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This month I wanted to discuss strategic alliances as a strategy for broadening your practice capabilities and potentially changing your business model. In an ideal world, a strategic alliance will permit you to enhance your value proposition and your client offering without having to build or buy the resources, skills, and capabilities. Are any of you contemplating an alliance right now? It seems like it is a timely topic and that it’s prudent to at…

Here's a recent roundup of industry accomplishments. Check to see if a colleague is mentioned this week.

Last year, staggering numbers revealed a massive life insurance sales gap. In a new report, called “The Elusive Life Insurance Purchaser,” Aite Group attempts to demystify the life industry’s enigmatic consumers.

Happy New Year! Are you pumped up for the New Year? Okay, I have to admit I am running out of juicy material for my ethics blog posts. So here’s my request for help from you. Leave your responses in the comments. In your opinion: What ethical issues does our industry need to address? What is the biggest ethical challenge you have ever faced? Do you have an ethical challenge in your business practice now? What do you feel is…

Providers of health insurance face a momentous set of challenges in the coming years, a new report from Aite Group finds.

Did you make a resolution at the start of this year? If so, you’re in good company. About 4 out of 10 Americans make resolutions each year. While you are setting goals to lose weight, exercise more, and spend more time with the kids, how about making one or two resolutions that can help you and your client improve your benefits communications? Here are a few ideas to…

Only 25% of plan sponsors with 100 or more employees and plan assets between $5 million and $500 million partner with a professional adviser, according to a recent report from The Retirement Advisor Council. The study demonstra

If the health care law is implemented without the individual mandate insurance premiums would rise by as much as 25%, according to a new report by the Urban Institute Health Policy.

Question: Amid all the changes the health insurance industry is undergoing, are there any trends in 2012 that brokers and agents can embrace to counter shrinking commissions and evaporating accounts? It’s been almost two years since the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and employers are still looking for solutions to their health benefits concerns. As a result, I see two major trends defining both the economic environment and the business opportunities that…

Broker-dealers are up in arms over a little-known provision of the Department of Labor's 401(k) plan fee disclosure rules. Ready why some industry observers say the brokerage industry only has itself to blame.