NAILBA Holds In-Person Annual Meeting
LIMRA found that a majority of NAILBA distributor members say revenue has been increasing.
The National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies has attracted about 700 people to its in-person annual meeting this week in Orlando, Florida.
NAILBA is offering online meeting programming as well as in-person program.
Dan LaBert, the Fairfax, Virginia-based group’s CEO, assured members in an event message that the meeting organizers have carefully reviewed the COVID-19 safety protocols. The event website provides a guide to COVID-19 precautions.
One change: No serve-yourself buffet table chafing dishes. NAILBA has arranged for lunches to be individually packaged.
But NAILBA has arranged a traditional in-person event agenda that includes a golf tournament, a NAILBA Charitable Foundation casino night and a political affairs update.
The Sponsor List
The brokerage general agencies (BGAs) and independent marketing organizations (IMOs) that belong to NAILBA distribute large amounts of life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance and annuities in the United States.
Some other insurance industry events have had a hard time attracting many insurers as sponsors.
NAILBA events attract a list of sponsors that want to build strong relationships with outside distributors.
The list of insurance company sponsors includes AIG, American National, John Hancock, Legal & General, Lincoln Financial, MassMutual, Mutual of Omaha, National Guardian Life, Nationwide, North American, OneAmerica, Pacific Life, Protective, Prudential, Securian and Transamerica.
Integrity Marketing, a rapidly growing insurance distributor, is another top sponsor.
The sponsor list also includes several insurtech companies: Formstack, LexisNexis and Techficient.
The State of Distribution
John Gilbert, NAILBA’s 2022 chairman, came up as an annuity marketing executive at The National Benefit Corp. in West Des Moines, Iowa.
But David Levenson, president of LIMRA, presented survey data in an online session suggesting that typical NAILBA member firms may get much more of their revenue from the sale of protection products than from the sale of annuities.
The market research organization surveyed 60 BGAs and IMOs. The participating firms reported getting 80% of their revenue from the distribution of life insurance, 5% from the distribution of disability insurance and long-term care insurance, and just 8.5% from the distribution of annuities.
About 65% said that revenue was at least as high in 2020 as in 2019, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 72% said 2021 revenue is higher than, or is on track to be higher than, 2020 revenue.
Roughly 63% of the firms with increasing sales predicted sales will be at least 10% higher this year than in 2020.