Description: News Direct chairperson's column discussing recent activities, future plans, and the new officers of the Marketing and Distribution Section of the Society of Actuaries.

Description: Discussion of ways direct marketers have beaten recessions in the recent past and suggestions for beating this recession.

Description: Letter from the editor.

Description: This literature guide focuses on the distribution costs, especially the field compensation costs, that are incurred through the traditional general agency, branch office or brokerage structures for individual life, annuity and disability products.

Description: A convergence of forces has obsolesced virtually every element of the traditional paradigm of the U.S. life insurance business - the products sold, who sells them, and how they are sold. This article documents the decline in life insurance ownership and sales, and emerging trends - with the market being bifurcated into service intensive vs. commodity.

Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 3. This article discusses how the advantages of the General Agency system which existed prior to the 1970s have diminished materially. Therefore, European companies should be very cautious with any attempts to emulate the North American-type agency distribution system of the late 1980s.

Description: A recap of the first international reinsurance conference to take place in the Dominican Republic.

Description: Life Insurance 2020 Foresight e-book of essays including introduction

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 Hartford Spring Meeting looks at the considerations in designing field compensation plans including New York vs. non-New York issues and levelized commissions.

Description: Presented at May 1996 Spring Meeting. Discusses the insurance product development environment in various international markets with emphasis on both current and future trends.