This past March the Department of the Treasury released its Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure, which sets forth an argument for the need for change, followed by an examination of the financial industry and its regulation as it is now and a proposal for some rather radical modifications—a few of which have state insurance regulators bristling.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Now that climate change seems to be on everyone’s lips, the talk in the insurance industry is getting hot about disclosure.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

If your clients have to surrender a settlement to reimburse their insurer or employer, will their assets support their needs?

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Late in 2007, no less a personage than TV celebrity Larry King made headlines with a financial problem that’s becoming increasingly common. In November, King filed suit against an insurance brokerage, claiming that he was tricked into selling two very large life insurance policies on himself to a firm that then resold them. King, liable for heavy taxes on the money he received, and probably now uninsurable due to health problems, realized belatedly that what he’d done was not in his own best interests. He’d let a stranger take charge of his life insurance. And he’s not the only one.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee’s Capital Markets Subcommittee, said at a hearing on financial services reform April 16 that he plans to introduce legislation today that will create an interim federal oversight agency, the Office of Insurance Information, within the U.S. Treasury Department.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

The subprime mortgage problem is not just for houses any more, as its repercussions permeate the overall economy. There are more difficulties to consider, however, than just whether the housing market will continue to implode.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Long-term care insurance is becoming a staple of financial planning for those in their 40s and 50s according to new research by the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI). The research found that one third (33%) of buyers of individual long-term care insurance protection in 2007 were under age 55. Younger individuals are not merely buying protection in anticipation of claims in their later years, as the Association’s new study revealed claims involving policyholders in their 20s and 30s.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

No doubt you (and your clients) have been watching the subprime meltdown with angst as it plays havoc with clients’ investments. Mortgages are defaulting all over the country, taking with them the consumer confidence that had helped fuel the market’s steady rise.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Two longtime financial trade organizations have joined the trend to consolidate. LIMRA International (formerly known as the Life Insurance and Market Research Association), the sales and marketing research group of the insurance industry, has merged with LOMA, the research and educational organization of the insurance industry, to form LL Global, Inc.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

One way to keep clients’ portfolios sound and healthy is by checking their insurance coverage, and making sure that they’re protected against catastrophic lawsuits or liabilities that could end up leaving them penniless. Even such mundane areas as car insurance can leave major holes in coverage, if not periodically reviewed.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

As another year draws to a close and clients find themselves thinking of the future, perhaps one New Year’s resolution will be to get around to estate planning. Many procrastinate because of doubts about the status of the estate tax, which is scheduled to disappear in 2010 but, unless Congress takes action, will return at full strength in 2011. Doubt about how to cope with such a shifting tax landscape adds to people’s natural reluctance to contemplate the subject.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced increased deductibility levels for long-term care insurance policies purchased in 2008. Small business owners should take heed, because “millions of small and mid-sized business owners are still unaware that the cost of long-term care insurance protection for themselves and their spouse may be fully tax deductible,” says Jesse Slome, executive director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI).

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

The hot topics that Congress will continue to debate this year and into 2008 are whether to create an optional federal regulator for the insurance industry and how to fix the subprime mortgage mess.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com