A September to remember

We’ve got a bunch of special content in the September issue of Life Insurance Selling that is now available online, and it is definitely worth a look.

We devoted the entire September issue to the Past, Present and Future of Life Insurance. We explored the industry’s illustrious history, queried numerous industry thought-leaders about key challenges facing the life insurance market, and prognosticated about what the industry may look like a few years down the road.

While we realize many subscribers have not yet received the September issue in the mail due to our normal production schedule, you can check out these features right now on our website. I want to take this opportunity to make you aware of a few features in particular.

You probably know the life insurance business as it is today like the back of your hand, but what do you know about its beginnings? Read “The Origins of an Industry,” and then check out our special interactive online “History of Life Insurance” timeline, and you’ll know all about it.

Moving up to “The Present,” a problem looming like a dark cloud over the industry is the fact that many Americans either have no life insurance coverage or are dangerously underinsured. And even if they are aware of it, they are all too often insufficiently motivated to do anything about it. We asked five prominent industry leaders for their candid opinions about this issue, and they responded with some great practical insight about the root causes and what can realistically be done to improve the situation. You can read their essays by clicking here.

In “The Future” section, Maria Umbach has penned a provocative feature that wonders openly whether the life insurance industry is ripe for its own “Napster Moment,” where another industry swoops in and completely changes the competitive landscape. Social media could make this possible. Give it a read and see what you think by clicking here. And Contributing Editor Chuck Hirsch, CLU, has three more high-profile producers tackling questions about the future of the independent life insurance distribution channel in his Producer Roundtable feature, “The Future of Life.”