World’s Biggest Insurance Transaction: AIG Gives Up Asia Insurance Market to Repay Bailouts

In what is the insurance industry’s biggest acquisition in history, Prudential is buying American International Assurance’s Asia organization in the deal of the decade, a bet on the soaring demand in Asia for personal financial services.

The beleaguered American International Group Inc. will give up a cornerstone of its business, the part of it that represents the whole of the Asian insurance marketplace, in a government-approved deal worth a shattering $35.5 billion. The sale could reduce by nearly one-fifth the amount of federal bailout money still invested in struggling AIG.

The cash proceeds of the sale would allow AIG to pay back nearly 20 percent of the almost $130 billion in bailout funds that are outstanding. Together with an anticipated sale of American Life Insurance Co., or Alico, to MetLife Inc., the sale could net enough to eventually cover the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s $47.9 billion investment in AIG.

With the purchase, Prudential is giving investors a chance to profit from Asian consumers’ growing use of financial services. As the region’s economic growth continues, so will the need for Prudential’s business.

Whole Life’s New Lease: Beating Financial Crisis!

This is NOT your father’s, or your grandfather’s, Whole Life Insurance, says  The Wall Street Journal. The old gray mare of life insurance — whole-life insurance — was “a shining star during the financial crisis.”

“Thanks to conservative investments in bonds, whole life—and its cousin, universal life—delivered positive returns during the financial crisis,” reports the financial news beacon.

But before you ride off with a new policy, realize that whole life is a horse of a different oolor compared to term life insurance. Because it is a permanent, long-term, investment-oriented account,  new buyers will typically face stiff start-up costs and up-front commissions that soak up most of the first-year’s premium, well before the policy’s investment performance gets growing.

Term life is still the “default recommendation” for most consumers, particularly those on tight budgets, remarked James Hunt, an actuary with the Consumer Federation of America.

Under a whole-life or universal-life policy, the insurer deposits your premium, less insurance costs and other expenses, into a “cash value” account. Insurers typically promise minimum interest payments of 3% to 4%.

Could Whole Life Be RIght for You? Read on for more! >>>

eHealth Launches New Life Insurance Product Offering

eHealth, parent company of eHealthInsurance, an online source of health insurance for individuals, families, and small businesses, has launched a new life insurance product offering, which allows consumers to research and comparison shop for life insurance.

According to eHealth, the new offering allows consumers to conduct side-by-side comparisons of quotes and life insurance policy benefits. Through a referral partnership with Seattle-based Efinancial, the company was able to launch its life insurance offering with range of products from life insurance providers.

According to eHealth, the new offering allows consumers to conduct side-by-side comparisons of quotes and life insurance policy benefits. Through a referral partnership with Seattle-based Efinancial, the company was able to launch its life insurance offering with range of products from life insurance providers.

The new offering gives consumers access to various life insurance policies including underwritten policies, which require a medical review; guaranteed issue policies, which are available without a medical review or health questionnaire; and issue policies, which can be applied for and approved online in a single online insurance application session by answering a few basic health questions.

In addition, the company also provides phone support, with access to Efinancial’s agents to answer any life insurance policy-related questions.

Haiti’s Absence of Private Insurance, A Tragedy in Itself

Second in a Series of Posts on the Haitian Earthquake Tragedy and Insurance

The magnitude-7 earthquake that struck just outside Haiti’s capital, killing many, and causing untold  property damage will cost hundreds of millions to repair. But most private insurers will pay little in claims, because the private insurance market is almost non-existent in developing countries such as Haiti.

“Insured losses will be minimal, despite the severity of the event,” said Robert P. Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, in a Wednesday interview. “The reason is that Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, with very little private insurance.”

What CAN and IS being done to offset the lack of insurance >>>

Could Haiti Have Insured Against Earthquake Catastrophe? It did!

According to the World Bank’s Natural Disaster Hotspot study, Haiti is one of the countries most vulnerable to adverse natural events.  The country’s weak infrastructure, degraded environment, and history of ineffective governments with serious fiscal problems all converge to magnify the size and scope of a natural disaster.

This was clearly displayed during the 2004 hurricane season when over 5,000 Haitians lost their lives following Tropical Storm Jeanne, and in 2008 when Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike inflicted damages estimated at about US$900 million, or around 15 percent of GDP.

The earthquake disaster which has struck Haiti in 2010 has dwarfed even those staggering figures.

Could Haiti have been insured against this magnitude of loss? >>>

New Investimonials Website Taps the Wisdom of the Crowd

Can the new age of social media and “crowdsourcing” ensure better investment advice? A Website that works more like Digg or StumbleUpon than MarketWatch lets the voice of the people be heard loud and clear.

At Efinancial, we know that getting only one point of view or learning about just one product or company is as limiting as “tunnel vision.”  After all, you can’t choose the right financial value if you don’t have a choice.  The same idea goes for Investimonials.  The goal of the social site is to help users cut through the “spammy” or ” scammy”  financial sites that litter the web, by offering a comprehensive hub of user reviews for each product.

The Best Investment Advice Voted on by Your Peers >>>

InvisibleHand Price Checks for Savings While You Shop

We at Efinancial place a premium on the value of a “guiding hand” helping to save you money at every turn while you shop (that’s the power of our Internet guidance when shopping for life insurance).

So we can’t help but admire InvisibleHand, a handy download for your Internet Web browser that shows a discreet notification when the product you’re browsing can be bought for a lower price elsewhere.

InvisibleHand works automatically while you browse to find you better deals on products from more than 100 top retailers in three different countries. It’s effortless comparison shopping that’s designed to work for you as a seamless addition to your standard browsing experience.

That’s very much akin to what Efinancial.com can do for you in the life insurance category, helping you find the lowest life insurance premiums among America’s top insurance companies, but of course men and women cannot live on life insurance alone!  Why not give InvisibleHand a try!

How are you using technology to give you the advantage of locating the best prices on the things you buy, be they holiday gifts or life insurance savings?

Money Tweets: Financial Education in 140 Characters or Less

Interested in a fast, easy-to-absorb guide to personal financial news and information you can “eyeball”  literally at a glance.  Mint.com (www.mint.com), a leading online personal finance service from Intuit, Inc., has condensed it down to a salvo of messages in bite size Twitter chunks of just 40 characters each.

The new “Money Tweets” service deliver news and advice from from across the Twittersphere, and synthesizes it in a single, streamlined platform at www.mint.com/twitter.

How to tweet your way to a golden nest egg on Twitter >>

Top 15 Causes of Death: Why and Where to Insure Against Them!

It’s a deadly statistic. The top two causes of death in the United States are responsible for more than 50 percent of America’s annual death toll. If that doesn’t “hit us where we live,” this just might — where we reside in the U.S. has a strong correlation with how we will die.

The Center for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health break out the 15 most common causes of death as follows:

1. Diseases of the heart   28.5

2. Malignant tumors   22.8

3. Cerebrovascular diseases   6.7

4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases  5.1

5. Accidents (unintentional injuries)   4.4

Know these Leading Causes of Death and Where They Occur >>>>

Bundling Life Insurance? Let’s Get Back to Banking the Old-Fashioned Way.

Last week’s news that Wall Street investment bankers were looking to replace bundled mortgage-backed securities by bundling life insurance policies shows a wanton disregard for the integrity of the financial system and for the resilience of the market system itself.  The contemplation of such a model in the immediate aftermath of the most severe banking crisis in 80 years, should be a clarion call to hasten the needed regulation in financial services.

Under a life insurance bundling scheme,  elderly people strapped for cash would ostensibly sell their life insurance policies for pennies on the dollar (maybe up to $400,000 on a $1 million policy), and Wall Street would buy them, bundle them and sell them to investors.

Securitization of a commodity is, in many ways, a sound business practice, especially if you’re the banker doing the selling. But, just as mortgage-backed securities carried a level of risk that made them more like gambling than investing, life-insurance bundling means the security sold is not what it seems. Like mortgage-backed derivatives, life-insurance derivatives would deal with a finite pool of money whose value will not increase over time: at some point, one of the gambling investors will find there is not enough money to cover initial investment plus interest.
Read More About the Dillemas with Life Insurance Bundling

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