Description: This article is the first in a series of articles on insurance applicant mortality risk analytics. From Small Talk Newsletter, Issue 37, January 2012.

Description: The Tidbit discuss a Revenue Ruling IRS issued to update its position on sales of Life Insurance Contracts

Description: Small Talk Newsletter, June 2005, Issue No. 24. Last fall, the Internal Revenue Service IRS released Notice 2004-61, 2004-41 I.R.B. 596 October 12, 2004, interpreting the reasonable mortality charge requirement applicable to life insurance contracts under Section 7702 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Description: After years of discussion and debate, PrinciplesBased Reserving (PBR) is finally a reality. Small insurance companies have a unique opportunity to decide between electing for the company-wide exemption or adopting the PBR methods. This article discusses the benefits and challenges of the options available to small insurers under VM-20 as well as best practices that have been found along the way.

Description: This article details the IRS' Revenue Ruling 2005-6. This ruling provides formal guidance on how to treat family term riders for purposes of the computational limit calculations in Internal Revenue Code IRC sections 7702 and 7702A i.e., calculations of net single premiums, guideline single premiums, guideline level premiums and 7-pay premiums. From Small Talk Newsletter, June 2005, Issue No. 24.

Description: This article explores Simplified Issue SI as a product. There is a small-company slant toward SI whole life because the vast majority of my experience with SI is in the senior market. However, most of what will be discussed still applies to all SI.

Description: The article was written to address a concern that the author had that reinsurance considerations were being relegated to the back of the product development cycle. He was concerned that reinsurance input on benefit design, underwriting and pricing was not getting into the process. From Small Talk Newsletter, November 2005, Issue No. 25.

Description: This article discusses how small insurance companies can get into the complex equity indexed market by using alliances wherein there is one primary company and one or more secondary companies. The primary company would perform all of the functions for itself and some of the functions for the secondary companies. The companies pool assets to reach critical mass.

Description: Recently, there has been an increase in the product development of simplified issue products in the United States. In the past two years, Gen Re LifeHealth has reviewed over 40 such products, ranging from vanilla direct-marketed products to high-end single premium immediate annuity SPIA paid universal life products. From Small Talk Newsletter, June 2005, Issue No. 24.

Description: This article discusses how small companies, by staying simple and focused and not taking immeasurably disastrous risks, bring sanity to an insane world.