Future Of Financial Services Not Much Different: LIMRA

NU Online News Service, Nov. 1, 4:00 p.m. – A panel of experts foresees no significant change to the financial services landscape by 2010, says Ram Gopalan, assistant vice president and head of research outreach, LIMRA International, Hartford, Conn.

“That doesn’t mean there will be no changes. There will, but they will be evolutionary, not revolutionary; they will be slow, not dramatic,” he says.

He presented the results of his findings at LIMRA’s recent annual meeting in Boston.

The panel speculates that because the Hispanic population will make up 14% of the entire U.S. population by 2010, there will be significant areas of growth in serving this sector, Gopalan says.

“Hispanics currently own very few insurance products compared to the rest of the population,” Gopalan says. And surveys show that Hispanics are interested in buying financial services products.

In 2010, opportunities will also exist in the pension-rollover market, he says.

“Boomers will be retiring around 2010, 2011, [and] they have a huge amount of money in 401(k) plans — an estimated $200 billion,” Gopalan says. “Somebody has to help them manage the money to plan for retirement.”

The long-term care insurance market will also be significant in the future, he says.

Driving the opportunities for growth are the aging of the population and consumers’ attitude toward how they want to buy financial products, Gopalan says. By this he means that in general, consumers will continue to want to buy products from someone face to face and not over the Internet. But they will use the Internet to gather information.