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Life Health > Life Insurance

New curriculum for LUTCF designation

By Noah Guillaume

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NAIFA and the College for Financial Planning formed a partnership to create an enhanced, dynamic and interactive curriculum for NAIFA’s Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow (LUTCF) designation, established in 1984.

The new LUTCF curriculum will be delivered through a state-of-the-art, instructor-led, live webinar platform. This interactive approach will encourage engaged program participation and allow for real-time group learning exercises. The program will offer all-new content covering four practice specialties:

  • Life insurance and annuities;
  • Health and employee benefits;
  • Multiline; and
  • Financial advising and investments.

Structured field activities will also be an important educational component.

NAIFA and CFFP will provide details on the new LUTCF program in September, including information about the new course curriculum, program completion requirements, class scheduling, pricing and moderator recruitment. Registration for the new LUTCF program will begin after Jan. 1, 2015, and classes are scheduled to begin July 2015. Prospective designees will be required to be NAIFA members at the time of conferment.

See also: Where Will Our Future Producers Come From – And how will we Train them?

In other industry news:

The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) announced that the IRI Marketing Summit 2014 will take place March 23-25 at the New York Hilton Midtown, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10019.

Keynote speakers for the event include:

  • Mitch Caplan, chief executive officer, Jefferson National;
  • Abby Joseph Cohen, senior U.S. investment strategist, Goldman Sachs;
  • Ron Insana, senior analyst, CNBC; former anchor, CNBC’s “Street Signs”;
  • Ken Schmidt, brand visionary and former communications strategist, Harley-Davidson Motor Company;
  • William Taylor, founding editor, Fast Company; best-selling author, “Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself”

Visit IRI Marketing Summit 2014 for more information.

See also: IRI’s Weatherford: Want More Clients? Go Holistic.

Oracle introduced Oracle Insurance Calculation Engine for Life and Annuity, a new, highly configurable solution that allows carriers to centralize their calculation algorithms on a single rules-based platform for use across lines of business, helping to accelerate speed to market for new products and reduce IT total cost of ownership.

Insurers can set up, copy, modify and maintain calculations through configuration without additional costly code development.  The platform also enables users to test and debug their calculations without having to create complex test scenarios in legacy environments. 

The Calculation Engine includes prebuilt life and annuities insurance functions and calculations supporting nearly all insurance lifecycle processes, including origination, rating and underwriting, premium management, billing, re-insurance, claims and payouts.

The tool’s architecture makes it flexible and configurable to support complex products, including variable universal life and indexed annuity products. Carriers can also consolidate calculations across products and systems to help reduce total cost of ownership.

Oracle Insurance Calculation Engine for Life and Annuity features pre-built integration with Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity, and, since the solution is built on a service-oriented architecture (SOA), it can interface easily with third-party back-office systems.

Linda S. Need, CFA, CFP, CAP has been named chair of the board of trustees at The American College of Financial Services.  Need is currently senior vice president and managing director of Life Insurance for Wells Fargo Advisors and the Head of the National Life Insurance Practice for Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA, Inc. She is responsible for building Wells Fargo’s life insurance platform and expanding the practice across the company’s various distribution channels.  She joined Wells Fargo in 2011. 

Previously, Need worked for Bank of America, where she held several leadership roles in insurance and investment management.  Most recently she represented Bank of America’s broker-dealer on the Merrill Lynch transition team.  Prior to Bank of America, Need held various insurance and annuity sales, marketing, and actuarial positions at Morgan Stanley, Allstate, Tillinghast, and Northwestern Mutual.

Need graduated from Williams College with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics.  She is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and a registered general securities principal. 

See also: Retirement credential increasingly popular at The American College

The Inter-Company Marketing Group (ICMG), the trade association devoted to fostering strategic alliances in the insurance and financial services market, elected its 2014 officers and board of directors at its 2014 annual meeting.

Officers:

  • President – Raymond Richard, president and CEO, The Pinnacle Group;
  • Vice president – Victor Castellanos, SVP, chief marketing officer, Insurance Administrative Solutions (IAS)
  • Second vice president – Jay Manifold, president, Woodmen Insurance Agency, Inc.
  • Treasurer – Rich Katz, vice president, direct marketing & sales, American National Insurance Co.
  • Immediate past president – Bob Thomas, American Group Insurance Service, Inc.

At-large directors:

  • Ted Williams, executive SVP/sales, Security Life Insurance Company of America;
  • Todd Cowan, SVP, distribution & case installation, HealthPlan Services;
  • Jim Summers, president, Senior Market Sales Inc.;
  • Bob Morhauser, national sales VP – group markets, National Guardian Life Insurance Company;
  • Kevin Christensen, assistant vice president, DI sales, Illinois Mutual Life Insurance Co.;
  • Chuck Ritzke, president, actuarial consulting and software development, Problem Solving Enterprises;
  • Lauren Woods, AVP marketing, Fairmont Specialty, part of Crum & Forster Group;

ICMG also announced that its 31st annual meeting will be held Feb. 3-5, 2015 at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate, Fla.

Institutional investment data and analytics provider eVestment launched eVestment Quantum Analytics, a Web-based solution that adds multi-asset class portfolio analysis and portfolio construction capabilities to eVestment’s existing data and analytics offerings.

Quantum is part of eVestment’s revamped suite of intuitive solutions designed to analyze and report on both traditional and alternative investment strategies while offering flexibility through tiered offerings for diverse client types.

Users of eVestment’s Quantum include marketing, sales, strategy, product and investment professionals within asset management firms and hedge funds, as well as plan sponsors, consultants and other buy-side institutional investors.  Quantum offers expanded style analysis, multi-asset class portfolio analysis, liquidity analysis, optimization, and portfolio-level construction and modeling using advanced quantitative techniques.

Quantum users can also create presentation-ready charts, reports, tear sheets and fact sheets.  In addition, the tool features an easy-to-use interface, drag-and-drop charting, interactive profiles and personalized dashboards.

Cooper Gay Re, part of Cooper Gay Swett & Crawford (CGSC) hired Agustin De Freitas to their Miami office. As casualty broker, De Freitas will specialize in life, accident and health within the Latin American regions.

De Freitas began his career in 1994 as a broker with De Freitas Seguros in Uruguay.  He was also regional director of International Reinsurance Managers and most recently chief marketing officer of Redbridge.  While at Redbridge, De Freitas was responsible for developing the life accident and health business in more than 20 countries around Latin America. 

De Freitas offers 15 years of underwriting experience and will use his expertise to provide in-depth regional knowledge to clients.  The incorporation of De Freitas to the Latin American Cooper Gay offices will invigorate the Benefits business the region.

De Freitas earned a Bachelor’s Degree in accounting and administration from the Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay, is also a certified public accountant, and also holds a LOMA designation.

First American Insurance Underwriters Inc. named Anthony O’Kussick director of internal sales support.

Prior to joining First American, O’Kussick was a general agent with the Q Financial Group and a managing partner of the Nationwide Financial Network, both of Boston. He began his life insurance career in 1993.

Founded in 1981, First American Insurance Underwriters Inc. specializes in coaching growth-oriented producers and providing them valuable solutions to their complex cases.

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