career agents in the next three months.

In the career agency distribution model, the recruits called ‘sales trainees’ will be given a fixed stipend for the first six months, which is also the training period.

Once the advisor completes this training period and passes the licensing exam, he/she becomes a ‘career agent’ and moves to a variable commission-based pay-out structure.

RLIC will focus on Tier III and Tier IV cities and towns for the recruitment of prospective career agents.

Great-West Life close to buying state-rescued Irish Life-source

Canada Life, a unit of Canadian life insurer Great-West Lifeco, is close to a deal for state-rescued insurer Irish Life, a source familiar with the negotiations said on Sunday.

"It's at an advanced stage," the source said, requesting anonymity because he is not authorised to speak about the talks.

A spokesman for Irish Life declined to comment.
Irish Life, formerly the life insurance arm of bailed out Irish Life & Permanent, was taken over by the state after a planned sale of the unit was suspended last year. A source at that time told Reuters that Canada Life was the lead candidate to buy the group.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that a deal would be agreed in the first quarter of next year.
Executives at Irish Life said in September that the company would need a period of sustained calm in the euro zone before the sale process would resume.

Ireland (OTC BB: IRLD - news) 's government, which had already poured 2.7 billion euros ($3.6 billion) into IL&P to recapitalise its banking division, forked out 1.3 billion euros for Irish Life after a real estate and credit bubble burst, undermining the country's banking system and eventually forcing the government to seek a bailout.

The Perils of the Frontlines of War

Do you want to know what it’s like to stare in horror, and fascination, at a human head so thoroughly perforated by bullets that it’s folded in on itself like a melon rotted in the field? Or to watch, helpless, as refugee babies die of dehydration, their mouths opening and closing like fish gasping in the air? Maybe you’re interested in the taste of sweat and dirt when you’re under fire and trying to get low on the ground, and lower, impossibly low, with your face crushed against the earth.

Probably you did not want to know any of these things. Not really. And neither did I. And I don’t much like to remember them now. But in more than a quarter century as a Newsweek correspondent, writing about a few wars that people remember and many that they’ve forgotten, I have learned, inevitably, a lot about the way death comes, and sometimes some of the reasons why.

A wise war correspondent tries to stay out of the action. Bullets and bombs don’t tell stories—people do. But at times you have to go looking for the action to get a clear picture of what’s really going on and, often enough, it catches up with you anyway.

After spending years with The Washington Post covering guerrilla wars in Central America and terror attacks in the Middle East, I joined Newsweek in 1986. My basic assignment was to look at how American foreign policy played out on the ground, which often meant going to a place that the United States was about to attack, and watching that happen.

In 1987, the United States sent its big guns to the Persian Gulf, using a variety of pretenses to deploy a fleet bolstering Saddam Hussein in his epic fight against Iran. To get a closer look at the fight on the water, a TV colleague from Britain and I chartered a work boat that could take us into the war zone. It’s hard to imagine a dumber, more dangerous move. We set our course through seas full of naval mines dropped almost at random by the Iranians. Day and night, we watched for the protruding prongs of the floating bombs. But all we saw were dead sheep thrown overboard by livestock haulers. Bloated and round, their little legs sticking up in the air, they looked very much like mines, but didn’t blow. We saw a lot of warships and burning oil platforms. And we were lucky enough to live to tell the tale.

The following year, an American guided missile cruiser shot an Iranian airliner out of the sky in the confusion of a skirmish on the water with Iranian gunboats. All 290 people on the plane died. At a makeshift morgue, Iranian guards handed me paper tissues to block some of the smell. Many of the bodies pulled from the sea were mutilated by the blast, but one very little girl, I remember, still wore a tidy blue dress, white socks, shiny black shoes, and tiny gold bangles on her wrist. On a slab nearby, a young mother continued to clutch her baby as she had done at the moment they died. I remember afterward hearing an Iranian Air Force general asked a leading question by a British reporter who wanted him to say the Americans meant to shoot down the plane. But the Iranian officer’s answer was more subtle than that. The Americans “did not care enough to be careful enough not to shoot it down,” he said.

At the end of that decade, the war I had lived with all my life—the Cold War—came to an end. I flew into Berlin in November 1989 as one of many Newsweek correspondents covering the fall of The Wall. I roamed, sleepless and exhilarated, through the city in those first uncertain hours after all the East German guards abandoned their fearsome barrier. Beneath an impossibly bright moon, men and women and children picked and chiseled away at the concrete as if digging for diamonds. The world had changed, for sure. A new era of peace seemed at hand. But of course that was not to be.

"It's a Wonderful Life" is top Christmas film with critics

When it comes to Christmas films, "It's a Wonderful Life" can still melt critics' hearts nearly 70 years after it was released, according to a survey of the best-reviewed Christmas films.

The survey, to be released on Friday by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, found that the 1946 redemption story starring Jimmy Stewart edged out the 1942 Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire musical "Holiday Inn" and Tim Burton's 1993 stop-motion fantasy "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

World War Two drama "Stalag 17," released in 1953, and 1947's "Miracle on 34th Street" round out the top five.

"It's a Wonderful Life" vaulted to the top spot from No. 5 in 2009, when the list was last compiled, bumping "The Nightmare Before Christmas" from its best-reviewed status.

Films that use the holiday as a backdrop for the plot such as 1988's "Die Hard," which was No. 6 on the list, and 1983's "Trading Places" at No. 9, were also eligible, the website said.

Rotten Tomatoes, which analyzes film reviews and assigns a score based on total critical reception, applied that same formula to Christmas films for the list, Matt Atchity, the website's editor in chief, told Reuters.

"You look at the list and it's all the classics ... the cream floats to the top," Atchity said, adding that the rankings were weighted to reflect the amount of reviews a film received, which could artificially boost or decline a score.

Films from the 1960s and 1970s were notably absent from the list. Atchity said studios were more focused at that time on work by big-name directors than on seasonal films.

Readers respond as Aesha's surgery and life progresses

The evolving life, face and story of Aesha, disfigured by the Taliban and featured on the August 2010 cover of Time magazine, has captivated audiences around the world.

CNN has been following her for close to two years and, earlier this week, updated readers on how she is doing both physically and emotionally. We shared exclusive photographs of what she looked like before her latest surgery.

Monday's procedure, the fourth in a series to reconstruct her nose, lasted about 9½ hours and went smoothly, said Mati Arsala, who's become a father figure to Aesha Mohammadzai. Doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where she's being treated, will not discuss her case.

The reactions to the latest story about Aesha poured in -- both in the story's comments section and by way of e-mail -- even as the world's eyes remained trained on Friday's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

"This girl has more courage than all the fanatics that hurt her will ever have," wrote akmac61.
"Aesha you are a beautiful woman, wishing you the best! A whole new great life is ahead just for you, better things are coming," said tr0j4n.

"I am speechless, no words can express the depth of my feeling for this beautiful lady. I salute your courage in the face of illiteracy and extremism," added ProsNCons.

Some readers wrote with special offerings for Aesha and the family caring for her. An e-learning company in Canada wants to help with her education. The owner of a bed and breakfast in West Virginia would like to treat them to a weekend getaway. A woman in Texas encouraged Aesha to open a Web-store, perhaps on Etsy, to sell her jewelry. Many others wrote with promises of prayers and extensions of love.

As is so often the case when CNN mentions Afghanistan or simply the Muslim world, there were inevitably readers who took this opportunity to attack that faith. But more readers pushed back, perhaps hinting at decreased tolerance for such prejudices. There was also a fresh perspective brought on by the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut.

"I guess in the Taliban, everybody with a twisted opinion gets to play God," wrote onaturalia.
"and unfortunately some in the US," responded are122.

"Exactly, and they are not all Muslims," said Rollins.
Further down in the comments, Tina Mantooth added, "I agree 100%. Islam doesn't teach hate."
"Then why do Muslims do so many inhumane things?" asked swarm4.

"Was Adam Lanza a Muslim? No," answered Elhaba Wackadoodle. "Inhumane things are inherent in all humans. Some just act on them while the rest of us don't."

Some, who wrote to me directly, shared that the story about Aesha was a salve for the sadness that had befallen the country.

"It was especially nice to read after the horrors of Newtown," wrote one person.
"It did my soul some good to read such a hopeful story and to learn about the Arsalas' kindness and good will at a time like this, when everything seems pretty dark in the U.S.," wrote another.

"In a time filled with tragedy and sorrow, thank you for an uplifting and positive article," wrote a third.

A couple of readers seemed bent on offending Aesha, those who care for her and pretty much everyone else, by making comments directed at her looks -- as if she had any control over them.

But plenty of readers stood up for her, including lxNay, who wrote, "She will be beautiful again. The surgery will repair her mutilations, but nothing can repair the ugliness displayed by some posters here. Stupid can't be fixed."

 Saving Aesha: Life after Taliban attack
Some readers wondered why the country would help her instead of others.

"Who is paying for the surgery? Don't you think there are enough disfugured (sic) citizens in this country who needs (sic) more attention?" asked Jayjay.

In response, iPostEyeAm wrote, "You misspelled 'I need a heart implant.'"

A handful of readers latched onto information in the story about how Jamila Rasouli-Arsala, Aesha's mother figure and a former OB-GYN in Germany, is struggling to find her way in America's medical community. If she wants to practice medicine here, she must start over in a residency program -- and so far she's had no luck getting into one. If she can't, the whole family, Aesha included, may end up moving to Germany.
"Concerning Jamila's plight, one has to ask what is going on in the U.S. concerning attracting and keeping good doctors," wrote bob. "From what I am hearing, the U.S. doesn't sound like a land of opportunity but instead a country representing endless bureaucratic roadblocks, dogma and special interests."

Answered FBreen: "Until there is an international standard for medical education and training, I am happy that such requirements exist."

There were lessons that readers from across the globe took away from the piece. A reader in Poland, who previously had not felt connected to Aesha's story, wrote, "It is the right thing to shout it to the world, to make clear there is no acceptance to barbarism and abuse."

Added a writer from Nigeria: "Am very happy the way you Americans are helping people all over the world."
And then there was this one, from a young woman who saw in Aesha's story something she knows too well.
"This is Anika from miles away, Bangladesh. I read your story on Aesha early this morning on the CNN website and it overwhelmed me with emotions I usually try to bury. I am 22 too like her and part of a society that may not bruise my body but wounds my soul and self confidence everyday. Stories like Aesha's inspire us, girls, struggling to live a normal and deserved life."

Whether she knows it or not, whether she means to or not, Aesha is making a difference.

Acquisition doubles size of Life Choice Hospice

Life Choice Hospice, of Dresher, has expanded from three to 12 states and more than doubled its size with the $85 million purchase this month of SolAmor Hospice Corp. from Genesis Healthcare Corp.

Genesis, a national nursing home and rehabilitation company in Kennett Square, retained a one-third stake in Life Choice, which was founded in 2003 in Philadelphia and sold in 2009 to investors counting on increased demand for hospice services as the U.S. population ages.

Despite the turmoil in the health-care sector and broad efforts to reduce spending, prospects for hospice care remain strong, Life Choice chief executive David Glick said Tuesday.

"I think hospice is seen as the lowest-cost end-of-life care," said Glick, who is based in Life Choice's River Edge, N.J., office, in New York's suburbs.

At the end of 2009, when investors, including Formation Capital, which also controls Genesis, bought Life Choice, the company was caring for 125 patients a day on average, Glick said.

That number had climbed to 700 patients - with much of the growth from internal expansion rather than acquisitions - before the purchase of SolAmor on Dec. 3. With that deal, the average stands at 1,750, Glick said.

The hospice industry overall has been growing rapidly.

The number of Medicare-certified hospice organizations climbed 53 percent between 2000 and 2010, with for-profit providers accounting for almost all of the increase, according to a March report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

Over the same period, Medicare spending on hospice services for people with no more than six months to live more than quadrupled to $13 billion, as more people chose hospice care and the length of time spent in hospice care increased for some, the congressional advisory group reported.

In 2010, 44 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries who died received hospice care, up from 22.9 percent of those who died in 2000, the group said.

Medicare's payment this year for routine hospice care at home is $151 a day.

The growth has attracted investors. The number of acquisitions in the hospice industry soared from about a dozen in 2007 to more than 40 in 2011, according to the Braff Group, a Pittsburgh mergers-and-acquisition advisory firm specializing in health-care services.

Investors "see in the hospice space, and I would say correctly so, an escalating demand for hospice services as a function of demographics and an embracing of the hospice paradigm," said Steven Braff, managing director at the Braff Group.

Moreover, the federal government has left reimbursement levels for hospice care unscathed compared with those for hospitals, nursing homes, and home health-care providers, Braff said.

Life Choice founder Doug Kosmin remains president and will oversee operations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

"Doug had a good product to begin with, and we did our best to improve it," Glick said.

SCOR Global Life Americas and StoneRiver, Inc. Offer New Solution to Accelerate Underwriting Cases for Simplified Issue Life

SCOR Global Life Americas, a leading life reinsurer in the U.S. market, and StoneRiver, Inc. have teamed up to offer an innovative solution for the rapid underwriting of simplified issue life insurance products.
The solution integrates Velogica®, SCOR’s automated underwriting engine, and LifeSuite® Results Manager, StoneRiver’s case management solution.

Velogica’s underwriting algorithm interprets details from multiple sources – MVR, MIB reports and prescription drug histories – and correlates the data with information collected on the application. Velogica’s complex algorithm enables an underwriting recommendation in real time. In 95 percent of all cases, Velogica has made an underwriting recommendation without the involvement of an underwriter, and 90 percent of the time, it delivered the result in under a minute.

LifeSuite Results Manager provides an array of capabilities including the electronic capture of application data, submission of application data to Velogica and the presentation of underwriting evidence and results in an easy-to-use dashboard.

By combining Velogica and LifeSuite Results Manager, carriers can now quickly implement a single, cost effective and comprehensive solution for middle market life insurance business.

SCOR and StoneRiver already have an established relationship. “We have worked together for a number of years creating customized term life programs for carriers in the fully underwritten life market,” said Dave Dorans, Senior Vice President of SCOR’s Value Added Services. “Besides being the consummate technical experts, the StoneRiver team understands how life insurance is sold and administered – and that makes all the difference. We are highly optimistic about what we can do together.”

Jim Woodward, Senior Vice President of StoneRiver Life Carrier Solutions, said, “Understanding the industry’s attention and focus on reaching the middle market is what drew StoneRiver and SCOR together. In looking at the automated underwriting engines available, we quickly concluded that Velogica provides the most comprehensive and sophisticated solution.” Woodward added that with almost one million applications processed to date, “their experience is unmatched in the marketplace.”

While companies still can purchase Velogica and the LifeSuite Underwriting System independently, the collaborative solution can lower costs and integration efforts for life insurers who want to enter or expand their participation in the middle market.

Report: Smoking Takes 5 Hours Off Life Expectancy Per Day

Every so often, a scientific report will come out that warns of the life-shortening dangers of smoking, eating red meat, sitting too long, or of drinking too much alcohol. But until now, no researchers have tried to quantify the day-to-day hazards of bad habits.

British statistician David Spiegelhalter, in a report published Monday in British Medical Journal, attempts to quantify which habits have a greater impact on life expectancy: Is drinking heavily worse than living a sedentary lifestyle?

To do this, he created a unit of measure called a "microlife," which corresponds to 30 minutes of life expectancy. Using other studies, he determined that for each day of heavy smoking, a person could be shaving about five hours off his life; someone who watches TV for two hours a day loses about 30 minutes for each day they take part in that activity.

"I'm taking lifelong habits and looking at how they affect people on average, convert it to a daily rate," Spiegelhalter says. "The whole idea is to make a comparison about healthy activities and bad activities. Crudely, drinking two cups of coffee will cancel out eating a burger."

Spiegelhalter says when people hear about life expectancy studies, they assume they'll lose a couple years off the end of their lives. Instead, he says, they should consider it as "aging faster" — a smoker could be hurtling faster towards lung cancer, for instance, than a nonsmoker.

"If you're a smoker, it's like you're moving at your death as if you were living 29 hours a day, it's accelerated aging," he says. "It's a bit of a metaphor — you're getting older quicker rather than living just a bit less."

Fatal Rollover Takes Life of Young Man

Montana Highway Patrol Trooper O'Neil says it happened at 3:30 this morning. The 20-year-old driver was heading southbound on 64th Street West in Billings. He approached a 90 degree curve and failed to make that turn.

O’Neil says he was going too fast, crossed the ditch and hit the other side of the embankment. The driver was the only occupant of the vehicle. Speed and alcohol are factors and he was not wearing a seatbelt. The victim’s name has not yet been released.

Menopause quality of life unchanged by soy supplements

Menopausal women who took soy supplements during a two-year trial reported no differences in quality of life compared to their counterparts taking placebo pills, U.S. researchers report.

It's possible that soy could still offer women some benefits through menopause, said the study's lead author Dr. Paula Amato, from Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, "but I think if you are similar to the subjects in the study, then probably taking supplements isn't going to make a huge impact on your quality of life."

In light of health concerns attached to taking hormones, soy has been seen as an attractive alternative for relieving menopausal symptoms. But research on the effectiveness of soy extracts for hot flashes and other bothersome symptoms has yielded conflicting results so far.

In the new report, published in the medical journal Menopause, Amato and her colleagues looked not just at specific symptoms but overall quality of life measures among healthy women, mostly in their 50s and six years or more into menopause on average.

Several hundred women were asked to take supplement pills three times a day for two years. Among them, 126 took a fake supplement that contained no soy extract, while 135 women took tablets containing a total of 80 milligrams a day of soy protein and another 123 women took 120 mg each day.

At the start of the study and again one and two years into it, the women filled out a quality of life survey that asked about mental, physical and sexual health as well as about hot flashes.

In each of the surveys, the women in all three groups scored similarly on the main measures in the questionnaire.

"From our study and the good amount of the literature to date it appears that taking soy supplements after menopause does not improve quality of life," said Amato. "We can't really recommend it to our patients."
Mark Messina, president Nutrition Matters and an adjunct professor at Loma Linda University in California, cautioned against concluding that the key ingredients in soy supplements, known as isoflavones, don't have any effect on hot flashes, however.

"Unfortunately, because of the severe limitations of this study, very little if anything can be learned about isoflavones and hot flashes," Messina wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

For one, he said, the levels of a particular type of isoflavone - called genistein - were lower than in other studies that have found benefits from soy extracts.

Additionally, the researchers originally set out to look at the effects of soy extracts on bone health, and did not recruit women specifically with hot flash or quality of life concerns in mind.

"So in my opinion, no useful information about isoflavones and hot flashes is provided by this study," said Messina, who regularly consults for companies that make or sell soy foods and supplements.

Isoflavone companies market the supplements, sold for about $17 for 90 50-mg pills, as "potentially" easing the changes associated with menopause.

Amato agreed that the study has some limitations, and that the findings can't be generalized to all forms of soy in all types of women.

For instance, "taking supplements just might not be the same as eating a high soy content diet your entire life," she told Reuters Health.

But "if you look at this specific supplement for this particular group of women for this reason, quality of life, I'm convinced by this study it's not terribly helpful," she added.

Pacific Life Earns DALBAR Financial Intermediary Premier Service Award

DALBAR announced today the 2012 winners of its annual Financial Intermediary Premier Service Award. Pacific Life is the only firm to achieve excellence in the premier service provided to financial professionals in 2012.

For over two decades, DALBAR has conducted rigorous testing of service and each year identifies those firms that were found to be above their peers in service to financial professionals after a full year of comprehensive evaluation.

Pacific Life has made an institutional commitment to ensure the needs of financial professionals are met with the utmost professionalism. When financial professionals contact the Pacific Life Premier service center, they are met with a consistently high level of respect and recognition of the relationship they have with the organization.

"Pacific Life has demonstrated a keen awareness of the linkage between the high level of service customers receive and the economic success of their business" said Kathleen Whalen, Managing Director at DALBAR. She added, "Pacific Life recognizes that, all things being equal, service can provide the competitive advantage."

The Financial Intermediary Premier Service Award is based on systematic testing of customer service throughout the year. DALBAR conducts thousands of tests to measure how financial companies respond to the need for service from their customers. Companies that exceed a variety of industry benchmarks after one year of testing earn the DALBAR Service Award.

DALBAR, Inc., the nation's leading financial services market research and consulting firm, is committed to raising the standards of excellence in the financial services industry. With offices in both the US and Canada, DALBAR develops standards for, and provides research, ratings, and rankings of intangible factors to the mutual fund, broker/dealer, life insurance, property and casualty, and managed account industries. Measurements include investor behavior, customer satisfaction, service quality, communications, Internet services, and financial professional ratings.

Conning -- Life Insurer Investments Under Pressure

Analysis of life insurers' assets and investments as reported at year-end 2011 reveals an industry pressured by the continued lowest interest rates seen since the 1950s, according to "Life Insurance Industry Investments: Under Pressure in 2011," a new study by Conning.

"Our analysis of life insurers' investment profile through 2011 and into 2012 indicates that insurers are continuing to respond to the long term low interest rate environment," said Mary Pat Campbell, analyst at Conning. "While most of the negative impacts of the financial crisis faded in 2011, the continued policy of low interest rates from the Federal Reserve took its toll on fixed income yield, and is now being recognized and responded to as a longer term challenge."

The Conning Research study, "Life Insurance Industry Investments: Under Pressure in 2011," analyzes life industry investments for the period 2007-2011 for the industry as a whole and for four underwriting market peer groups. Further, the study also provides detail regarding the industry's position at the start of 2012 and analyzes how the prolonged low interest rate environment and other challenges may influence insurers' strategic investment decisions in the future.

"On a positive note, insurers have worked hard in the aftermath of the crisis to rebuild capital positions and improve leverage," said Stephan Christiansen, director of research at Conning. "Additionally, many have repositioned their product portfolios to reduce risks in their liabilities going forward. Consequently, they have some room to take additional risk in pursuit of yield."

Accenture Selected by Generali France to Manage Individual Life Insurance Policies

Accenture (ACN) has signed a ten-year contract with Generali France, the second largest general insurer in France, to manage a portfolio of more than 100,000 individual life insurance policies that Generali France no longer underwrites, markets or promotes. Generali France is one of the main foreign subsidiaries of the Generali Group, Europe’s largest life insurer.

The agreement, signed in February 2012, is designed to maintain superior customer service on behalf of Generali France while lowering operating cost. Accenture will reengineer the insurer’s policy management processes and increase automation through the newly enhanced Accenture Life Insurance Platform, Accenture’s industry-leading life and annuity insurance policy administration software, resulting in enhanced levels of service and greater productivity. The platform has been adapted to the French individual life insurance market, including the French tax regime.

“To maintain profitable growth, insurers will have to increase customer loyalty and reduce operating costs,” said Daniele Presutti, managing director of Accenture Life Insurance Services. “The agreement will enable Generali France to focus on client relationship and product development while reducing costs and operational risks and increasing productivity by standardizing and automating its policy management processes.”

“We are pleased to have Generali using the Accenture Life Insurance Platform to manage individual life insurance policies,” said Francois Metzler, head of Accenture Software for life insurance in Europe, Africa and Latin America. “The agreement demonstrates that our investment in enhancing our life software platform to meet the needs of the French individual life insurance market is paying off. We have high expectations for growing our business in France and look forward to delivering software solutions to other French companies in the future.”

Accenture Life Insurance Services, a business service within Accenture’s Financial Services operating group, serves more than 60 life insurance, annuity and pension clients worldwide.

The Accenture Life Insurance Platform, used by more than 40 leading insurers worldwide, is a robust, configurable and scalable software platform that offers life insurance and annuity carriers of all sizes with the ability to automate operational support across the full policy lifecycle. The platform can be implemented out-of-the-box with limited integration efforts or leveraged for more significant transformation projects.

Who Was Jenni Rivera? A Look Back At The Life Of The Late Latina Superstar

Jenni Rivera's music was a celebration, but her personal life was filled with turmoil. And now, Access Hollywood looks back on the ups and downs of the singer, whose life ended far too soon.
She was called the "Diana Ross of Mexican Music," had sold 20 million albums and was a multiple Grammy nominee, making Rivera larger than life. She was also famous for her marathon performances, some lasting over five hours.

PLAY IT NOW: Jenni Rivera: Remembering Her Life & Career (1969-2012)
"Jenni Rivera was a legitimate superstar and that phrase gets thrown out a lot, but in this case she really was," People magazine's Deputy Managing Editor Peter Castro told Access Hollywood in a new interview on Monday, following the star's death over the weekend in a plane crash. "She sold out the Staples Center - the only Mexican-American woman ever to do that. And she had a huge, huge following."
Now bad for a woman who started out in real estate, and didn't record her first album until the age of 34.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Stars We Lost In 2012
"Jenni Rivera: The Mom, wants her kids to be happy. That's what my life is about," she said on her Mun2 reality show, "I Love Jenni."

Her family was like a Latino version of the Kardashian family. Known as a tough negotiator, Rivera had a business empire that included her own clothing line, cosmetic line, a weekly radio show, four different reality shows - one, "I Love Jenni" - focusing on her chaotic life and her family.

"It's really a reality show - the camera following me into things I'm doing now, which is just being myself," Rivera told Billboard in an interview earlier this year.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hollywood’s Hottest Latino Stars!
Hollywood talent agency CAA snatched up the modest star, and she told Billboard she was overwhelmed by the attention.

"Knowing that such a huge company would be interested in me, makes me very proud of myself," she told the music publication. "At the same time I'm in disbelief that they would want someone like Jenni Rivera. I guess now I see the world in a different way. There are so many things I can do that are offered to me now."

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Sudden Endings: Stars Who Died Too Soon
Beginning with a move into film, Rivera made her screen debut this year at Sundance as the jailed mother of a hip-hop artist in "Filly Brown."

According to Castro, Rivera was also poised to launch into sitcom television.
"It was a terrible irony. She was about to crossover into mainstream America on an ABC comedy... very much like 'The George Lopez Show," he told Access . "It was based on her life and she wanted to do this because even though she loved her fans and loved singing, and loved concerts, she was kinda getting tired of the grind, wanted to fly less. She also expressed, at some point in her life, that she understood that flying around a lot was a dangerous thing and wanted to stop that."

But Rivera's music was fueled by a troubled past that included marriage and pregnancy at 16.

"Jenni Rivera's life was really like a soap opera," Castro said, noting Jenni was married three times.
And on Saturday night, after her show in Monterey, Mexico, she spoke out about her recent separation from her third husband, Esteban Loaiza, a professional baseball player.

"I can't focus on the negative, because that will defeat you," she said at a news conference after the show, per the Los Angeles Times. "That will destroy you.... The number of times I have fallen down is the number of times I have gotten up."

Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

New York Life Announces Executive Promotions in the Agency Department

New York Life announced today that John O’Gara and Richard Simonetti have each been elected senior vice president in the company’s Agency Department, reporting to Executive Vice President and Head of Agency Mark Pfaff.

Mr. O’Gara is responsible for New York Life’s wholesaling operations across all product lines within the Agency distribution channel including life insurance, annuities, investments and long-term care insurance. He also oversees New York Life’s Dallas-based Advanced Planning Group, a team of experienced attorneys, certified public accountants and other professionals with whom New York Life agents can exclusively work when serving affluent clients.

Mr. O’Gara joined New York Life in 1984 and has held sales and marketing positions across various business operations. Mr. O’Gara is a graduate of Iona College with a major in business and finance. He resides in New Fairfield, Connecticut with his wife and three children.

Mr. Simonetti is responsible for agent and manager recruitment, training and development. This includes growing the company’s field force and sales among New York Life’s key markets, including women, cultural markets, the LGBT community and young professionals.

Mr. Simonetti joined New York Life as an agent in the Long Island General Office in July 1996. Since then, he has held several positions with increasing managerial responsibility, including serving as sales manager in that office from 1998 to 2002, managing partner of New York Life’s Vermont office from 2002 to 2005, and managing partner of the Greater Detroit office from 2005 to 2008. Mr. Simonetti earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is an active member of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), the Association of Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU) and the General Agents and Managers Association (GAMA). Mr. Simonetti lives in Westchester, New York with his wife and their three children.

New York Life Insurance Company, a Fortune 100 company founded in 1845, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States* and one of the largest life insurers in the world. New York Life has the highest financial strength ratings currently awarded to any life insurer by all four of the major credit rating agencies.** Headquartered in New York City, New York Life’s family of companies offers life insurance, retirement income, investments and long-term care insurance. New York Life Investments*** provides institutional asset management and retirement plan services. Other New York Life affiliates provide an array of securities products and services, as well as institutional and retail mutual funds. Please visit New York Life’s Web site at www.newyorklife.com for more information.

***New York Life Investments is a service mark used by New York Life Investment Management Holdings LLC and its subsidiary, New York Life Investment Management LLC.

Life insurance: Not such a weird gift idea

Life insurance policies under the Christmas tree may not leave eyes all aglow in quite the same way as a shiny new bicycle or the latest electronic gadget.

But unlike most presents, life insurance never will go out of fashion, says Kevin Lynch, assistant professor of insurance at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

"There are all kinds of ways it can be a very practical gift," Lynch says. "Will it have the punch or pizzazz of an iPad? No. But when you are a 25-year-old college graduate who can't find a job and you find out your grandparent funded a life insurance policy that has $35,000 in cash value, you may rethink the value of this gift."

As long as you keep up the premiums, a life insurance policy can provide financial security for decades to come, says Lynch. The most common ways to give a gift of life insurance are to make someone the beneficiary of your own policy -- so that they're protected in case something happens to you -- or to take out a permanent policy on the recipient's life and include a cash value component, similar to a savings account.

Taking the shine off Christmas?
There are risks with giving such a serious gift, however, warns Elizabeth Lombardo, a psychologist in Wexford, Pa. Some may find life insurance to be a disturbing reminder of their own mortality. In most people's minds "it has to do with death," she explains.

Brian Ashe, the treasurer of the nonprofit Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education, or LIFE, says your gift might be misunderstood, particularly if you're taking out a policy on the life of a loved one. Your wife "might take a couple of minutes to sniff the rum cake you are giving her at the Christmas celebration," Ashe says.

Insurance companies won't let you take out a policy on just anyone's life, he adds. Generally, it has to be someone in whom you have an insurable interest, such as a relative, a business associate or a domestic partner.

Term or permanent?
You'll need to choose between term and permanent life insurance when you select your gift.
Term life provides coverage for a certain number of years. Note that if you take out term life on yourself as a thoughtful gift to your family, you could outlive the term of your policy, meaning your loved ones would receive no benefits upon your death.

Term life insurance policy premiums are based on a variety of factors, including the age, health and lifestyle of the insured. The premium for a 10-year $500,000 policy for a 40-year-old man in good health who doesn't smoke could vary from $27 to $90 per month, depending on the insurer, says Douglas Grills, an independent insurance broker in the San Diego area.

A permanent policy provides coverage for a person's entire life, as long as the premiums are paid. It can build up a cash value gradually, and the policy eventually can be surrendered for that amount, or you can borrow against it. The downside is that costs are higher than for term life.

Appropriate gift for a kid?
Some experts question the idea of buying life insurance policies for children. It's wiser for parents and grandparents to make sure their own lives are adequately insured, says Jack Hungelmann, Bankrate's Insurance Adviser and the author of "Insurance for Dummies."

But Lynch insists that buying a permanent life policy for a healthy child makes good economic sense. The cost, which is based on the risk of death, usually is very low.

You could set up a trust, the proceeds of which could pay the policy indefinitely, Lynch says. "When the child reaches age 25 or 35, the policy can vest into the name of the child and they become the owner. All of the cash value now becomes available to the child."

A typical permanent, $250,000 cash-value policy on the life of a 1-year-old grandchild would cost in the neighborhood of $3 to $4 per $1,000 of coverage, says Ashe. "So if I had a $250,000 permanent life policy and the rate was approximately $4 for each $1,000 of coverage, the (annual) premium would be $1,000."

How to gift life insurance
You can go online to buy a life insurance policy for a grandchild or other young family member, but Ashe recommends doing it the old-fashioned way: by talking to an agent. With personal contact "you have the added value of the agent's experience on the type of policy, what the taxation issues are and the proper beneficiary designations."

When you take out life insurance on someone else, or name someone as a beneficiary on a policy for yourself, the application will require that person's name, date of birth, information on how you're related, and often a Social Security number, says Ashe. You also will need to provide health information on the insured, even children.

"There is a nonmedical questionnaire where they ask, 'How tall is the child? What does the child weigh?'" Ashe explains. "For people who are older, medical examinations can be required, based on their age and the amount of the policy."
There may be a few hoops, but just keep in mind that a life insurance policy is the only financial product that guarantees a certain sum of money will be paid on a date that's uncertain, says Lynch. "That is why it is such a good gift."

New York Life Capital Partners Renames Firm GoldPoint Partners

New York Life Capital Partners a wholly-owned investment boutique of New York Life that manages approximately $9 billion of private equity assets, including equity co-investment, mezzanine, fund of funds programs and separate accounts, today announced that the firm has renamed itself GoldPoint Partners.
Thomas Haubenstricker, Chief Executive Officer of the newly renamed GoldPoint said, “We determined that the timing was right to create a distinct identity that differentiates the firm while maintaining a close link to the iconic New York Life brand. While our name has changed, it’s important to underscore our firm continues to operate under the same ownership, with the same talented team, the same strategy and the same level of support from New York Life. Furthermore, we remain as committed as ever to our "Core Partner" strategy that seeks to create a focused portfolio of investments with top-performing private equity sponsor relationships.”

GoldPoint Partners continues to see strong opportunities in the middle market where the firm has been focused for over 20 years. The firm successfully closed its third mezzanine fund early this year with strong support from its diverse, global investor base that includes public and private pension funds, financial institutions, insurance companies, family offices, high net worth individuals and sovereign pools of capital.

“The firm has evolved significantly during the past 20 years, from a small team largely managing alternative assets for New York Life, to a multi-product boutique managing more than $9 billion of private equity and debt assets, with the majority of new capital coming from outside institutional investors,” said John Schumacher, Chairman.

The “GoldPoint” name was inspired by the most prominent feature of the landmark New York Life building at 51 Madison Avenue in New York City – the distinctive, six-story golden pinnacle completed in 1928. The firm’s new logo includes a gold pinnacle, which will appear on a redesigned website (www.goldpointpartners.com) and all corporate materials.

Steven Benevento, Chief Investment Officer, said “It’s the best of both worlds. We continue to operate independently, maintaining the same investment philosophy that has guided us since our founding, while having the security of being part of New York Life.”

New Meaning and Drive in Life After Cancer

When people hear the words “You have cancer,” life is suddenly divided into distinct parts. There was their life before cancer, and then there is life after cancer.

The number of people in that second category continues to grow. In June, the National Cancer Institute reported that an estimated 13.7 million living Americans are cancer survivors, and the number will increase to almost 18 million over the next decade. More than half are younger than 70.

A new book, “Picture Your Life After Cancer,” (American Cancer Society) focuses on the living that goes on after a cancer diagnosis. It’s based on a multimedia project by The New York Times that asked readers to submit photos and their personal stories. So far, nearly 1,500 people have shared their experiences — the good, the bad, the challenging and the inspirational — creating a dramatic photo essay of the varied lives people live in the years after diagnosis.

For Susan Schwalb, a 68-year-old artist from Manhattan, a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer at the age of 62 led to a lumpectomy, followed by a mastectomy and then failed reconstruction surgery. She discovered that cancer was not only a physical challenge but a mental one as well, and she turned to friends and support groups to cope with the emotional strain. When she saw the “Picture Your Life” project, she submitted a photo of herself wearing a paint-splattered artist’s apron.

“What cancer made me do in my own professional life is to pedal faster,” Ms. Schwalb said in an interview. “I’ve encountered some people who decide to enjoy life, retire, work in a garden. I decided I had to have more of what I wanted in life, and I better move fast because maybe I don’t have the long life I imagined I would have.”

Indeed, a common theme of the “Picture Your Life” project is that cancer spurs people to take long-delayed trips, seek out adventure and spend time with their families. Photos of mountain climbs, a ride on a camel, scuba diving excursions and bicycle trips are now part of the online collage.

Dr. David Posner, associate program director of pulmonary medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, says a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer at the age of 47 has helped him relate to his own patients with cancer. The past decade has included nine operations, six recurrences and three rounds of chemotherapy, but Dr. Posner said he never missed more than three weeks of work.

“My salvation has been my family and my work,” he said. “When I was at work I wasn’t thinking about myself, and it was very therapeutic. I see my share of cancer patients, and I motivate them and they motivate me.”

Dr. Posner said he decided to be part of “Picture Your Life” because he wants to get the word out that a cancer diagnosis — even a dire one like his — doesn’t have to define your life.

“I think about someone asking me, ‘So how was your last decade — was it wasted or was it a life filled with a lot of happiness and joy?’ ” he said. “The cancer thing was a pain, but for the most part I’ve had a pretty good time.”

The “Picture Your Life” collage includes photo after photo of survivors with their pets. Sandra Elliott, 59, of Claremont, Calif., submitted a picture of herself with her two golden retrievers, Buddy and Molly. They were just puppies when she received a diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer in 2003. During her recovery from surgery and chemotherapy treatments, she took the dogs to romp on the Pomona College campus, near her home, and one day a professional photographer snapped the picture.

“No matter how bad I felt that day, no matter how many chemo treatments or doctors appointments, those two little puppies with these big black eyes would look at me with their tails wagging as if to say, ‘It’s time. It’s time. It’s time to go out!’  ” Ms. Elliott recalled.

“I felt so physically horrible, and I’d look at them and the pure joy on their faces and in their bodies for just being out in nature and being able to smell the air, smell the trees, chase a squirrel — that sheer in-the-moment love of life they showed me really lifted my spirit on a daily basis.”

Ms. Elliott still lives with chronic pain as a result of nerve damage from her cancer treatment, and she can relate to others in the “Picture Your Life” project who worry that their cancer will recur or that they’ll never feel completely normal again. But she says a stronger theme runs through all the pictures and stories.

“We have all been forced to find the joy in the smallest things,” she said. “I’m sitting here looking at a geranium about to bloom. These things are out there — we just have to be reminded to look at them. And cancer is a big reminder.”

Signs Of Life On Mars? Not Exactly

The director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said last week that preliminary data showed the possibility that the agency's Mars Science Laboratory – the six-wheeled rover that landed on Mars in August — had found signs of carbon-containing molecules.

According to a JPL news release, however, there will be no major announcements Monday, when scientists take part in a news conference at the annual meeting of American Geophysical Union. The science team is continuing to try and verify what the rover has found.

So why are the scientists being so careful with their findings and why are these carbon-containing molecules of such great interest?

"It's a substance that's consistent with biological materials," says John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology, the chief scientist on the rover team.

Now don't start thinking that because some carbon-containing compounds are associated with biological materials he's talking about life on Mars. Grotzinger says it doesn't have to be biological materials; there are plenty of carbon-containing compounds that have nothing to do with life.

But finding certain of these carbon molecules would be exciting because of what it might say about the Martian environment where the rover is sitting at the bottom of Gale crater.

If one kind of carbon can survive there, it might just be a place where carbon molecules that are related to living organisms could also survive as a kind of chemical fossil.

"There wouldn't be a field of paleontology unless you found the hot spots where things get preserved," Grotzinger says.

Grotzinger says the rover is looking for those hot spots; places where carbon-containing chemicals consistent with life might have been preserved and still exist.

"[But] even if they have nothing to do with life, at least it tells us that this is the kind of environment that might have been favorable for preservation of something that could be a biological material," he says.

Even the possibility of finding carbon compounds on Mars causes excitement, which certainly is not true for every planet. In the current issue of the journal Science, researchers reported they were virtually certain that had found large deposits of organic compounds on the planet Mercury, and that wasn't front page news.

"I can tell you anytime when you find anything with Mars, it's a frenzy," says Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the Mercury researchers who also works on Mars.