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.

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

The majority (56%) of employers say they are likely to continue to offer employer-sponsored health insurance after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act largely goes into effect in 2014, according to a new survey conducted by GfK Custom Research North America.

In this election year some of your clients are liable to get caught up in the frenzy. Read in today's BeAdvised as Mercer's George Lane explains why you need to be the voice of reason amid the noise and serve as your clients’ fact checker.

Last week's report on unemployment shows that the economy continues to gather steam - payrolls grew by 200,000 and the jobless rate ticked downward again, to 8.5%.

U.S. health care spending experienced historically low rates of growth in 2009 and 2010, according to the annual report of national health expenditures published Monday.

The Obama administration defended its health care overhaul law before the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, rejecting arguments by critics who warned that if the government can require people to have health insurance, it might next make them eat broccoli.

Do you remember when you started out in sales? What was your first week or month like? I remember like it was yesterday. I wasn't really sure what was going to happen or what I was really suppose to do. When the stock market opened at 9 a.m. I thought the phone was going to start ringing with people wanting to buy stocks. How wrong I was. I remember being really nervous, scared, unsure, and…

The U.S. insurance industry saw a 3.3% increase over November’s jobs figures, adding 3,300 jobs in December, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Planners have been hearing about and preparing for the baby boom ever since the first 1946er became a client. Yet their single-minded focus on boomers may mean they've missed another demographic trend: the singles surge.

In the last four years, a new and highly effective service, Telemedicine, has evolved that can reduce medical claim costs by $70 per month per employee. Unlike wellness programs, where employers attempt to change the employees’ and their dependents’ lifestyle, the Telemedicine results start immediately and is quite simple. History of broker efforts to reduce claim costs …